Amos 4 Cross References - WEB

¹ Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!” ² The Lord Yahweh has sworn by his holiness that behold, “The days shall come on you that they will take you away with hooks, and the last of you with fish hooks. ³ You will go out at the breaks in the wall, everyone straight before her; and you will cast yourselves into Harmon,” says Yahweh. ⁴ “Go to Bethel, and sin; to Gilgal, and sin more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days, ⁵ offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim free will offerings and brag about them: for this pleases you, you children of Israel,” says the Lord Yahweh. ⁶ “I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. ⁷ “I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One field was rained on, and the field where it didn’t rain withered. ⁸ So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied: yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. ⁹ “I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and the swarming locusts have devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. ¹⁰ “I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses; and I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. ¹¹ “I have overthrown some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. ¹² “Therefore thus I will do to you, Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel. ¹³ For, behold, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth: Yahweh, the God of Armies, is his name.”

²¹ “You shall not wrong an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. ²² “You shall not take advantage of any widow or fatherless child. ²³ If you take advantage of them at all, and they cry at all to me, I will surely hear their cry; ²⁴ and my wrath will grow hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. ²⁵ “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be to him as a creditor. You shall not charge him interest.

⁹ Beware that there not be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,” and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing; and he cry to Yahweh against you, and it be sin to you. ¹⁰ You shall surely give, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because it is for this thing Yahweh your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you put your hand to. ¹¹ For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore I command you to surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land.

³³ A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always,

¹⁴ butter from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat. From the blood of the grape, you drank wine. ¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation.

²⁴ He bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver; and he built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill.

¹⁹ For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up.

⁵ “Because of the oppression of the weak and because of the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says Yahweh; “I will set him in safety from those who malign him.”

¹² Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

¹² I know that Yahweh will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the needy.

²² Don’t exploit the poor, because he is poor; and don’t crush the needy in court; ²³ for Yahweh will plead their case, and plunder the life of those who plunder them.

¹⁰ Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless, ¹¹ for their Defender is strong. He will plead their case against you.

¹ Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

⁸ If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them.

¹⁷ Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.” ¹⁸ “Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. ¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land; ²⁰ but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.” ²¹ How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers. ²² Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. ²³ Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They don’t defend the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them. ²⁴ Therefore the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, the Mighty One of Israel, says: “Ah, I will get relief from my adversaries, and avenge myself on my enemies.

⁸ Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land!

⁶ “Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?

²⁶ For wicked men are found among my people. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men. ²⁷ As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich. ²⁸ They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy. ²⁹ “Shouldn’t I punish for these things?” says Yahweh. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

⁶ For Yahweh of Armies said, “Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem. This is the city to be visited. She is wholly oppression within herself.

⁶ if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt;

¹¹ “Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses;

²⁷ Kill all her bulls. Let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation.

³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out.

⁷ In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow.

¹² In you have they taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me,” says the Lord Yahweh.

²⁷ Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.

²⁹ The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

¹⁸ You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan.

³ and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.

⁶ Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals; ⁷ They trample on the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and deny justice to the oppressed; and a man and his father use the same maiden, to profane my holy name; ⁸ and they lay themselves down beside every altar on clothes taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.

⁹ Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see what unrest is in her, and what oppression is among them.” ¹⁰ “Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”

¹¹ Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

¹ Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who are secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come!

⁴ Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail, ⁵ Saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel large, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit; ⁶ that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’”

¹ Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. ² They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. ³ Therefore Yahweh says: “Behold, I am planning against these people a disaster, from which you will not remove your necks, neither will you walk haughtily; for it is an evil time.

¹ I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice? ² You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones; ³ who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.

¹⁰ Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’ ¹¹ But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.

⁵ I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.

¹ Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. ² Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. ³ Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. ⁴ Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies. ⁵ You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. ⁶ You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you.

³⁵ Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David.

²⁹ Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

¹⁶ “Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says Yahweh, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

⁴ You will fall on the mountains of Israel, you, and all your hordes, and the peoples who are with you. I will give you to the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the animals of the field to be devoured. ⁵ You will fall on the open field; for I have spoken it,” says the Lord Yahweh.

