Deuteronomy 28 Cross References - MSB

¹ “Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. ² And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the LORD your God: ³ You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. ⁴ The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land and the offspring of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. ⁵ Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed. ⁶ You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ⁷ The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven. ⁸ The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and on everything to which you put your hand; the LORD your God will bless you in the land He is giving you. ⁹ The LORD will establish you as His holy people, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. ¹⁰ Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you. ¹¹ The LORD will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. ¹² The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none. ¹³ The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today. ¹⁴ Do not turn aside to the right or to the left from any of the words I command you today, and do not go after other gods to serve them. ¹⁵ If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: ¹⁶ You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. ¹⁷ Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed. ¹⁸ The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. ¹⁹ You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. ²⁰ The LORD will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him. ²¹ The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess. ²² The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish. ²³ The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron. ²⁴ The LORD will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed. ²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away. ²⁷ The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured. ²⁸ The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind, ²⁹ and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you. ³⁰ You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit. ³¹ Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you. ³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand. ³³ A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed. ³⁴ You will be driven mad by the sights you see. ³⁵ The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. ³⁶ The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you. ³⁸ You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it. ³⁹ You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off. ⁴¹ You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. ⁴² Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land. ⁴³ The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail. ⁴⁵ All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you. ⁴⁶ These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance, ⁴⁸ you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young. ⁵¹ They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵² They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you. ⁵⁴ The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived, ⁵⁵ refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates. ⁵⁶ The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter ⁵⁷ the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates. ⁵⁸ If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God— ⁵⁹ He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses. ⁶⁰ He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹ The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. ⁶² You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. ⁶³ Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. ⁶⁴ Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. ⁶⁶ So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see. ⁶⁸ The LORD will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

²⁶ saying, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”

²² But if you will listen carefully to his voice and do everything I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.

³ If you follow My statutes and carefully keep My commandments, ⁴ I will give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. ⁵ Your threshing will continue until the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time; you will have your fill of food to eat and will dwell securely in your land. ⁶ And I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to fear. I will rid the land of dangerous animals, and no sword will pass through your land. ⁷ You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. ⁸ Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you. ⁹ I will turn toward you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will establish My covenant with you. ¹⁰ You will still be eating the old supply of grain when you need to clear it out to make room for the new. ¹¹ And I will make My dwelling place among you, and My soul will not despise you. ¹² I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people. ¹³ I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk in uprightness.

¹² If you listen to these ordinances and keep them carefully, then the LORD your God will keep His covenant and the loving devotion that He swore to your fathers. ¹³ He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your land—your grain, new wine, and oil, the young of your herds and the lambs of your flocks—in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴ You will be blessed above all peoples; among you there will be no barren man or woman or livestock. ¹⁵ And the LORD will remove from you all sickness. He will not lay upon you any of the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on all who hate you. ¹⁶ You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God will deliver to you. Do not look on them with pity. Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you. ¹⁷ You may say in your heart, “These nations are greater than we are; how can we drive them out?” ¹⁸ But do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt: ¹⁹ the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand and outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. ²⁰ Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet against them until even the survivors hiding from you have perished. ²¹ Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. ²² The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be enabled to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals would multiply around you. ²³ But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. ²⁴ He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you; you will annihilate them. ²⁵ You must burn up the images of their gods; do not covet the silver and gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it; for it is detestable to the LORD your God. ²⁶ And you must not bring any detestable thing into your house, or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. You are to utterly detest and abhor it, because it is set apart for destruction.

¹³ So if you carefully obey the commandments I am giving you today, to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,

⁵ if only you obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commandments I am giving you today.

¹⁹ that He will set you high in praise and name and honor above all the nations He has made, and that you will be a holy people to the LORD your God, as He has promised.

¹⁴ “Because he loves Me, I will deliver him; because he knows My name, I will protect him.

³ Blessed are those who uphold justice, who practice righteousness at all times.

¹⁰ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts gain rich understanding. His praise endures forever!

⁶ Then I would not be ashamed when I consider all Your commandments.

¹²⁸ Therefore I admire all Your precepts and hate every false way.

¹⁴ He has raised up a horn for His people, the praise of all His saints, of Israel, a people near to Him. Hallelujah!

¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land.

¹⁰ Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their labor.

² Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of foods. ³ Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.

⁴ which I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, ‘Obey Me, and do everything I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God.’

¹⁶ And if they will diligently learn the ways of My people and swear by My name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among My people.

²⁴ If, however, you listen carefully to Me, says the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, and keep the Sabbath day holy, and do no work on it,

⁶ Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and decrees of the Lord.

⁴⁸ And He said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes the One who sent Me. For whoever is the least among all of you, he will be the greatest.”

²⁸ But He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

¹⁴ You are My friends if you do what I command you.

⁷ To those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life.

¹⁰ All who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

¹⁰ Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. ¹¹ For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

¹⁵ If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

⁴⁵ All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you.

⁶ But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? They repented and said, ‘Just as the LORD of Hosts purposed to do to us according to our ways and deeds, so He has done to us.’”

⁸ For physical exercise is of limited value, but godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for the present life and for the one to come.

¹² Now Isaac sowed seed in the land, and that very year he reaped a hundredfold. And the LORD blessed him,

⁵ From the time that he put Joseph in charge of his household and all he owned, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s household on account of him. The LORD’s blessing was on everything he owned, both in his house and in his field.

³⁶ He causes the hungry to settle there, that they may establish a city in which to dwell. ³⁷ They sow fields and plant vineyards that yield a fruitful harvest.

¹ A song of ascents. Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in His ways! ² For when you eat the fruit of your labor, blessings and prosperity will be yours. ³ Your wife will be like a fruitful vine flourishing within your house, your sons like olive shoots sitting around your table. ⁴ In this way indeed shall blessing come to the man who fears the LORD. ⁵ May the LORD bless you from Zion, that you may see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life,

¹² Then our sons will be like plants nurtured in their youth, our daughters like corner pillars carved to adorn a palace. ¹³ Our storehouses will be full, supplying all manner of produce; our flocks will bring forth thousands, tens of thousands in our fields. ¹⁴ Our oxen will bear great loads. There will be no breach in the walls, no going into captivity, and no cry of lament in our streets. ¹⁵ Blessed are the people of whom this is so; blessed are the people whose God is the LORD.

²¹ They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²² No longer will they build houses for others to inhabit, nor plant for others to eat. For as is the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, and My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands. ²³ They will not labor in vain or bear children doomed to disaster; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD—they and their descendants with them.

¹³ “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, with which all the hills will flow. ¹⁴ I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

¹⁹ Is there still seed in the barn? The vine, the fig, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yet yielded fruit. But from this day on, I will bless you.”

³ This is what the LORD says: “I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the LORD of Hosts will be called the Holy Mountain.” ⁴ This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Old men and old women will again sit along the streets of Jerusalem, each with a staff in hand because of great age. ⁵ And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure. ¹¹ I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your land, and the vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit,” says the LORD of Hosts.

¹⁷ I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.

²⁵ by the God of your father who helps you, and by the Almighty who blesses you, with blessings of the heavens above, with blessings of the depths below, with blessings of the breasts and womb.

⁹ I will turn toward you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will establish My covenant with you.

¹³ He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your land—your grain, new wine, and oil, the young of your herds and the lambs of your flocks—in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you.

¹¹ The LORD will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

³⁸ He blesses them, and they multiply greatly; He does not let their herds diminish.

³ Children are indeed a heritage from the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.

³ Your wife will be like a fruitful vine flourishing within your house, your sons like olive shoots sitting around your table.

²² The blessing of the LORD enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it.

²² A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is passed to the righteous.

⁷ The righteous man walks with integrity; blessed are his children after him.

¹⁷ who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

² he said to them, “I am now a hundred and twenty years old; I am no longer able to come and go, and the LORD has said to me, ‘You shall not cross the Jordan.’

²⁵ Surely you realize that Abner son of Ner came to deceive you and to track your movements and all that you are doing.”

¹⁰ Now grant me wisdom and knowledge, so that I may lead this people. For who is able to govern this great people of Yours?”

⁸ The LORD will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore.

⁷ You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. ⁸ Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.

²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

³⁰ How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?

²² Meanwhile, those in the ambush came out of the city against them, and the men of Ai were trapped between the Israelite forces on both sides. So Israel struck them down until no survivor or fugitive remained.

¹⁰ And the LORD threw them into confusion before Israel, who defeated them in a great slaughter at Gibeon, pursued them along the ascent to Beth-horon, and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkedah. ¹¹ As they fled before Israel along the descent from Beth-horon to Azekah, the LORD cast down on them large hailstones from the sky, and more of them were killed by the hailstones than by the swords of the Israelites.

⁴² And because the LORD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel, Joshua captured all these kings and their land in one campaign.

³ Then Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and Ashtoreths among you, prepare your hearts for the LORD, and serve Him only. And He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.” ⁴ So the Israelites put away the Baals and Ashtoreths and served only the LORD.

