Trials in the Bible: Testing of Faith

To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and have eaten from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labour all the days of your life.

It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field.

You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.”

Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.”

It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights.

The flood was forty days on the earth. The waters increased, and lifted up the ship, and it was lifted up above the earth.

The waters rose, and increased greatly on the earth; and the ship floated on the surface of the waters.

The waters rose very high on the earth. All the high mountains that were under the whole sky were covered.

The waters rose fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.

The waters flooded the earth one hundred and fifty days.

There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land.

He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your offspring will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years.

He will be like a wild donkey amongst men. His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. He will live opposed to all of his brothers.”

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.

They called to Lot, and said to him, “Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them.”

Lot went out to them through the door, and shut the door after himself.

See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.”

They said, “Stand back!” Then they said, “This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them!” They pressed hard on the man Lot, and came near to break the door.

After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” He said, “Here I am.”

He said, “Now take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”

Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to kill his son.

Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die. What good is the birthright to me?”

There was a famine in the land, in addition to the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth.

The herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him.

They dug another well, and they argued over that, also. So he called its name Sitnah.

He took his relatives with him, and pursued him seven days’ journey. He overtook him in the mountain of Gilead.

Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain, and Laban with his relatives encamped in the mountain of Gilead.

This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes.

Jacob was left alone, and wrestled with a man there until the breaking of the day.

When he saw that he didn’t prevail against him, the man touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained as he wrestled.

They travelled from Bethel. There was still some distance to come to Ephrath, and Rachel travailed. She had hard labour.

They saw him afar off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.

Come now therefore, and let’s kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, ‘An evil animal has devoured him.’ We will see what will become of his dreams.”

When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colours that was on him;

and they took him, and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it.

Joseph was brought down to Egypt. Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the hand of the Ishmaelites that had brought him down there.

Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were bound, and he was there in custody.

Within three more days, Pharaoh will lift up your head from off you, and will hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from off you.”

Yet the chief cup bearer didn’t remember Joseph, but forgot him.

Behold, seven other cattle came up after them out of the river, ugly and thin, and stood by the other cattle on the brink of the river.

The ugly and thin cattle ate up the seven sleek and fat cattle. So Pharaoh awoke.

Seven years of famine will arise after them, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land,

and the plenty will not be known in the land by reason of that famine which follows; for it will be very grievous.

Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamt about them, and said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see the nakedness of the land.”

He said to them, “No, but you have come to see the nakedness of the land!”

Joseph said to them, “It is like I told you, saying, ‘You are spies!’

By this you shall be tested. By the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go out from here, unless your youngest brother comes here.

Send one of you, and let him get your brother, and you shall be bound, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you, or else by the life of Pharaoh surely you are spies.”

He put them all together into custody for three days.

The famine was severe in the land.

He searched, beginning with the oldest, and ending at the youngest. The cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.

Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

There was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.

When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord how our money is all spent, and the herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands.

Dan will be a serpent on the trail, an adder in the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward.

“A troop will press on Gad, but he will press on their heel.

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.

and they made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”

“You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.

Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labour in it. Don’t let them pay any attention to lying words.”

The taskmasters of the people went out with their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you straw.

Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it, for nothing of your work shall be diminished.’”

So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.

The taskmasters were urgent saying, “Fulfil your work quota daily, as when there was straw!”

The officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and were asked, “Why haven’t you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?”

Go therefore now, and work; for no straw shall be given to you; yet you shall deliver the same number of bricks!”

The officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble when it was said, “You shall not diminish anything from your daily quota of bricks!”

Moses returned to the LORD, and said, “Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it that you have sent me?

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people. You have not rescued your people at all!”

Seven days were fulfilled, after the LORD had struck the river.

If you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your borders with frogs.

The river will swarm with frogs, which will go up and come into your house, and into your bedroom, and on your bed, and into the house of your servants, and on your people, and into your ovens, and into your kneading troughs.

The frogs shall come up both on you, and on your people, and on all your servants.”’”

Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.

The magicians did the same thing with their enchantments, and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt.

Else, if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you, and on your servants, and on your people, and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground they are on.

The LORD did so; and there came grievous swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses. In all the land of Egypt the land was corrupted by reason of the swarms of flies.

The hail struck throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and animal; and the hail struck every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field.