⁸ “The Lord Yahweh has sworn by himself,” says Yahweh, the God of Armies: “I abhor the pride of Jacob, and detest his fortresses. Therefore I will deliver up the city with all that is in it.

¹⁵ He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. ¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious, and his food is good.

⁷ Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their donkeys, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. ⁸ When these lepers came to the outermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid it. Then they came back, and entered into another tent, and carried things from there also, and went and hid them.

¹⁵ They went after them to the Jordan; and behold, all the path was full of garments and equipment which the Syrians had cast away in their haste. The messengers returned, and told the king.

⁴ Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden (now the Chaldeans were against the city around it); and the king went by the way of the Arabah.

²⁰ In that day, men shall cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which have been made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats,

⁷ For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold—sin which your own hands have made for you.

⁵ Dig through the wall in their sight, and carry your stuff out that way.

¹² “‘The prince who is among them will bear on his shoulder in the dark, and will go out. They will dig through the wall to carry things out that way. He will cover his face, because he will not see the land with his eyes.

¹⁸ Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.

²⁶ For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?

³ You shall tell them, ‘This is the offering made by fire which you shall offer to Yahweh: male lambs a year old without defect, two day by day, for a continual burnt offering. ⁴ You shall offer the one lamb in the morning, and you shall offer the other lamb at evening,

²⁸ At the end of every three years you shall bring all the tithe of your increase in the same year, and shall store it within your gates. ²⁹ The Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, as well as the foreigner living among you, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

¹² When you have finished tithing all the tithe of your increase in the third year, which is the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, that they may eat within your gates and be filled.

⁹ Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

³⁹ “‘As for you, house of Israel, the Lord Yahweh says: “Go, everyone serve his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not listen to me; but you shall no more profane my holy name with your gifts and with your idols.

¹⁵ “Though you, Israel, play the prostitute, yet don’t let Judah offend; and don’t come to Gilgal, neither go up to Beth Aven, nor swear, ‘As Yahweh lives.’

¹⁵ “All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels.

¹¹ If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field.

⁹ Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war! Stir up the mighty men. Let all the warriors draw near. Let them come up. ¹⁰ Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ ¹¹ Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves together.” Cause your mighty ones to come down there, Yahweh. ¹² “Let the nations arouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.

¹⁴ “For in the day that I visit the transgressions of Israel on him, I will also visit the altars of Bethel; and the horns of the altar will be cut off, and fall to the ground.

⁵ but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

²¹ I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn assemblies. ²² Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals.

³² Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.

⁴⁵ Then he came to his disciples, and said to them, “Sleep on now, and take your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

⁵ Always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones.

⁴¹ He came the third time, and said to them, “Sleep on now, and take your rest. It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

¹² If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mixed with oil. ¹³ He shall offer his offering with the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving with cakes of leavened bread.

¹⁸ “Speak to Aaron, and to his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and say to them, ‘Whoever is of the house of Israel, or of the foreigners in Israel, who offers his offering, whether it is any of their vows or any of their free will offerings, which they offer to Yahweh for a burnt offering: ¹⁹ that you may be accepted, you shall offer a male without defect, of the bulls, of the sheep, or of the goats. ²⁰ But you shall not offer whatever has a defect, for it shall not be acceptable for you. ²¹ Whoever offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to Yahweh to accomplish a vow, or for a free will offering of the herd or of the flock, it shall be perfect to be accepted. It shall have no defect.

¹⁷ You shall bring out of your habitations two loaves of bread for a wave offering made of two tenths of an ephah of fine flour. They shall be baked with yeast, for first fruits to Yahweh.

⁶ You shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, your vows, your free will offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock there. ⁷ There you shall eat before Yahweh your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, in which Yahweh your God has blessed you.

¹² So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.

¹ Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

¹⁰ I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved.

² Therefore when you do merciful deeds, don’t sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from men. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.

⁹ And in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.’”

¹³ But he answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father didn’t plant will be uprooted. ¹⁴ Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

²³ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.

²⁸ Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;

¹⁰ and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹ Because of this, God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie; ¹² that they all might be judged who didn’t believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

²⁶ When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.