¹⁰ As the Philistines drew near to fight against Israel, Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering. But that day the LORD thundered loudly against the Philistines and threw them into such confusion that they fled before Israel. ¹¹ Then the men of Israel charged out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, striking them down all the way to an area below Beth-car.

³⁸ I pursued my enemies and destroyed them; I did not turn back until they were consumed. ³⁹ I devoured and crushed them so they could not rise; they have fallen under my feet. ⁴⁰ You have armed me with strength for battle; You have subdued my foes beneath me. ⁴¹ You have made my enemies retreat before me; I put an end to those who hated me.

² And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. ³ He removed the foreign altars and high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and chopped down the Asherah poles. ⁴ He commanded the people of Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to observe the law and the commandments. ⁵ He also removed the high places and incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and under him the kingdom was at peace. ⁶ Because the land was at peace, Asa built fortified cities in Judah. In those days no one made war with him, because the LORD had given him rest.

⁹ Then Zerah the Cushite came against them with an army of 1,000,000 men and 300 chariots, and they advanced as far as Mareshah. ¹⁰ So Asa marched out against him and lined up in battle formation in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah. ¹¹ Then Asa cried out to the LORD his God: “O LORD, there is no one besides You to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on You, and in Your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God. Do not let a mere mortal prevail against You.” ¹² So the LORD struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah, and the Cushites fled. ¹³ Then Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. The Cushites fell and could not recover, for they were crushed before the LORD and His army. So the people of Judah carried off a great amount of plunder ¹⁴ and attacked all the cities around Gerar, because the terror of the LORD had fallen upon them. They plundered all the cities, since there was much plunder there. ¹⁵ They also attacked the tents of the herdsmen and carried off many sheep and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.

⁴ Jehoshaphat lived in Jerusalem, and once again he went out among the people from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim and turned them back to the LORD, the God of their fathers.

²² The moment they began their shouts and praises, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir who had come against Judah, and they were defeated. ²³ The Ammonites and Moabites rose up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, devoting them to destruction. And when they had made an end to the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another. ²⁴ When the men of Judah came to a place overlooking the wilderness, they looked for the vast army, but there were only corpses lying on the ground; no one had escaped. ²⁵ Then Jehoshaphat and his people went to carry off the plunder, and they found on the bodies an abundance of goods and valuables—more than they could carry away. They were gathering the plunder for three days because there was so much.

²⁰ So this is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah. He did what was good and upright and true before the LORD his God. ²¹ He was diligent in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law and the commandments, in order to seek his God. And so he prospered.

²¹ and the LORD sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword. ²² So the LORD saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hands of King Sennacherib of Assyria and all the others, and He gave them rest on every side.

²³ I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him.

²¹ But I will send My blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that the land will yield a crop sufficient for three years.

⁴ I will give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. ⁵ Your threshing will continue until the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time; you will have your fill of food to eat and will dwell securely in your land.

¹⁰ You will still be eating the old supply of grain when you need to clear it out to make room for the new.

¹⁰ Give generously to him, and do not let your heart be grieved when you do so. And because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything to which you put your hand.

²⁷ He answered, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?”

⁸ The LORD decrees His loving devotion by day, and at night His song is with me as a prayer to the God of my life.

⁴ You are my King, O God, who ordains victories for Jacob.

³ It is like the dew of Hermon falling on the mountains of Zion. For there the LORD has bestowed the blessing of life forevermore.

¹³ Our storehouses will be full, supplying all manner of produce; our flocks will bring forth thousands, tens of thousands in our fields.

⁹ Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your harvest; ¹⁰ then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine.

²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns—and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat into my barn.’”

¹⁸ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and will build bigger ones, and there I will store up all my crops and my goods.

²⁴ Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storehouse or barn; yet God feeds them. How much more valuable you are than the birds! ²⁵ Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

⁷ I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

⁵ Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine. ⁶ And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.”

⁶ For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth.

⁸ But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

¹⁷ Nothing devoted to destruction shall cling to your hands, so that the LORD will turn from His fierce anger, grant you mercy, show you compassion, and multiply you as He swore to your fathers,

¹⁸ And today the LORD has proclaimed that you are His people and treasured possession as He promised, that you are to keep all His commandments, ¹⁹ that He will set you high in praise and name and honor above all the nations He has made, and that you will be a holy people to the LORD your God, as He has promised.

¹² so that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, which He is making with you today, and into His oath, ¹³ and so that He may establish you today as His people, and He may be your God as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

⁵ And it will be said of Zion: “This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High Himself will establish her.”

²⁶ I will restore your judges as at first, and your counselors as at the beginning. After that you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.”

¹² And they will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of The LORD; and you will be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.

⁵ This was in order to establish the oath I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is to this day.” “Amen, LORD,” I answered.

³ But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.

¹⁴ He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

¹³ When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself, ¹⁴ saying, “I will surely bless you and multiply your descendants.” ¹⁵ And so Abraham, after waiting patiently, obtained the promise. ¹⁶ Men indeed swear by someone greater than themselves, and their oath serves as a confirmation to end all argument. ¹⁷ So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath. ¹⁸ Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. ¹¹ Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul.

¹⁰ And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself restore you, secure you, strengthen you, and establish you.

³³ And in order to send them out of the land quickly, the Egyptians urged the people on. “For otherwise,” they said, “we are all going to die!”

²⁵ He caused their chariot wheels to wobble, so that they had difficulty driving. “Let us flee from the Israelites,” said the Egyptians, “for the LORD is fighting for them against Egypt!”

²⁷ So they shall put My name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

⁶ Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples, who will hear of all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” ⁷ For what nation is great enough to have a god as near to them as the LORD our God is to us whenever we call on Him? ⁸ And what nation is great enough to have righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I set before you today?

²⁵ No man will be able to stand against you; the LORD your God will put the fear and dread of you upon all the land, wherever you set foot, as He has promised you.

¹ Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted and their spirits failed for fear of the Israelites.

¹² So Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with David but had departed from Saul. ¹³ Therefore Saul sent David away and gave him command of a thousand men. David led the troops out to battle and back, ¹⁴ and he continued to prosper in all his ways, because the LORD was with him. ¹⁵ When Saul saw that David was very successful, he was afraid of him.

²⁸ When Saul realized that the LORD was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, ²⁹ he grew even more afraid of David. So from then on Saul was David’s enemy.

¹⁷ And David’s fame went out into every land, and the LORD caused all nations to fear him.

¹⁴ and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

¹⁹ We have become like those You never ruled, like those not called by Your name.

⁹ So this city will bring Me renown, joy, praise, and glory before all the nations of the earth, who will hear of all the good I do for it. They will tremble in awe because of all the goodness and prosperity that I will provide for it.

¹⁸ Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion. ¹⁹ O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your name.”

¹² “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight,” says the LORD of Hosts.

⁹ Look at those who belong to the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews but are liars instead. I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and they will know that I love you.

⁴ The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land and the offspring of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

⁹ So the LORD your God will make you abound in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land. Indeed, the LORD will again delight in your goodness, as He delighted in that of your fathers,

¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.

¹¹ The LORD swore an oath to David, a promise He will not revoke: “One of your descendants I will place on your throne.

⁴ I will give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.

¹⁴ then I will provide rain for your land in season, the autumn and spring rains, that you may gather your grain, new wine, and oil.

²⁹ Then the Levite (because he has no portion or inheritance among you), the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied. And the LORD your God will bless you in all the work of your hands.

⁶ When the LORD your God blesses you as He has promised, you will lend to many nations but borrow from none; you will rule over many nations but be ruled by none.

⁴⁴ He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

²² Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail,

⁹ You attend to the earth and water it; with abundance You enrich it. The streams of God are full of water, for You prepare our grain by providing for the earth. ¹⁰ You soak its furrows and level its ridges; You soften it with showers and bless its growth. ¹¹ You crown the year with Your bounty, and Your paths overflow with plenty. ¹² The pastures of the wilderness overflow; the hills are robed with joy. ¹³ The pastures are clothed with flocks, and the valleys are decked with grain. They shout in triumph; indeed, they sing.

⁷ He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

⁷ The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

²³ Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for He has given you the autumn rains for your vindication. He sends you showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. ²⁴ The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

¹⁸ Edom will become a possession, as will Seir, his enemy; but Israel will perform with valor. ¹⁹ A ruler will come from Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city.”

⁶ Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples, who will hear of all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” ⁷ For what nation is great enough to have a god as near to them as the LORD our God is to us whenever we call on Him? ⁸ And what nation is great enough to have righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I set before you today? ⁹ Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.

¹ “Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

¹⁴ So the LORD will cut off Israel’s head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day. ¹⁵ The head is the elder and honorable man, and the tail is the prophet who teaches lies.