Or else, if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country,

and they shall cover the surface of the earth, so that one won’t be able to see the earth. They shall eat the residue of that which has escaped, which remains to you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which grows for you out of the field.

Your houses shall be filled, and the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were on the earth to this day.’” He turned, and went out from Pharaoh.

Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD, their God. Don’t you yet know that Egypt is destroyed?”

The LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up on the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail has left.”

But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he didn’t let the children of Israel go.

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.

But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he wouldn’t let them go.

The LORD said to Moses, “I will bring yet one more plague on Pharaoh, and on Egypt; afterwards he will let you go. When he lets you go, he will surely thrust you out altogether.

and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of livestock.

There will be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been, nor will be any more.

The LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh won’t listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he didn’t let the children of Israel go out of his land.

Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, ‘They are entangled in the land. The wilderness has shut them in.’

The Egyptians pursued them. All the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen, and his army overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pihahiroth, before Baal Zephon.

When Pharaoh came near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were very afraid. The children of Israel cried out to the LORD.

The Egyptians pursued, and went in after them into the middle of the sea: all of Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.

Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.

When they came to Marah, they couldn’t drink from the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore its name was called Marah.

The people murmured against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”

The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness;

All the congregation of the children of Israel travelled from the wilderness of Sin, starting according to the LORD’s commandment, and encamped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink.

Therefore the people quarrelled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”

The people were thirsty for water there; so the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?”

Moses cried to the LORD, saying, “What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

He called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because the children of Israel quarrelled, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD amongst us, or not?”

Then Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim.

Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardships that had come on them on the way, and how the LORD delivered them.

When Moses saw that the people were out of control, (for Aaron had let them lose control, causing derision amongst their enemies),

He said to them, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Every man put his sword on his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and every man kill his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.’”

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.

I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.

“‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.

I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze.

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.

“‘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.

I will send the wild animals amongst you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.

then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.

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 amongst you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies.

You will perish amongst the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up.

Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity,

The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.

The priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and let the hair of the woman’s head go loose, and put the meal offering of memorial in her hands, which is the meal offering of jealousy. The priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that brings a curse.

then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, “May The LORD make you a curse and an oath amongst your people, when the LORD allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell;

and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away.” The woman shall say, “Amen, Amen.”

“‘The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall wipe them into the water of bitterness.

He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causes the curse; and the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter.

The priest shall take a handful of the meal offering, as its memorial portion, and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water.

When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away; and the woman will be a curse amongst her people.

However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak there.

Amalek dwells in the land of the South. The Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwell in the hill country. The Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along the side of the Jordan.”

because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice;

But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness.

After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’

I, the LORD, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”

The men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up an evil report against the land,

even those men who brought up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before the LORD.

Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down even to Hormah.

Moses said to Korah, “You and all your company go before the LORD, you, and they, and Aaron, tomorrow.

Korah assembled all the congregation opposite them to the door of the Tent of Meeting. The LORD’s glory appeared to all the congregation.

“Separate yourselves from amongst this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment!”

“Speak to the congregation, saying, ‘Get away from around the tent of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram!’”

He said, “You shall not pass through.” Edom came out against him with many people, and with a strong hand.

Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border, so Israel turned away from him.

The Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the South, heard that Israel came by the way of Atharim. He fought against Israel, and took some of them captive.

They travelled from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. The soul of the people was very discouraged because of the journey.

The people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, there is no water, and our soul loathes this disgusting food!”

The LORD sent venomous snakes amongst the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died.

Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his border, but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and came to Jahaz. He fought against Israel.

They turned and went up by the way of Bashan. Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.

Nevertheless Kain shall be wasted, until Asshur carries you away captive.”

He took up his parable, and said, “Alas, who shall live when God does this?

But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim. They shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber. He also shall come to destruction.”

because in the strife of the congregation, you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin, to honour me as holy at the waters before their eyes.” (These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.)

They travelled from Alush, and encamped in Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.

We travelled from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw, by the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea.

The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you and chased you as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even to Hormah.

Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Jahaz.

Then we turned, and went up the way to Bashan. Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

The LORD will scatter you amongst the peoples, and you will be left few in number amongst the nations where the LORD will lead you away.

There you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from amongst another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

He humbled you, allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know, that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the LORD’s mouth.

who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers didn’t know, that he might humble you, and that he might prove you, to do you good at your latter end;

Remember, and don’t forget, how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD.

and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben—how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the middle of all Israel;

you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

If an unrighteous witness rises up against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing,

and the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother,

The Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and imposed hard labour on us.