³⁸ You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it.

¹ Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”

² Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria.

³⁸ Elisha came again to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, “Get the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”

²⁵ There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. ²⁶ As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” ²⁷ He said, “If Yahweh doesn’t help you, where could I get help for you? From of the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” ²⁸ The king said to her, “What is your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.”

¹ Now Elisha had spoken to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, “Arise, and go, you and your household, and stay for a while wherever you can; for Yahweh has called for a famine. It will also come on the land for seven years.”

²² In the time of his distress, he trespassed yet more against Yahweh, this same king Ahaz.

¹ For, behold, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah supply and support, the whole supply of bread, and the whole supply of water;

¹³ Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought Yahweh of Armies.

¹¹ Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, yet they don’t see; but they will see your zeal for the people, and be disappointed. Yes, fire will consume your adversaries.

³ O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.

⁵ Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit. They refuse to return. ⁶ I listened and heard, but they didn’t say what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle. ⁷ Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law.

²⁷ See therefore, I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your portion, and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd way.

¹⁵ I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”

¹⁴ They haven’t cried to me with their heart, but they howl on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and new wine. They turn away from me. ¹⁵ Though I have taught and strengthened their arms, yet they plot evil against me. ¹⁶ They return, but not to the Most High. They are like a faulty bow. Their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This will be their derision in the land of Egypt.

¹² “Yet even now,” says Yahweh, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.” ¹³ Tear your heart, and not your garments, and turn to Yahweh, your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and relents from sending calamity. ¹⁴ Who knows? He may turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meal offering and a drink offering to Yahweh, your God.

⁸ So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied: yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. ⁹ “I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and the swarming locusts have devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

¹⁷ I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you didn’t turn to me,’ says Yahweh.

³ Therefore tell them: Yahweh of Armies says: ‘Return to me,’ says Yahweh of Armies, ‘and I will return to you,’ says Yahweh of Armies. ⁴ Don’t you be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying: Yahweh of Armies says, ‘Return now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings;’ but they didn’t hear, nor listen to me, says Yahweh. ⁵ Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? ⁶ But my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, didn’t they overtake your fathers? “Then they repented and said, ‘Just as Yahweh of Armies determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt with us.’”

²¹ I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

²⁰ The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can’t see, hear, or walk. ²¹ They didn’t repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.

¹⁰ The fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was darkened. They gnawed their tongues because of the pain, ¹¹ and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They didn’t repent of their works.

²² I will set apart in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, to the end you may know that I am Yahweh on the earth.

⁴ Yahweh will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt; and nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel.”’”

²⁶ Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.

²³ They didn’t see one another, and nobody rose from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

¹⁸ “‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze. ²⁰ Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit. ²¹ “‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins.

²³ “‘If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me, ²⁴ then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.

²⁷ “‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins.

¹⁷ and Yahweh’s anger be kindled against you, and he shut up the sky so that there is no rain, and the land doesn’t yield its fruit; and you perish quickly from off the good land which Yahweh gives you.

²³ Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron. ²⁴ Yahweh will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed.

³⁷ behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I’ll know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken.” ³⁸ It was so; for he rose up early on the next day, and pressed the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. ³⁹ Gideon said to God, “Don’t let your anger be kindled against me, and I will speak but this once. Please let me make a trial just this once with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.” ⁴⁰ God did so that night; for it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.

³⁵ “When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, ³⁶ then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people for an inheritance.

¹³ “If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; ¹⁴ if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

⁶ I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”

³ Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

²⁴ They don’t say in their heart, ‘Let’s now fear Yahweh our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season, who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’ ²⁵ “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.

⁴ Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.

²² Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our God? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

¹⁰ The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. ¹¹ Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. ¹² The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. ¹³ Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house. ¹⁴ Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh. ¹⁵ Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty. ¹⁶ Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God? ¹⁷ The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. ¹⁸ How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

²³ “Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in Yahweh, your God; for he gives you the early rain in just measure, and he causes the rain to come down for you, the early rain and the latter rain, as before.

¹⁰ Therefore for your sake the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. ¹¹ I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on that which the ground produces, on men, on livestock, and on all the labor of the hands.”