²⁷ Nevertheless, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending side by side for the faith of the gospel,

³² So be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you are not to turn aside to the right or to the left.

¹⁶ But be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside to worship and bow down to other gods,

²⁶ See, today I am setting before you a blessing and a curse— ²⁷ a blessing if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am giving you today, ²⁸ but a curse if you disobey the commandments of the LORD your God and turn aside from the path I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.

⁶ Be very strong, then, so that you can keep and obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, not turning aside from it to the right or to the left.

² And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

²⁶ Make a level path for your feet, and all your ways will be sure. ²⁷ Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your feet away from evil.

²¹ And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”

¹⁴ If, however, you fail to obey Me and to carry out all these commandments, ¹⁵ and if you reject My statutes, despise My ordinances, and neglect to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant, ¹⁶ then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷ And I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you. ¹⁸ And if after all this you will not obey Me, I will proceed to punish you sevenfold for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze, ²⁰ and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit. ²¹ If you walk in hostility toward Me and refuse to obey Me, I will multiply your plagues seven times, according to your sins. ²² I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate. ²³ And if in spite of these things you do not accept My discipline, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me, ²⁴ then I will act with hostility toward you, and I will strike you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁵ And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶ When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied. ²⁷ But if in spite of all this you do not obey Me, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me, ²⁸ then I will walk in fury against you, and I, even I, will punish you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁹ You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. ³⁰ I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you. ³¹ I will reduce your cities to rubble and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will refuse to smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices. ³² And I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who dwell in it will be appalled. ³³ But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste. ³⁴ Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not receive during the Sabbaths when you lived in it. ³⁶ As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another as before the sword, though no one is behind them. So you will not be able to stand against your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will consume you. ³⁹ Those of you who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away in their iniquity and will decay in the sins of their fathers. ⁴⁰ But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me— ⁴¹ and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. ⁴³ For the land will be abandoned by them, and it will enjoy its Sabbaths by lying desolate without them. And they will pay the penalty for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or despise them so as to destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. ⁴⁵ But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their fathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.” ⁴⁶ These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws that the LORD established between Himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.

¹⁵ ‘Cursed is the man who makes a carved idol or molten image—an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of a craftsman—and sets it up in secret.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ¹⁶ ‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ¹⁷ ‘Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ¹⁸ ‘Cursed is he who lets a blind man wander in the road.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ¹⁹ ‘Cursed is he who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ²⁰ ‘Cursed is he who sleeps with his father’s wife, for he has violated his father’s marriage bed.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ²¹ ‘Cursed is he who lies with any animal.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ²² ‘Cursed is he who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ²³ ‘Cursed is he who sleeps with his mother-in-law.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ²⁴ ‘Cursed is he who strikes down his neighbor in secret.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ²⁵ ‘Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’ ²⁶ ‘Cursed is he who does not put the words of this law into practice.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

² And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the LORD your God:

²⁰ The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven

¹⁵ But just as every good thing the LORD your God promised you has come to pass, likewise the LORD will bring upon you the calamity He has threatened, until He has destroyed you from this good land He has given you.

¹¹ Woe to the wicked; disaster is upon them! For they will be repaid with what their hands have done.

¹⁷ The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

¹¹ All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey Your voice; so the oath and the curse written in the Law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, because we have sinned against You. ¹² You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. ¹³ Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquities and giving attention to Your truth.

² If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to honor My name,” says the LORD of Hosts, “I will send a curse among you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already begun to curse them, because you are not taking it to heart.

⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow wickedness, there will be anger and wrath. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the Greek;

¹⁷ And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. ¹⁸ Both thorns and thistles it will yield for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

¹¹ Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹² When you till the ground, it will no longer yield its produce to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

²⁹ And he named him Noah, saying, “May this one comfort us in the labor and toil of our hands caused by the ground that the LORD has cursed.”

²¹ When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done. ²² As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”

³ You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. ⁴ The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land and the offspring of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. ⁵ Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed. ⁶ You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ⁷ The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven. ⁸ The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and on everything to which you put your hand; the LORD your God will bless you in the land He is giving you. ⁹ The LORD will establish you as His holy people, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. ¹⁰ Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you. ¹¹ The LORD will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. ¹² The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none. ¹³ The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today. ¹⁴ Do not turn aside to the right or to the left from any of the words I command you today, and do not go after other gods to serve them.

⁵⁵ refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates.

¹ Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD lives—the God of Israel before whom I stand—there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”

⁵ So Elijah did what the LORD had told him, and he went and lived by the Brook of Cherith, east of the Jordan.

¹² But she replied, “As surely as the LORD your God lives, I have no bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. Look, I am gathering a couple of sticks to take home and prepare a meal for myself and my son, so that we may eat it and die.”

³³ The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the righteous.

⁶ Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive. ⁷ The new wine dries up, the vine withers. All the merrymakers now groan. ⁸ The joyful tambourines have ceased; the noise of revelers has stopped; the joyful harp is silent. ⁹ They no longer sing and drink wine; strong drink is bitter to those who consume it. ¹⁰ The city of chaos is shattered; every house is closed to entry. ¹¹ In the streets they cry out for wine. All joy turns to gloom; rejoicing is exiled from the land. ¹² The city is left in ruins; its gate is reduced to rubble.

²⁸ So I will disgrace the princes of your sanctuary, and I will devote Jacob to destruction and Israel to reproach.”

¹¹ “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

² “Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem. ³ The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns, but find no water; their jars return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads. ⁴ The ground is cracked because no rain has fallen on the land. The farmers are ashamed; they cover their heads. ⁵ Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass.

¹⁸ If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”

⁶ then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth.’”

²² So the LORD could no longer endure the evil deeds and detestable acts you committed, and your land became a desolation, a horror, and an object of cursing, without inhabitant, as it is this day.

¹ How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.

¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. ¹² They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers. ¹³ What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you? ¹⁴ The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading. ¹⁵ All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?” ¹⁶ All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!” ¹⁷ The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes. ¹⁸ The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest. ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street. ²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? ²¹ Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion. ²² You summoned my attackers on every side, as for the day of an appointed feast. In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived; my enemy has destroyed those I nurtured and reared.

¹ How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner. ² How the precious sons of Zion, once worth their weight in pure gold, are now esteemed as jars of clay, the work of a potter’s hands! ³ Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness. ⁴ The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any. ⁵ Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps. ⁶ The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand turned to help her. ⁷ Her dignitaries were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires. ⁸ But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick. ⁹ Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce. ¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people. ¹¹ The LORD has exhausted His wrath; He has poured out His fierce anger; He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has consumed her foundations. ¹² The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any people of the world, that an enemy or a foe could enter the gates of Jerusalem. ¹³ But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.

¹⁰ Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.

⁴ What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

⁸ Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth. ⁹ Grain and drink offerings have been cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD. ¹⁰ The field is ruined; the land mourns. For the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails. ¹¹ Be dismayed, O farmers, wail, O vinedressers, over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. ¹² The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the orchard—are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up. ¹³ Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. ¹⁴ Consecrate a fast; proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and all the residents of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. ¹⁵ Alas for the day! For the Day of the LORD is near, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty. ¹⁶ Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes—joy and gladness from the house of our God? ¹⁷ The seeds lie shriveled beneath the clods; the storehouses are in ruins; the granaries are broken down, for the grain has withered away. ¹⁸ How the cattle groan! The herds wander in confusion because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

³ Before them a fire devours, and behind them a flame scorches. The land before them is like the Garden of Eden, but behind them, it is like a desert wasteland—surely nothing will escape them.

⁶ “I beset all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ⁷ “I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered. ⁸ People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ⁹ “I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

⁹ You expected much, but behold, it amounted to little. And what you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the LORD of Hosts. Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house. ¹⁰ Therefore, on account of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth has withheld its crops. ¹¹ I have summoned a drought on the fields and on the mountains, on the grain, new wine, and oil, and on whatever the ground yields, on man and beast, and on all the labor of your hands.”

¹⁶ from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty. ¹⁷ I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the LORD.

⁹ You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me. ¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure. ¹¹ I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your land, and the vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit,” says the LORD of Hosts. ¹² “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight,” says the LORD of Hosts.

⁶ And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

⁵ Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.

²² May their table become a snare; may it be a retribution and a trap.

³² For the waywardness of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

⁶ You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but never get warm. You earn wages to put into a bag pierced through.”

³ Then he told me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of all the land, for according to one side of the scroll, every thief will be removed; and according to the other side, every perjurer will be removed. ⁴ I will send it out, declares the LORD of Hosts, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of him who swears falsely by My name. It will remain inside his house and destroy it, down to its timbers and stones.”

²⁵ But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are in agony.

¹⁹ I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze, ²⁰ and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.

²⁶ When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.

⁹ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

¹⁶ You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

¹⁶ The roots beneath him dry up, and the branches above him wither away. ¹⁷ The memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the land. ¹⁸ He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world. ¹⁹ He has no offspring or posterity among his people, no survivor where he once lived.