You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.

You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit.

Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.

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,

so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad.

The LORD will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone.

You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword amongst all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.

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

You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them.

You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off.

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

The foreigner who is amongst you will mount up above you higher and higher, and you will come down lower and lower.

He will lend to you, and you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you.

They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever.

therefore you will serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand,

a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favour to the young.

They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you.

You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you.

The man who is tender amongst you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil towards his brother, towards the wife whom he loves, and towards the remnant of his children whom he has remaining,

so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates.

The tender and delicate woman amongst you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil towards the husband that she loves, towards her son, towards her daughter,

towards her young one who comes out from between her feet, and towards her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates.

then the LORD will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration.

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

Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you until you are destroyed.

You will be left few in number, even though you were as the stars of the sky for multitude, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice.

It will happen that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess.

The LORD will scatter you amongst all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.

Amongst these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul.

In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see.

The LORD will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told to you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.

the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders.

The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick,

that all of its land is sulphur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

The LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”

Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come on them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Haven’t these evils come on us because our God is not amongst us?’

It will happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song will testify before them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten out of the mouths of their descendants; for I know their ways and what they are doing today, before I have brought them into the land which I promised them.”

They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, with the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.

Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the grey-haired man.

About Levi he said, “Your Thummim and your Urim are with your godly one, whom you proved at Massah, with whom you contended at the waters of Meribah.

These wine skins, which we filled, were new; and behold, they are torn. These our garments and our sandals have become old because of the very long journey.”

Joshua went up from Eglon, and all Israel with him, to Hebron; and they fought against it.

Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir, and fought against it.

to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite in the hill country, and the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpah.

They went out, they and all their armies with them, many people, even as the sand that is on the seashore in multitude, with very many horses and chariots.

All these kings met together; and they came and encamped together at the waters of Merom, to fight with Israel.

As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah couldn’t drive them out; but the Jebusites live with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.

Yet the children of Manasseh couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of those cities; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land.

The children of Joseph said, “The hill country is not enough for us. All the Canaanites who dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both those who are in Beth Shean and its towns, and those who are in the valley of Jezreel.”

Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we have not cleansed ourselves to this day, although there came a plague on the congregation of the LORD,

that you must turn away today from following the LORD? It will be, since you rebel today against the LORD, that tomorrow he will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel.

Didn’t Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the devoted thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? That man didn’t perish alone in his iniquity.’”

Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel. He sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you,

Asher didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Acco, nor the inhabitants of Sidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob;

but the Asherites lived amongst the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they didn’t drive them out.

Naphtali didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, nor the inhabitants of Beth Anath; but he lived amongst the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and of Beth Anath became subject to forced labour.

The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the hill country, for they would not allow them to come down to the valley;

but the Amorites would dwell in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim. Yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became subject to forced labour.

Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.’”

Wherever they went out, the LORD’s hand was against them for evil, as the LORD had spoken, and as the LORD had sworn to them; and they were very distressed.

I also will no longer drive out any of the nations that Joshua left when he died from before them;

that by them I may test Israel, to see if they will keep the LORD’s way to walk therein, as their fathers kept it, or not.”

So the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily. He didn’t deliver them into Joshua’s hand.

Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to test Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan;

only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at least those who knew nothing of it before:

the five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.

They were left to test Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to the LORD’s commandments, which he commanded their fathers by Moses.

The children of Israel lived amongst the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

He gathered the children of Ammon and Amalek to himself; and he went and struck Israel, and they possessed the city of palm trees.

The children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.

They chose new gods. Then war was in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen amongst forty thousand in Israel?

“The kings came and fought, then the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo. They took no plunder of silver.

Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east assembled themselves together; and they passed over, and encamped in the valley of Jezreel.

The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like locusts for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand which is on the seashore for multitude.

The men of Ephraim said to him, “Why have you treated us this way, that you didn’t call us when you went to fight with Midian?” They rebuked him sharply.

Gaal went out before the men of Shechem, and fought with Abimelech.

Abimelech chased him, and he fled before him, and many fell wounded, even to the entrance of the gate.

On the next day, the people went out into the field; and they told Abimelech.