¹⁷ It will be, that whoever of all the families of the earth doesn’t go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh of Armies, on them there will be no rain.

³⁵ Don’t you say, ‘There are yet four months until the harvest?’ Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already.

⁷ For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

¹⁷ Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.

⁶ These have the power to shut up the sky, that it may not rain during the days of their prophecy. They have power over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire.

⁵ Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land, to all the springs of water, and to all the brooks. Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, that we not lose all the animals.”

¹⁷ The poor and needy seek water, and there is none. Their tongue fails for thirst. I, Yahweh, will answer them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. ¹⁸ I will open rivers on the bare heights, and springs in the middle of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

⁷ I said after she had done all these things, ‘She will return to me;’ but she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

³ Their nobles send their little ones to the waters. They come to the cisterns, and find no water. They return with their vessels empty. They are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads. ⁴ Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.

¹⁴ In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”

¹⁶ Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness. They will drink water by measure, and in dismay; ¹⁷ that they may lack bread and water, be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.

¹⁰ The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they haven’t returned to Yahweh their God, nor sought him, for all this.

⁶ “I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

⁹ “I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and the swarming locusts have devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. ¹⁰ “I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses; and I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. ¹¹ “I have overthrown some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

¹⁴ You shall eat, but not be satisfied. Your humiliation will be within you. You will store up, but not save; and that which you save I will give up to the sword.

⁶ You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”

²² Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.

⁴² Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground.

³⁷ “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is;

²⁸ “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is;

⁸ If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions, ⁹ then he shows them their work, and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly. ¹⁰ He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity. ¹¹ If they listen and serve him, they will spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. ¹² But if they don’t listen, they will perish by the sword; they will die without knowledge. ¹³ “But those who are godless in heart lay up anger. They don’t cry for help when he binds them.

⁵ Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

²⁴ Who gave Jacob as plunder, and Israel to the robbers? Didn’t Yahweh, he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, and they disobeyed his law. ²⁵ Therefore he poured the fierceness of his anger on him, and the strength of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he didn’t know. It burned him, but he didn’t take it to heart.”

¹⁰ Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,” says Yahweh.

⁴ What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten.

⁷ He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.

²⁵ I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you.

⁸ So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied: yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

¹ Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: and behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s harvest. ² When they finished eating the grass of the land, then I said, “Lord Yahweh, forgive, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.”

¹⁹ Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is God’s finger;” but Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he didn’t listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken.

³ behold, Yahweh’s hand is on your livestock which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds, and on the flocks with a very grievous pestilence. ⁴ Yahweh will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt; and nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel.”’” ⁵ Yahweh appointed a set time, saying, “Tomorrow Yahweh shall do this thing in the land.” ⁶ Yahweh did that thing on the next day; and all the livestock of Egypt died, but of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died.

¹² Yahweh hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he didn’t listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken to Moses.

¹⁷ because you still exalt yourself against my people, that you won’t let them go.

³⁴ When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders had ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants. ³⁵ The heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he didn’t let the children of Israel go, just as Yahweh had spoken through Moses.

³ Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, “This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.

²⁷ But Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he wouldn’t let them go.

²⁹ At midnight, Yahweh struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. ³⁰ Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

⁴ I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will follow after them; and I will get honor over Pharaoh, and over all his armies; and the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh.” They did so.

²⁶ He said, “If you will diligently listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you.”

¹⁶ I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.

²⁵ I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

¹⁵ Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and he will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you.

²⁶ Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷ Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed.

⁶⁰ He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you.

¹² Hazael said, “Why do you weep, my lord?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. You will set their strongholds on fire, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and will dash their little ones in pieces, and rip up their pregnant women.”

³² In those days Yahweh began to cut away parts of Israel; and Hazael struck them in all the borders of Israel;

³ Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, continually.

⁷ For he didn’t leave to Jehoahaz of the people any more than fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.

⁴⁹ He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil. ⁵⁰ He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,

¹¹ Therefore I am full of Yahweh’s wrath. I am weary with holding it in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife will be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.