⁹ May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. ¹⁰ May his children wander as beggars, seeking sustenance far from their ruined homes. ¹¹ May the creditor seize all he owns, and strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. ¹² May there be no one to extend kindness to him, and no one to favor his fatherless children. ¹³ May his descendants be cut off; may their name be blotted out from the next generation. ¹⁴ May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and the sin of his mother never be blotted out. ¹⁵ May their sins always remain before the LORD, that He may cut off their memory from the earth.

¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. ¹² They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.

²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

¹¹ Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird, with no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception. ¹² Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them of each one. Yes, woe be to them when I turn away from them! ¹³ I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a meadow. But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter. ¹⁴ Give them, O LORD—what will You give? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up!

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut off from the fold and no cattle are in the stalls,

³ Behold, I will rebuke your descendants, and I will spread dung on your faces, the waste from your feasts, and you will be carried off with it.

²⁹ Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’ ³⁰ At that time ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’

⁶ You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

⁶ In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted and the travelers took the byways. ⁷ Life in the villages ceased; it ended in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, a mother in Israel.

⁵ In those days there was no safety for travelers, because the residents of the lands had many conflicts.

³¹ I will reduce your cities to rubble and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will refuse to smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices. ³² And I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who dwell in it will be appalled. ³³ But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.

³⁸ You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will consume you.

²⁶ I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it, but will be utterly destroyed.

¹⁶ If you transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from this good land He has given you.”

²⁰ Then Saul and all his troops assembled and marched to the battle, and they found the Philistines in total confusion, with each man wielding the sword against his neighbor.

¹¹ God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation each day.

⁴ O LORD God of Hosts, how long will Your anger smolder against the prayers of Your people? ⁵ You fed them with the bread of tears and made them drink the full measure of their tears. ⁶ You make us contend with our neighbors; our enemies mock us. ⁷ Restore us, O God of Hosts, and cause Your face to shine upon us, that we may be saved. ⁸ You uprooted a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and transplanted it. ⁹ You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. ¹⁰ The mountains were covered by its shade, and the mighty cedars with its branches. ¹¹ It sent out its branches to the Sea, and its shoots toward the River. ¹² Why have You broken down its walls, so that all who pass by pick its fruit? ¹³ The boar from the forest ravages it, and the creatures of the field feed upon it. ¹⁴ Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine— ¹⁵ the root Your right hand has planted, the son You have raised up for Yourself. ¹⁶ Your vine has been cut down and burned; they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.

¹⁹ As often as it passes through, it will carry you away; it will sweep through morning after morning, by day and by night.” The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.

¹⁷ A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee, until you are left alone like a pole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.

²⁰ Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street, like an antelope in a net. They are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.

¹⁵ For behold, the LORD will come with fire—His chariots are like a whirlwind—to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire.

¹² And this will be the plague with which the LORD strikes all the peoples who have warred against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. ¹³ On that day a great panic from the LORD will come upon them, so that each will seize the hand of another, and the hand of one will rise against the other.

³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.”

¹⁶ hindering us from telling the Gentiles how they may be saved. As a result, they continue to heap up their sins to full capacity; the utmost wrath has come upon them.

³ “The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” they answered. “Please let us go on a three-day journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the LORD our God, or He may strike us with plagues or with the sword.”

²⁵ And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

¹² I will strike them with a plague and destroy them—and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are.”

⁴⁶ Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, place fire from the altar in it, and add incense. Go quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, because wrath has come out from the LORD; the plague has begun.” ⁴⁷ So Aaron took the censer as Moses had ordered and ran into the midst of the assembly. And seeing that the plague had begun among the people, he offered the incense and made atonement for the people. ⁴⁸ He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague was halted. ⁴⁹ But those who died from the plague numbered 14,700, in addition to those who had died on account of Korah.

⁹ but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

¹⁵ So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.

² If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’

⁴ “They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will lie like dung on the ground. They will be finished off by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and beasts of the earth.”

⁶ I will strike down the residents of this city, both man and beast. They will die in a terrible plague.’ ⁷ ‘After that,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’

¹⁰ And I will send against them sword and famine and plague, until they have perished from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.’”

⁷ a woman came to Him with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, which she poured on His head as He reclined at the table.

¹⁶ then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.

³⁷ When famine or plague comes upon the land, or blight or mildew or locusts or grasshoppers, or when their enemy besieges them in their cities, whatever plague or sickness may come,

²⁸ When famine or plague comes upon the land, or blight or mildew or locusts or grasshoppers, or when their enemies besiege them in their cities, whatever plague or sickness may come,

¹² Although they may fast, I will not listen to their cry; although they may offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will finish them off by sword and famine and plague.”

⁹ “I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

¹⁷ I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the LORD.

¹⁹ I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,

² So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria,

¹ This is the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought: ² “Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem. ³ The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns, but find no water; their jars return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads. ⁴ The ground is cracked because no rain has fallen on the land. The farmers are ashamed; they cover their heads. ⁵ Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass. ⁶ Wild donkeys stand on barren heights; they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail for lack of pasture.”

⁷ “I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered.

²⁴ Then the LORD rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.

¹² The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.

¹⁵ Fire resides in his tent; burning sulfur rains down on his dwelling. ¹⁶ The roots beneath him dry up, and the branches above him wither away. ¹⁷ The memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the land. ¹⁸ He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world. ¹⁹ He has no offspring or posterity among his people, no survivor where he once lived. ²⁰ Those in the west are appalled at his fate, while those in the east tremble in horror. ²¹ Surely such is the dwelling of the wicked and the place of one who does not know God.”

²⁴ Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

¹¹ “Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

¹⁷ And I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you.

³⁶ As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another as before the sword, though no one is behind them. So you will not be able to stand against your enemies.

⁷ The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven.

² If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’ ³ I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. ⁴ I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem. ⁵ Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Who will mourn for you? Who will turn aside to ask about your welfare? ⁶ You have forsaken Me, declares the LORD. You have turned your back. So I will stretch out My hand against you and I will destroy you; I am weary of showing compassion. ⁷ I will scatter them with a winnowing fork at the gates of the land. I will bereave and destroy My people who have not turned from their ways. ⁸ I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer at noon against the mothers of young men. I will suddenly bring upon them anguish and dismay. ⁹ The mother of seven will grow faint; she will breathe her last breath. Her sun will set while it is still day; she will be disgraced and humiliated. And the rest I will put to the sword in the presence of their enemies,” declares the LORD.

⁹ I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.

¹⁸ I will pursue them with sword and famine and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth—a curse, a desolation, and an object of scorn and reproach among all the nations to which I banish them.

¹⁷ Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed Me; you have not proclaimed freedom, each man for his brother and for his neighbor. So now I proclaim freedom for you, declares the LORD—freedom to fall by sword, by plague, and by famine! I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

⁴⁶ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Bring a mob against them and consign them to terror and plunder.

²⁴ They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

⁴⁴ “Come here,” he called to David, “and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!” ⁴⁵ But David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. ⁴⁶ This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand. This day I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the carcasses of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the creatures of the earth. Then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

¹ A Psalm of Asaph. The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble. ² They have given the corpses of Your servants as food to the birds of the air, the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth. ³ They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead.

³ Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.

³³ The corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to scare them away.

¹ “At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.

⁷ And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

²⁰ I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

¹⁷ And as for you, son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says: Call out to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field: ‘Assemble and come together from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great feast on the mountains of Israel. There you will eat flesh and drink blood. ¹⁸ You will eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth as though they were rams, lambs, goats, and bulls—all the fattened animals of Bashan. ¹⁹ At the sacrifice I am preparing, you will eat fat until you are gorged and drink blood until you are drunk. ²⁰ And at My table you will eat your fill of horses and riders, of mighty men and warriors of every kind,’ declares the Lord GOD.

⁹ It will become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on man and beast throughout the land.”

¹¹ The magicians could not stand before Moses, because the boils had broken out on them and on all the Egyptians.

² “When someone has a swelling or rash or bright spot on his skin that could become an infectious skin disease, he must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest. ³ The priest is to examine the infection on his skin, and if the hair in the infection has turned white and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin, it is a skin disease. After the priest examines him, he must pronounce him unclean. ⁴ If, however, the spot on his skin is white and does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall isolate the infected person for seven days. ⁵ On the seventh day the priest is to reexamine him, and if he sees that the infection is unchanged and has not spread on the skin, the priest must isolate him for another seven days. ⁶ The priest will examine him again on the seventh day, and if the sore has faded and has not spread on the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is a rash. The person must wash his clothes and be clean. ⁷ But if the rash spreads further on his skin after he has shown himself to the priest for his cleansing, he must present himself again to the priest. ⁸ The priest will reexamine him, and if the rash has spread on the skin, the priest must pronounce him unclean; he has a skin disease.

²⁰ or who is a hunchback or dwarf, or who has an eye defect, a festering rash, scabs, or a crushed testicle.

³⁵ The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

⁶⁰ He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹ The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.

⁶ Now the hand of the LORD was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity, ravaging them and afflicting them with tumors.

⁹ But after they had moved the ark to Gath, the LORD’s hand was also against that city, throwing it into great confusion and afflicting the men of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumors.

¹² Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.

⁶⁶ He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.

¹⁷ the Lord will bring sores on the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will make their foreheads bare.”

¹⁴ After the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, a spirit of distress from the LORD began to torment him.

³ You have shown Your people hardship; we are staggered from the wine You made us drink.

⁹ And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ ¹⁰ Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

¹¹ The princes of Zoan are mere fools; Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise, a son of eastern kings”? ¹² Where are your wise men now? Let them tell you and reveal what the LORD of Hosts has planned against Egypt. ¹³ The princes of Zoan have become fools; the princes of Memphis are deceived. The cornerstones of her tribes have led Egypt astray. ¹⁴ The LORD has poured into her a spirit of confusion. Egypt has been led astray in all she does, as a drunkard staggers through his own vomit. ¹⁵ There is nothing Egypt can do—head or tail, palm or reed. ¹⁶ In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble with fear beneath the uplifted hand of the LORD of Hosts, when He brandishes it against them. ¹⁷ The land of Judah will bring terror to Egypt; whenever Judah is mentioned, Egypt will tremble over what the LORD of Hosts has planned against it.

¹⁹ Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

⁹ “In that day,” declares the LORD, “the king and officials will lose their courage. The priests will tremble in fear, and the prophets will be astounded.”

¹⁷ So they will lack food and water; they will be appalled at the sight of one another wasting away in their iniquity.

²⁵ There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among the nations, bewildered by the roaring of the sea and the surging of the waves. ²⁶ Men will faint from fear and anxiety over what is coming upon the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

⁴¹ ‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.’”

⁹ The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, ¹⁰ and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. ¹¹ For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie,

¹⁴ The Israelites served Eglon king of Moab eighteen years.

² So the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his forces was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. ³ Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, because Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and he had harshly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

¹ Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD; so He delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, ² and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. ³ Whenever the Israelites would plant their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them, ⁴ encamping against them as far as Gaza and destroying the produce of the land. They left Israel with no sustenance, neither sheep nor oxen nor donkeys. ⁵ For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it. ⁶ Israel was greatly impoverished by Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the LORD.

⁸ who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites.

¹ Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD, so He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

⁵ Now the Philistines assembled to fight against Israel with three thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, and troops as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Michmash, east of Beth-aven. ⁶ Seeing that they were in danger because their troops were hard-pressed, the men of Israel hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in cellars and cisterns. ⁷ Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan into the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul, however, remained at Gilgal, and all his troops were quaking in fear.

¹⁹ And no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, “The Hebrews must not be allowed to make swords or spears.” ²⁰ Instead, all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles. ²¹ The charge was a pim for sharpening a plowshare or mattock, a third of a shekel for sharpening a pitchfork or an axe, and a third of a shekel for repointing an oxgoad. ²² So on the day of battle not a sword or spear could be found in the hands of the troops with Saul and Jonathan; only Saul and his son Jonathan had weapons.

²⁶ But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies. ²⁷ So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies. ²⁸ But as soon as they had rest, they again did evil in Your sight. So You abandoned them to the hands of their enemies, who had dominion over them. When they cried out to You again, You heard from heaven, and You delivered them many times in Your compassion. ²⁹ You admonished them to turn back to Your law, but they were arrogant and disobeyed Your commandments. They sinned against Your ordinances, by which a man will live if he practices them. They stubbornly shrugged their shoulders; they stiffened their necks and would not obey.

³⁷ Its abundant harvest goes to the kings You have set over us because of our sins. And they rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please. We are in great distress.

¹⁴ They encounter darkness by day and grope at noon as in the night.

²⁵ They grope in the darkness without light; He makes them stagger like drunkards.

²³ May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. ²⁴ Pour out Your wrath upon them, and let Your burning anger overtake them.

⁴⁰ So the anger of the LORD burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance. ⁴¹ He delivered them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them. ⁴² Their enemies oppressed them, and subdued them under their hand.

¹⁰ Like the blind, we feel our way along the wall, groping like those without eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight; among the vigorous we are like the dead.

⁸ Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hands.

¹⁷ Because of this, our hearts are faint; because of these, our eyes grow dim—

¹⁷ I will bring such distress on mankind that they will walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung.

²⁴ Take these men, purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know that there is no truth to these rumors about you, but that you also live in obedience to the law.

⁷ What then? What Israel was seeking, it failed to obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, ⁸ as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day.” ⁹ And David says: “May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution to them. ¹⁰ May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.”

²⁵ I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.

³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

⁶ Has any man planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy its fruit? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man enjoy its fruit. ⁷ Has any man become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man marry her.”

¹⁸ The captives enjoy their ease; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

¹⁰ then may my own wife grind grain for another, and may other men sleep with her.

⁹ I heard the LORD of Hosts declare: “Surely many houses will become desolate, great mansions left unoccupied. ¹⁰ For ten acres of vineyard will yield but a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.”

²¹ They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²² No longer will they build houses for others to inhabit, nor plant for others to eat. For as is the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, and My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.

¹⁰ Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

¹³ They have sown wheat but harvested thorns. They have exhausted themselves to no avail. Bear the shame of your harvest because of the fierce anger of the LORD.”

² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.

² Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

¹¹ Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.

¹⁵ You will sow but not reap; you will press olives but not anoint yourselves with oil; you will tread grapes but not drink the wine.

¹³ Their wealth will be plundered and their houses laid waste. They will build houses but not inhabit them, and plant vineyards but never drink their wine.

¹ Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD; so He delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years,

¹⁴ a messenger came and reported to Job: “While the oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, ¹⁵ the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

²⁹ Woe to you, O Moab! You are destroyed, O people of Chemosh! He gave up his sons as refugees, and his daughters into captivity to Sihon king of the Amorites.

¹⁸ The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

⁴¹ You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.

⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

⁹ For behold, this is why our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and daughters and wives are in captivity.

² Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous. We must get grain in order to eat and stay alive.” ³ Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our homes to get grain during the famine.” ⁴ Still others were saying, “We have borrowed money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. ⁵ We and our children are just like our countrymen and their children, yet we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we are powerless to redeem them because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

²⁰ But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; they will hope for their last breath.”

⁵ If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.

³ I am weary from my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

⁸² My eyes fail, looking for Your promise; I ask, “When will You comfort me?”

¹²³ My eyes fail, looking for Your salvation, and for Your righteous promise.

¹⁴ I chirp like a swallow or crane; I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak as I look upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security.”

² “You must not marry or have sons or daughters in this place.” ³ For this is what the LORD says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who fathered them in this land: ⁴ “They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will lie like dung on the ground. They will be finished off by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and beasts of the earth.”

¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

¹⁷ All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help. We watched from our towers for a nation that could not save us.

²⁵ And you, son of man, know that on the day I take away their stronghold, their pride and joy—the desire of their eyes which uplifted their souls—and their sons and daughters as well,

⁶ You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, to send them far from their homeland.

²⁷ Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.

¹⁰ Writhe in agony, O Daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor. For now you will leave the city and camp in the open fields. You will go to Babylon; there you will be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies!

²⁹ and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you. ³⁰ You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit.

⁵¹ They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish.

³⁶ So here we are today as slaves in the land You gave our fathers to enjoy its fruit and goodness—here we are as slaves! ³⁷ Its abundant harvest goes to the kings You have set over us because of our sins. And they rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please. We are in great distress.

⁷ Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.

¹⁷ They surround her like men guarding a field, because she has rebelled against Me,” declares the LORD.

¹⁵ Behold, I am bringing a distant nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. “It is an established nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you do not understand.

¹⁷ They will devour your harvest and food; they will consume your sons and daughters; they will eat up your flocks and herds; they will feed on your vines and fig trees. With the sword they will destroy the fortified cities in which you trust.”

¹⁶ The snorting of enemy horses is heard from Dan. At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds, the whole land quakes. They come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who dwell in it.

²⁸ The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind,

⁶⁸ The LORD will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling grips the ungodly: “Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?”

¹⁵ This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from My hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink from it. ¹⁶ And they will drink and stagger and go out of their minds, because of the sword that I will send among them.”

¹⁰ And the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness, and men began to gnaw their tongues in anguish ¹¹ and curse the God of heaven for their pains and sores; yet they did not repent of their deeds.

²⁷ The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured.

⁶ “Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “He is in your hands, but you must spare his life.” ⁷ So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

⁶ From the sole of your foot to the top of your head, there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and festering sores neither cleansed nor bandaged nor soothed with oil.

²⁴ Instead of fragrance there will be a stench; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of styled hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth; instead of beauty, shame.