¹ “At that time,” says Yahweh, “they will bring the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of his princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves. ² They will spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, which they have served, after which they have walked, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the earth.

²² Speak, “Yahweh says, “‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.’”

²² therefore Yahweh of Armies says, ‘Behold, I will punish them. The young men will die by the sword. Their sons and their daughters will die by famine.

³ “I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy.

⁴ “They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”

²¹ Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widows. Let their men be killed and their young men struck by the sword in battle.

¹⁵ Moab is laid waste, and they have gone up into his cities, and his chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

²⁰ But I will remove the northern army far away from you, and will drive it into a barren and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its back into the western sea; and its stench will come up, and its bad smell will rise.” Surely he has done great things.

³ The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.

²⁴ Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky. ²⁵ He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.

¹⁹ Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁸ They are all grievous rebels, going around to slander. They are bronze and iron. All of them deal corruptly. ²⁹ The bellows blow fiercely. The lead is consumed in the fire. In vain they go on refining, for the wicked are not plucked away. ³⁰ Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them.”

¹⁸ As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says Yahweh, “no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein.

¹⁷ Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ¹⁸ “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me. All of them are bronze, tin, iron, and lead in the middle of the furnace. They are the dross of silver. ¹⁹ Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the middle of Jerusalem. ²⁰ As they gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the middle of the furnace, to blow the fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will lay you there, and melt you. ²¹ Yes, I will gather you, and blow on you with the fire of my wrath, and you will be melted in the middle of it. ²² As silver is melted in the middle of the furnace, so you will be melted in the middle of it; and you will know that I, Yahweh, have poured out my wrath on you.’”

¹³ “‘“In your filthiness is lewdness. Because I have cleansed you and you weren’t cleansed, you won’t be cleansed from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my wrath toward you to rest.

⁸ “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused.

² Yahweh said to Satan, “Yahweh rebuke you, Satan! Yes, Yahweh who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Isn’t this a burning stick plucked out of the fire?”

¹⁵ If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.

⁶ and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live in an ungodly way;

⁷ Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having in the same way as these given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

²³ and some save, snatching them out of the fire with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.

²⁰ The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can’t see, hear, or walk.

³ Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”

⁵ You have not gone up into the gaps or built up the wall for the house of Israel, to stand in the battle in Yahweh’s day.

³⁰ “I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.

⁸ I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them.

¹⁴ Flight will perish from the swift; and the strong won’t strengthen his force; neither shall the mighty deliver himself;

² The Lord Yahweh has sworn by his holiness that behold, “The days shall come on you that they will take you away with hooks, and the last of you with fish hooks. ³ You will go out at the breaks in the wall, everyone straight before her; and you will cast yourselves into Harmon,” says Yahweh.

⁴ For Yahweh says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live; ⁵ but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing. ⁶ Seek Yahweh, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel. ⁷ You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth: ⁸ seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name, ⁹ who brings sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the fortress. ¹⁰ They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly. ¹¹ Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. ¹² For I know how many are your offenses, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the just, who take a bribe, and who turn away the needy in the courts. ¹³ Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. ¹⁴ Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you say. ¹⁵ Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

¹ I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will kill the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape. ² Though they dig into Sheol, there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there I will bring them down. ³ Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out from there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them. ⁴ Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good.

²⁵ Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are with him on the way; lest perhaps the prosecutor deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison.

⁴⁴ Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.

³² But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³ Watch, keep alert, and pray; for you don’t know when the time is. ³⁴ “It is like a man, traveling to another country, having left his house, and given authority to his servants, and to each one his work, and also commanded the doorkeeper to keep watch. ³⁵ Watch therefore, for you don’t know when the lord of the house is coming, whether at evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning; ³⁶ lest coming suddenly he might find you sleeping. ³⁷ What I tell you, I tell all: Watch.”

³¹ Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy, and asks for conditions of peace.