²⁸ And there you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.

⁶⁴ Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

⁴ But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea had conspired to send envoys to King So of Egypt, and that he had not paid tribute to the king of Assyria as in previous years. Therefore the king of Assyria arrested Hoshea and put him in prison. ⁵ Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years. ⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

¹² Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his commanders, and his officials all surrendered to the king of Babylon. So in the eighth year of his reign, the king of Babylon took him captive. ¹³ As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD. ¹⁴ He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained. ¹⁵ Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

⁶ The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment on him. ⁷ And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

¹¹ Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the population.

¹¹ So the LORD brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

⁶ Then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jehoiakim and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.

¹⁷ So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,

²⁰ Those who escaped the sword were carried by Nebuchadnezzar into exile in Babylon, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power.

⁷ And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, will be taken away to be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

¹³ So I will cast you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

¹¹ For this is what the LORD says concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father Josiah but has gone forth from this place: “He will never return, ¹² but he will die in the place to which he was exiled; he will never see this land again.”

²⁴ “As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “even if you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on My right hand, I would pull you off. ²⁵ In fact, I will hand you over to those you dread, who want to take your life—to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to the Chaldeans. ²⁶ I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another land, where neither of you were born—and there you both will die. ²⁷ You will never return to the land for which you long.”

⁸ But like the bad figs, so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the LORD, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem—those remaining in this land and those living in the land of Egypt. ⁹ I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them. ¹⁰ And I will send against them sword and famine and plague, until they have perished from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.’”

⁵ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him. ⁶ There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also killed all the nobles of Judah. ⁷ Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze chains to take him to Babylon.

⁸ but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was separated from him. ⁹ The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on Zedekiah. ¹⁰ There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also killed all the officials of Judah. ¹¹ Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon, where he kept him in custody until his dying day.

²⁰ The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”

¹² And at dusk the prince among them will lift his bags to his shoulder and go out. They will dig through the wall to bring him out. He will cover his face so he cannot see the land. ¹³ But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.

³² When you say, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the peoples of the lands, serving wood and stone,’ what you have in mind will never come to pass. ³³ As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, with a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will rule over you.

³⁹ And as for you, O house of Israel, this is what the Lord GOD says: Go and serve your idols, every one of you. But afterward, you will surely listen to Me, and you will no longer defile My holy name with your gifts and idols.

²² Then the generation to come—your sons who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land—will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it. ²³ All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger. ²⁴ So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’ ²⁵ And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. ²⁶ They went and served other gods, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the LORD had not given to them. ²⁷ Therefore the anger of the LORD burned against this land, and He brought upon it every curse written in this book. ²⁸ The LORD uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’

⁷ then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples. ⁸ And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

²⁰ then I will uproot Israel from the soil I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

¹³ You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and derision to those around us. ¹⁴ You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples.

⁹ behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

¹⁷ Let the priests who minister before the LORD weep between the portico and the altar, saying, “Spare Your people, O LORD, and do not make Your heritage a reproach, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

¹³ As you have been a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid; let your hands be strong.”

¹⁴ The locusts swarmed across the land and settled over the entire territory of Egypt. Never before had there been so many locusts, and never again will there be. ¹⁵ They covered the face of all the land until it was black, and they consumed all the plants on the ground and all the fruit on the trees that the hail had left behind. Nothing green was left on any tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.

¹⁰ For ten acres of vineyard will yield but a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.”

²⁵ I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts—the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust—My great army that I sent against you.

¹ This is what the Lord GOD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up. ² And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

¹⁰ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots and set out cuttings from exotic vines— ¹¹ though on the day you plant you make them grow, and on that morning you help your seed sprout—yet the harvest will vanish on the day of disease and incurable pain.

⁴ What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten. ⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth. ⁶ For a nation has invaded My land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and its fangs are the fangs of a lioness. ⁷ It has laid waste My grapevine and splintered My fig tree. It has stripped off the bark and thrown it away; the branches have turned white.

² a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like the dawn overspreading the mountains a great and strong army appears, such as never was of old, nor will ever be in ages to come. ³ Before them a fire devours, and behind them a flame scorches. The land before them is like the Garden of Eden, but behind them, it is like a desert wasteland—surely nothing will escape them. ⁴ Their appearance is like that of horses, and they gallop like swift steeds.

⁷ When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

¹⁵ wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil that makes his face to shine, and bread that sustains his heart.

³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.

¹⁴ He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained.

⁵ Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has brought her grief because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the enemy.

³⁸ You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it. ³⁹ You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

¹³ The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today.

³ So now I tell you that I will not drive out these people before you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”

¹¹ And the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. ¹² Thus they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed after various gods of the peoples around them. They bowed down to them and provoked the LORD to anger, ¹³ for they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. ¹⁴ Then the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. ¹⁵ Wherever Israel marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them to bring calamity, just as He had sworn to them. So they were greatly distressed.

⁷ So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites, ⁸ who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites. ⁹ The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin, and the house of Ephraim, and Israel was in deep distress. ¹⁰ Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, saying, “We have sinned against You, for we have indeed forsaken our God and served the Baals.”

⁴ (Now his father and mother did not know this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.)

¹¹ In response, three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Do you not realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?” “I have done to them what they did to me,” he replied. ¹² But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson replied, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.”

³ Then Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. So Saul blew the ram’s horn throughout the land, saying, “Let the Hebrews hear!” ⁴ And all Israel heard the news: “Saul has attacked an outpost of the Philistines, and now Israel has become a stench to the Philistines!” Then the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal.

¹⁹ And no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, “The Hebrews must not be allowed to make swords or spears.” ²⁰ Instead, all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles. ²¹ The charge was a pim for sharpening a plowshare or mattock, a third of a shekel for sharpening a pitchfork or an axe, and a third of a shekel for repointing an oxgoad. ²² So on the day of battle not a sword or spear could be found in the hands of the troops with Saul and Jonathan; only Saul and his son Jonathan had weapons. ²³ And a garrison of the Philistines had gone out to the pass at Michmash.

²⁰ So the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel. He afflicted them and delivered them into the hands of plunderers, until He had banished them from His presence.

²³ Finally, the LORD removed Israel from His presence, as He had declared through all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their homeland into Assyria, where they are to this day.

¹⁴ He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained. ¹⁵ Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ¹⁶ The king of Babylon also brought into exile to Babylon all seven thousand men of valor and a thousand craftsmen and metalsmiths—all strong and fit for battle.

³¹ “You take Him and judge Him by your own law,” Pilate told them. “We are not permitted to execute anyone,” the Jews then replied.

¹⁵ At this, they shouted, “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!” “Shall I crucify your King?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” replied the chief priests.

¹² The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none. ¹³ The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today.

²⁸ then I will walk in fury against you, and I, even I, will punish you sevenfold for your sins.

²⁰ The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven ²¹ and single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

²¹ You rebuke the arrogant—the cursed who stray from Your commandments.

²¹ Disaster pursues sinners, but prosperity is the reward of the righteous.

²⁰ But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

¹⁴ My servants will shout for joy with a glad heart, but you will cry out with a heavy heart and wail with a broken spirit. ¹⁵ You will leave behind your name as a curse for My chosen ones, and the Lord GOD will slay you; but to His servants He will give another name.

²² For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, ²³ but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you. ²⁴ Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. ²⁵ From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again.

¹⁵ All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?” ¹⁶ All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!” ¹⁷ The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

¹⁵ The sword is outside; plague and famine are within. Those in the country will die by the sword, and those in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.

²¹ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

³⁷ You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you.

⁵⁹ He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.

²⁸ The LORD uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’

¹⁸ Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me as signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.

⁸ I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.

¹⁸ to make them a ruin, an object of horror and contempt and cursing, as they are to this day—Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials;

⁸ I will set My face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb; I will cut him off from among My people. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

³² This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup deep and wide. It will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much. ³³ You will be filled with drunkenness and grief, with a cup of devastation and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria.

²⁰ And wherever they went among the nations, they profaned My holy name, because it was said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, yet they had to leave His land.’

¹¹ Now all these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

⁷ There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households shall eat and rejoice in all you do, because the LORD your God has blessed you. ⁸ You are not to do as we are doing here today, where everyone does what seems right in his own eyes. ⁹ For you have not yet come to the resting place and the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you. ¹⁰ When you cross the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and He gives you rest from all the enemies around you and you dwell securely, ¹¹ then the LORD your God will choose a dwelling for His Name. And there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice offerings you vow to the LORD. ¹² And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.

¹¹ and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God in the place He will choose as a dwelling for His Name—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widows among you.

¹³ He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag, ¹⁴ with curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat. From the juice of the finest grapes you drank the wine. ¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

³⁵ For even while they were in their kingdom, with the abundant goodness that You had given them, and in the spacious and fertile land that You had set before them, they would not serve You or turn from their wicked ways.

¹⁷ Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in the living God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy. ¹⁸ Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, and to be generous and ready to share, ¹⁹ treasuring up for themselves a firm foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of eternal life.

⁸ Nevertheless, they will become his servants, so that they may learn the difference between serving Me and serving the kings of other lands.”

⁶ I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.

¹⁹ And when the people ask, ‘For what offense has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.’”

⁴ And you yourself will relinquish the inheritance that I gave you. I will enslave you to your enemies in a land that you do not know, for you have kindled My anger; it will burn forever.”

¹² And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke the same message: “Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and live! ¹³ Why should you and your people die by sword and famine and plague, as the LORD has decreed against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?

¹³ “Go and tell Hananiah that this is what the LORD says: ‘You have broken a yoke of wood, but in its place you have fashioned a yoke of iron.’ ¹⁴ For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have even given him control of the beasts of the field.’”

¹⁷ Instead, we will do everything we vowed to do: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and offer drink offerings to her, just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and good things, and we saw no disaster. ¹⁸ But from the time we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been perishing by sword and famine.”

²⁷ I am watching over them for harm and not for good, and every man of Judah who is in the land of Egypt will meet his end by sword or famine, until they are finished off.

² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners. ³ We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows. ⁴ We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price. ⁵ We are closely pursued; we are weary and find no rest. ⁶ We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

¹⁶ Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure. ¹⁷ So they will lack food and water; they will be appalled at the sight of one another wasting away in their iniquity.

³ and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, full of feathers of many colors, came to Lebanon and took away the top of the cedar.

⁷ But there was another great eagle with great wings and many feathers. And behold, this vine bent its roots toward him. It stretched out its branches to him from its planting bed, so that he might water it.

¹² “Now say to this rebellious house: ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, carried off its king and officials, and brought them back with him to Babylon.

²⁹ Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

²⁴ Ships will come from the coasts of Cyprus; they will subdue Asshur and Eber, but they too will perish forever.”

²⁶ He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come! ²⁷ None of them grows weary or stumbles; no one slumbers or sleeps. No belt is loose and no sandal strap is broken. ²⁸ Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are strung. The hooves of their horses are like flint; their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind. ²⁹ Their roaring is like that of a lion; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey; they carry it away from deliverance. ³⁰ In that day they will roar over it, like the roaring of the sea. If one looks over the land, he will see darkness and distress; even the light will be obscured by clouds.

¹³ Behold, he advances like the clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined!

¹⁵ Behold, I am bringing a distant nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. “It is an established nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you do not understand. ¹⁶ Their quivers are like open graves; they are all mighty men. ¹⁷ They will devour your harvest and food; they will consume your sons and daughters; they will eat up your flocks and herds; they will feed on your vines and fig trees. With the sword they will destroy the fortified cities in which you trust.”

²² This is what the LORD says: “Behold, an army is coming from the land of the north; a great nation is stirred up from the ends of the earth. ²³ They grasp the bow and spear; they are cruel and merciless. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride upon horses, lined up like men in formation against you, O Daughter of Zion.”

⁴⁰ For this is what the LORD says: “Behold, an eagle swoops down and spreads his wings against Moab.

²² Look! An eagle will soar and swoop down, spreading its wings over Bozrah. In that day the hearts of Edom’s mighty men will be like the heart of a woman in labor.

¹⁹ Those who chased us were swifter than the eagles in the sky; they pursued us over the mountains and ambushed us in the wilderness.

⁶ not to the many peoples of unfamiliar speech and difficult language whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you.

²² My God sent His angel and shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, for I was found innocent in His sight, and I have done no wrong against you, O king.” ²³ The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den, and when Daniel was lifted out of the den, no wounds whatsoever were found on him, because he had trusted in his God.

²⁶ Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed.

¹ Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An eagle looms over the house of the LORD, because the people have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.

⁶ For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans—that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. ⁷ They are dreaded and feared; from themselves they derive justice and sovereignty.

²⁸ For wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

⁴³ For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴ They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

²¹ It is written in the Law: “By strange tongues and foreign lips I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to Me, says the Lord.”

¹³ She seizes him and kisses him; she brazenly says to him:

¹ Who is like the wise man? Who knows the interpretation of a matter? A man’s wisdom brightens his face, and the sternness of his face is changed.

⁷ After this, as I watched in my vision in the night, suddenly a fourth beast appeared, and it was terrifying—dreadful and extremely strong—with large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed; then it trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the beasts before it, and it had ten horns.

²³ In the latter part of their reign, when the rebellion has reached its full measure, an insolent king, skilled in intrigue, will come to the throne.

¹⁶ Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

⁴⁴ They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

²³ How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people. ²⁴ They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

³³ A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.

⁸ The LORD has sworn by His right hand and by His mighty arm: “Never again will I give your grain to your enemies for food, nor will foreigners drink the new wine for which you have toiled.

¹³ Your wealth and your treasures I will give up as plunder, without charge for all your sins within all your borders.

³ O My mountain in the countryside, I will give over your wealth and all your treasures as plunder, because of the sin of your high places, within all your borders.

¹⁹ Then tell the people of the land that this is what the Lord GOD says about those living in Jerusalem and in the land of Israel: ‘They will eat their bread with anxiety and drink their water in dread, for their land will be stripped of everything in it because of the violence of all who dwell in it.

¹⁶ I heard and trembled within; my lips quivered at the sound. Decay entered my bones; I trembled where I stood. Yet I must wait patiently for the day of distress to come upon the people who invade us. ¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut off from the fold and no cattle are in the stalls,

¹ In the twelfth year of the reign of Ahaz over Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria nine years. ² And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him. ³ Shalmaneser king of Assyria attacked him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.

¹³ In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.

¹⁰ At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched up to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege. ¹¹ And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it.

¹ So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped outside the city and built a siege wall all around it. ² And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. ³ By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food. ⁴ Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

¹⁸ For this is what the LORD says: “Behold, at this time I will sling out the inhabitants of the land and bring distress upon them so that they may be captured.”

⁴ this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will turn against you the weapons of war in your hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will assemble their forces in the center of this city. ⁵ And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with anger, fury, and great wrath.

⁸ Then the Chaldeans will return and fight against this city. They will capture it and burn it down.

¹ In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army and laid siege to the city. ² And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city was breached. ³ Then all the officials of the king of Babylon entered and sat in the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-sarsekim the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.

⁴ So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped outside the city and built a siege wall all around it. ⁵ And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. ⁶ By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food. ⁷ Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

¹ “Now you, son of man, take a brick, place it before you, and draw on it the city of Jerusalem. ² Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides. ³ Then take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between yourself and the city. Turn your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel. ⁴ Then lie down on your left side and place the iniquity of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their iniquity for the number of days you lie on your side. ⁵ For I have assigned to you 390 days, according to the number of years of their iniquity. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. ⁶ When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned to you 40 days, a day for each year. ⁷ You must turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and prophesy against it. ⁸ Now behold, I will tie you up with ropes so you cannot turn from side to side until you have finished the days of your siege.

¹⁵ That day will be a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, ¹⁶ a day of horn blast and battle cry against the fortified cities, and against the high corner towers.

² “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples. Judah will be besieged, as well as Jerusalem.

² For I will gather all the nations for battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

⁷ When he heard this, the king was enraged, and he sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city.

¹⁵ So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination of desolation,’ described by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand), ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

²⁰ But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that her desolation is near. ²¹ Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country stay out of the city. ²² For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.

²⁹ You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.

⁵⁷ the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates.

²⁸ Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.”

⁹ I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’

¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹⁰ As a result, fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.’

¹⁹ How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!

⁶ If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (which neither you nor your fathers have known,

⁹ Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought in your heart: “The seventh year, the year of release, is near,” so that you look upon your poor brother begrudgingly and give him nothing. He will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

³ but the poor man had nothing except one small ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food and drank from his cup; it slept in his arms and was like a daughter to him.

¹³ As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.

⁶ Do not eat the bread of a stingy man, and do not crave his delicacies;

²² A stingy man hastens after wealth and does not know that poverty awaits him.

¹⁵ “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you!

⁵ Do not rely on a friend; do not trust in a companion. Seal the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms.

⁹ Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ And if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹ So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

¹⁵ Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

¹⁰ Go up through her vineyards and ravage them, but do not finish them off. Strip off her branches, for they do not belong to the LORD.

² The LORD, the God of Israel, told Jeremiah to go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him that this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down.

⁶ By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.

⁵⁴ The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,

¹⁶ The LORD also says: “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty—walking with heads held high and wanton eyes, prancing and skipping as they go, jingling the bracelets on their ankles—

³ Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness. ⁴ The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any. ⁵ Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps. ⁶ The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand turned to help her.

¹⁰ The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes and the allegiance of the nations is his.

¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵ God also told Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

² God also told Moses, “I am the LORD. ³ I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by My name the LORD I did not make Myself known to them.