³ He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow put in more than all of them, ⁴ for all these put in gifts for God from their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, put in all that she had to live on.” ⁵ As some were talking about the temple and how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts, he said, ⁶ “As for these things which you see, the days will come, in which there will not be left here one stone on another that will not be thrown down.” ⁷ They asked him, “Teacher, so when will these things be? What is the sign that these things are about to happen?” ⁸ He said, “Watch out that you don’t get led astray, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is at hand.’ Therefore don’t follow them. ⁹ When you hear of wars and disturbances, don’t be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end won’t come immediately.” ¹⁰ Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. ¹¹ There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven. ¹² But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake. ¹³ It will turn out as a testimony for you. ¹⁴ Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer, ¹⁵ for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict. ¹⁶ You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death. ¹⁷ You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake. ¹⁸ And not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ “By your endurance you will win your lives. ²⁰ “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand. ²¹ Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those who are in the middle of her depart. Let those who are in the country not enter therein. ²² For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. ²³ Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people. ²⁴ They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. ²⁵ There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and on the earth anxiety of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the waves; ²⁶ men fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world: for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷ Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. ²⁸ But when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near.” ²⁹ He told them a parable. “See the fig tree and all the trees. ³⁰ When they are already budding, you see it and know by your own selves that the summer is already near. ³¹ Even so you also, when you see these things happening, know that God’s Kingdom is near. ³² Most certainly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things are accomplished. ³³ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. ³⁴ “So be careful, or your hearts will be loaded down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day will come on you suddenly. ³⁵ For it will come like a snare on all those who dwell on the surface of all the earth. ³⁶ Therefore be watchful all the time, praying that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

² For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. ³ For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape. ⁴ But you, brothers, aren’t in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief.

¹ Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? ² You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. ³ You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. ⁴ You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”? ⁶ But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” ⁷ Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

³ Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If therefore you won’t watch, I will come as a thief, and you won’t know what hour I will come upon you.

²² Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.

²⁰ It came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel. There was the cloud and the darkness, yet gave it light by night. One didn’t come near the other all night.

¹³ He made him ride on the high places of the earth. He ate the increase of the field. He caused him to suck honey out of the rock, oil out of the flinty rock;

²⁹ You are happy, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by Yahweh, the shield of your help, the sword of your excellency? Your enemies will submit themselves to you. You will tread on their high places.”

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. ⁵ Who determined its measures, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it? ⁶ What were its foundations fastened on? Or who laid its cornerstone, ⁷ when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? ⁸ “Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the womb, ⁹ when I made clouds its garment, and wrapped it in thick darkness, ¹⁰ marked out for it my bound, set bars and doors, ¹¹ and said, ‘You may come here, but no further. Your proud waves shall be stopped here’?

⁶ By your power, you form the mountains, having armed yourself with strength.

⁷ He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings with the rain. He brings the wind out of his treasuries.

² You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.

¹⁸ He sends out his word, and melts them. He causes his wind to blow, and the waters flow.

³⁰ They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the sky with his span, and calculated the dust of the earth in a measuring basket, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

⁴ Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name, is the Holy One of Israel.

² for they call themselves citizens of the holy city, and rely on the God of Israel; Yahweh of Armies is his name.

¹³ When he utters his voice, the waters in the heavens roar, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain, and brings the wind out of his treasuries.

¹⁶ The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the maker of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his name.

¹⁶ Give glory to Yahweh your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it deep darkness.

¹⁶ When he utters his voice, there is a roar of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and brings the wind out of his treasuries.

¹⁹ The portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the former of all things; including the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his name.

²⁸ but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has made known to king Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head on your bed, are these:

¹³ “Listen, and testify against the house of Jacob,” says the Lord Yahweh, the God of Armies.

⁸ seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name,

²⁷ Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” says Yahweh, whose name is the God of Armies.

⁹ It will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

⁶ It is he who builds his rooms in the heavens, and has founded his vault on the earth; he who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth; Yahweh is his name.

³ For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place, and will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

¹⁹ Yahweh, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places. For the music director, on my stringed instruments.

¹ A revelation, Yahweh’s word concerning Israel. Yahweh, who stretches out the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him says:

⁴ Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?

³⁹ Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what kind of woman this is who touches him, that she is a sinner.” ⁴⁰ Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” He said, “Teacher, say on.”

²⁵ and because he didn’t need for anyone to testify concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man.

⁸ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”