² “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

⁵ And the LORD descended in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed His name, the LORD. ⁶ Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness, ⁷ maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

¹⁴ If, however, you fail to obey Me and to carry out all these commandments, ¹⁵ and if you reject My statutes, despise My ordinances, and neglect to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant,

¹³ Fear the LORD your God, serve Him only, and take your oaths in His name.

⁵ Then the Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said, “Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting: Blessed be Your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.

⁷ “Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, your God.

¹⁹ And blessed be His glorious name forever; may all the earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen.

¹⁸ May they know that You alone, whose name is the LORD, are Most High over all the earth.

¹⁰ Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My right hand of righteousness.

⁸ I am the LORD; that is My name! I will not yield My glory to another or My praise to idols.

¹² They have lied about the LORD and said: “He will not do anything; harm will not come to us; we will not see sword or famine.

⁹ Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before Me in this house, which bears My Name, and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue with all these abominations’?

²⁶ Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers. ²⁷ When you tell them all these things, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer. ²⁸ Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips.

¹⁴ “But cursed is the deceiver who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but sacrifices a defective animal to the Lord. For I am a great King,” says the LORD of Hosts, “and My name is to be feared among the nations.

²⁸ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

³⁰ For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord,” and again, “The Lord will judge His people.” ³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

²⁸ Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be filled with gratitude, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. ²⁹ “For our God is a consuming fire.”

⁴⁶ These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.

²⁰ The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven ²¹ and single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

¹⁷ On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’ ¹⁸ And on that day I will surely hide My face because of all the evil they have done by turning to other gods.

²² For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.

²⁶ I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,

⁷ then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples. ⁸ And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ ⁹ And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

³ So now I will consume Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat: ⁴ Anyone belonging to Baasha who dies in the city will be eaten by dogs, and anyone who dies in the field will be eaten by the birds of the air.”

⁹ Her uncleanness stains her skirts; she did not consider her end. Her downfall was astounding; there was no one to comfort her. Look, O LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!

¹² Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?

¹² The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any people of the world, that an enemy or a foe could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

¹² You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

⁴ For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or idol.

¹⁹ For those will be days of tribulation unmatched from the beginning of God’s creation until now, and never to be seen again.

¹⁵ And the LORD will remove from you all sickness. He will not lay upon you any of the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on all who hate you.

²⁵ After you have children and grandchildren and you have been in the land a long time, if you then act corruptly and make an idol of any form—doing evil in the sight of the LORD your God and provoking Him to anger— ²⁶ I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it, but will be utterly destroyed.

²² I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate.

²⁷ Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.

²² Your fathers went down to Egypt, seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.

⁷ Jehoahaz had no army left, except fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers, because the king of Aram had destroyed them and made them like the dust at threshing.

⁴ Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt.

²³ You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven and brought them to the land You had told their fathers to enter and possess.

⁹ Unless the LORD of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.

⁶ Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.

² Jeremiah the prophet and said, “May our petition come before you; pray to the LORD your God on behalf of this entire remnant. For few of us remain of the many, as you can see with your own eyes.

²⁸ These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews; ²⁹ in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem; ³⁰ in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried away 745 Jews. So in all, 4,600 people were taken away.

²⁰ If the Lord had not cut short those days, nobody would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom He has chosen, He has cut them short.

²⁷ Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved. ²⁸ For the Lord will carry out His sentence thoroughly and decisively in righteousness, because He will cut short the matter on the earth.” ²⁹ It is just as Isaiah foretold: “Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.”

²² The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be enabled to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals would multiply around you.

²⁶ in turn I will mock your calamity; I will sneer when terror strikes you,

²⁴ Therefore the Lord GOD of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares: “Ah, I will be relieved of My foes and avenge Myself on My enemies.

⁵ For as a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.

¹⁴ This is what the LORD says: “As for all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from among them. ¹⁵ But after I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land.

⁷ At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed.

⁶ I will keep My eyes on them for good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.

²⁸ Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, to demolish, destroy, and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD.

⁴⁰ The whole valley of the dead bodies and ashes, and all the fields as far as the Kidron Valley, to the corner of the Horse Gate to the east, will be holy to the LORD. It will never again be uprooted or demolished.”

⁴¹ Yes, I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.

¹⁰ ‘If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I will relent of the disaster I have brought upon you.

⁴ Thus Jeremiah was to say to Baruch: “This is what the LORD says: Throughout the land I will demolish what I have built and uproot what I have planted.

¹³ And when My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath against them, I will be appeased. And when I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, the LORD, in My zeal have spoken.

¹¹ Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’

⁸ While I was contemplating the horns, suddenly another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like those of a man and a mouth that spoke words of arrogance.

¹⁸ Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁷ The LORD your God is among you; He is mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.”

⁶ comes home, and calls together his friends and neighbors to tell them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep!’ ⁷ In the same way, I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who do not need to repent. ⁸ Or what woman who has ten silver coins and loses one of them does not light a lamp, sweep her house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors to say, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.”

²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.

³² But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

³³ But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.

²⁷ Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you. ²⁸ And there you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.

³⁶ The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

⁸ Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses when You said, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations,

¹⁷ Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

¹⁶ Therefore declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries to which they have gone.’ ¹⁷ Therefore declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries to which you have been scattered, and I will give back to you the land of Israel.’

⁹ But the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him in the ark, because the waters were still covering the surface of all the earth. So he reached out his hand and brought her back inside the ark.

³⁶ As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them.

¹⁷ Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of His fury; you who have drained the goblet to the dregs—the cup that makes men stagger.

²¹ “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”

¹⁴ My servants will shout for joy with a glad heart, but you will cry out with a heavy heart and wail with a broken spirit.

⁶⁵ Put a veil of anguish over their hearts; may Your curse be upon them!

¹² A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind them. ¹³ And when My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath against them, I will be appeased. And when I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, the LORD, in My zeal have spoken. ¹⁴ I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. ¹⁵ So you will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging fury. I, the LORD, have spoken. ¹⁶ When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food. ¹⁷ I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

¹⁸ “Son of man, eat your bread with trembling, and drink your water with quivering and anxiety. ¹⁹ Then tell the people of the land that this is what the Lord GOD says about those living in Jerusalem and in the land of Israel: ‘They will eat their bread with anxiety and drink their water in dread, for their land will be stripped of everything in it because of the violence of all who dwell in it.

³² When you say, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the peoples of the lands, serving wood and stone,’ what you have in mind will never come to pass. ³³ As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, with a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will rule over you. ³⁴ With a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands to which you have been scattered. ³⁵ And I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, where I will enter into judgment with you face to face.

¹⁰ They will walk after the LORD; He will roar like a lion. When He roars, His children will come trembling from the west. ¹¹ They will come trembling like birds from Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria. Then I will settle them in their homes, declares the LORD.

⁴ Though they are driven by their enemies into captivity, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix My eyes upon them for harm and not for good.”

⁹ “For surely I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is sifted in a sieve; but not a pebble will reach the ground. ¹⁰ All the sinners among My people will die by the sword—all those who say, ‘Disaster will never draw near or confront us.’”

¹⁶ I heard and trembled within; my lips quivered at the sound. Decay entered my bones; I trembled where I stood. Yet I must wait patiently for the day of distress to come upon the people who invade us.

⁸ All these are the beginning of birth pains.

²⁶ Men will faint from fear and anxiety over what is coming upon the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

¹⁰ May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.”

⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see.

¹³ He sent fire from on high, and it overpowered my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.

²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries.

¹⁵ Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. ¹⁶ And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. ¹⁷ For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?”

³⁴ You will be driven mad by the sights you see.

³ So I am allotted months of futility, and nights of misery are appointed me. ⁴ When I lie down I think: ‘When will I get up?’ But the night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.

⁶ In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will escape them.

¹⁶ But the king must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire more horses, for the LORD has said, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’

⁸ and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!” But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.

⁴ For my people and I have been sold out to destruction, death, and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as menservants and maidservants, I would have remained silent, because no such distress would justify burdening the king.”

⁷ So they entered the land of Egypt because they did not obey the voice of the LORD, and they went as far as Tahpanhes.

¹² And I will take away the remnant of Judah who have resolved to go to the land of Egypt to reside there; they will meet their end. They will all fall by the sword or be consumed by famine. From the least to the greatest, they will die by sword or famine; and they will become an object of cursing and horror, of vilification and reproach.

¹³ Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the LORD does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.

³ They will not remain in the land of the LORD; Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.

³ They cast lots for My people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink. ⁴ Now what do you have against Me, O Tyre, Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you rendering against Me a recompense? If you retaliate against Me, I will swiftly and speedily return your recompense upon your heads. ⁵ For you took My silver and gold and carried off My finest treasures to your temples. ⁶ You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, to send them far from their homeland. ⁷ Behold, I will rouse them from the places to which you sold them; I will return your recompense upon your heads.