He took the people and divided them into three companies, and laid wait in the field; and he looked, and behold, the people came out of the city. So, he rose up against them and struck them.

Abimelech and the companies that were with him rushed forward and stood in the entrance of the gate of the city; and the two companies rushed on all who were in the field and struck them.

Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city and killed the people in it. He beat down the city and sowed it with salt.

Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it, and came near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire.

They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

The children of Ammon passed over the Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was very distressed.

Go and cry to the gods which you have chosen. Let them save you in the time of your distress!”

Then the children of Ammon were gathered together and encamped in Gilead. The children of Israel assembled themselves together and encamped in Mizpah.

After a while, the children of Ammon made war against Israel.

When the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah out of the land of Tob.

Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me, and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?”

Jephthah said to them, “I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, you didn’t save me out of their hand.

The Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. Whenever a fugitive of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No;”

Then the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.

The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.”

The Philistines laid hold on him and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of bronze; and he ground at the mill in the prison.

The children of Benjamin gathered themselves together out of the cities to Gibeah, to go out to battle against the children of Israel.

The children of Benjamin were counted on that day out of the cities twenty-six thousand men who drew the sword, in addition to the inhabitants of Gibeah, who were counted seven hundred chosen men.

The children of Benjamin came out of Gibeah, and on that day destroyed twenty-two thousand of the Israelite men down to the ground.

Benjamin went out against them out of Gibeah the second day, and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men. All these drew the sword.

Ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel came over against Gibeah, and the battle was severe; but they didn’t know that disaster was close to them.

So the children of Benjamin saw that they were struck, for the men of Israel yielded to Benjamin because they trusted the ambushers whom they had set against Gibeah.

The ambushers hurried, and rushed on Gibeah; then the ambushers spread out, and struck all the city with the edge of the sword.

The men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, “Surely they are struck down before us, as in the first battle.”

But when the cloud began to arise up out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them; and behold, the whole city went up in smoke to the sky.

The men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed; for they saw that disaster had come on them.

Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel to the way of the wilderness, but the battle followed hard after them; and those who came out of the cities destroyed them in the middle of it.

They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them, and trod them down at their resting place, as far as near Gibeah towards the sunrise.

Eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell; all these were men of valour.

They turned and fled towards the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon. They gleaned five thousand men of them in the highways, and followed hard after them to Gidom, and struck two thousand men of them.

So that all who fell that day of Benjamin were twenty-five thousand men who drew the sword. All these were men of valour.

But six hundred men turned and fled towards the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and stayed in the rock of Rimmon four months.

The men of Israel turned again on the children of Benjamin, and struck them with the edge of the sword—including the entire city, the livestock, and all that they found. Moreover they set all the cities which they found on fire.

The congregation sent twelve thousand of the most valiant men there, and commanded them, saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.

This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman who has lain with a man.”

The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”

Eli said to her, “How long will you be drunk? Get rid of your wine!”

Behold, the days come that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, that there will not be an old man in your house.

You will see the affliction of my habitation, in all the wealth which I will give Israel. There shall not be an old man in your house forever.

The man of yours whom I don’t cut off from my altar will consume your eyes and grieve your heart. All the increase of your house will die in the flower of their age.

This will be the sign to you that will come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they will both die.

At that time, when Eli was laid down in his place (now his eyes had begun to grow dim, so that he could not see),

The word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and encamped beside Ebenezer; and the Philistines encamped in Aphek.

The Philistines put themselves in array against Israel. When they joined battle, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men of the army in the field.

The Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. There was a very great slaughter; for thirty thousand footmen of Israel fell.

He who brought the news answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been also a great slaughter amongst the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and God’s ark has been captured.”

When he made mention of God’s ark, Eli fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck broke, and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years.

His daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to giving birth. When she heard the news that God’s ark was taken and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and gave birth; for her pains came on her.

She named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel!” because God’s ark was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband.

But they forgot the LORD their God; and he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab; and they fought against them.

The Philistines assembled themselves together to fight with Israel: thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmash, eastward of Beth Aven.

When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were distressed), then the people hid themselves in caves, in thickets, in rocks, in tombs, and in pits.

Now some of the Hebrews had gone over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead; but as for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.

He stayed seven days, according to the time set by Samuel; but Samuel didn’t come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him.

Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul said, “Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you didn’t come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines assembled themselves together at Michmash,

Samuel arose, and went from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. Saul counted the people who were present with him, about six hundred men.

Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people who were present with them, stayed in Geba of Benjamin; but the Philistines encamped in Michmash.

The raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies: one company turned to the way that leads to Ophrah, to the land of Shual;

another company turned the way to Beth Horon; and another company turned the way of the border that looks down on the valley of Zeboim towards the wilderness.

Now there was no blacksmith found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears”;

but all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, each man to sharpen his own ploughshare, mattock, axe, and sickle.

The price was one payim each to sharpen mattocks, ploughshares, pitchforks, axes, and goads.

So it came to pass in the day of battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan; but Saul and Jonathan his son had them.

The garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmash.

Between the passes, by which Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistines’ garrison, there was a rocky crag on the one side and a rocky crag on the other side; and the name of the one was Bozez, and the name of the other Seneh.

Then Saul said to Jonathan, “Tell me what you have done!” Jonathan told him, and said, “I certainly did taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand; and behold, I must die.”

There was severe war against the Philistines all the days of Saul; and when Saul saw any mighty man or any valiant man, he took him into his service.

Now the LORD’s Spirit departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

Saul’s servants said to him, “See now, an evil spirit from God troubles you.

Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle; and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah in Ephesdammim.

Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and encamped in the valley of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines.

The Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them.

A champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span went out.

He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he wore a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze.

He had bronze shin armour on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders.

The staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. His shield bearer went before him.

He stood and cried to the armies of Israel, and said to them, “Why have you come out to set your battle in array? Am I not a Philistine, and you servants to Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me.

If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then will we be your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you will be our servants and serve us.”

The Philistine said, “I defy the armies of Israel today! Give me a man, that we may fight together!”

When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

The Philistine came near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days.

Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines.

Israel and the Philistines put the battle in array, army against army.

When the Philistine looked around and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and had a good looking face.

The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and to the animals of the field.”

When the Philistine arose, and walked and came near to meet David, David hurried and ran towards the army to meet the Philistine.

On the next day, an evil spirit from God came mightily on Saul, and he prophesied in the middle of the house. David played with his hand, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand;

and Saul threw the spear, for he said, “I will pin David to the wall!” David escaped from his presence twice.

Therefore Saul removed him from his presence, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people.

Saul said, “Tell David, ‘The king desires no dowry except one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies.’” Now Saul thought he would make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.

Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men.

Saul and his men went to seek him. When David was told, he went down to the rock, and stayed in the wilderness of Maon. When Saul heard that, he pursued David in the wilderness of Maon.

Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain; and David hurried to get away for fear of Saul, for Saul and his men surrounded David and his men to take them.

When Saul had returned from following the Philistines, he was told, “Behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi.”

Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men on the rocks of the wild goats.

He said, “Why does my lord pursue his servant? For what have I done? What evil is in my hand?

Now therefore, don’t let my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of the LORD; for the king of Israel has come out to seek a flea, as when one hunts a partridge in the mountains.”

Achish said, “Against whom have you made a raid today?” David said, “Against the South of Judah, against the South of the Jerahmeelites, and against the South of the Kenites.”

David saved neither man nor woman alive to bring them to Gath, saying, “Lest they should tell about us, saying, ‘David did this, and this has been his way all the time he has lived in the country of the Philistines.’”

Achish believed David, saying, “He has made his people Israel utterly to abhor him. Therefore he will be my servant forever.”

In those days, the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. Achish said to David, “Know assuredly that you will go out with me in the army, you and your men.”

The Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and encamped in Shunem; and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they encamped in Gilboa.

Moreover the LORD will deliver Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines; and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will deliver the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”

When David and his men had come to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid on the South and on Ziklag, and had struck Ziklag and burnt it with fire,

David asked him, “To whom do you belong? Where are you from?” He said, “I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite; and my master left me, because three days ago I got sick.

We made a raid on the South of the Cherethites, and on that which belongs to Judah, and on the South of Caleb; and we burnt Ziklag with fire.”

Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on Mount Gilboa.

The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.

The battle went hard against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers.

Then Saul said to his armour bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me!” But his armour bearer would not, for he was terrified. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell on it.

So Saul died with his three sons, his armour bearer, and all his men that same day together.

When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled; and the Philistines came and lived in them.

The young man who told him said, “As I happened by chance on Mount Gilboa, behold, Saul was leaning on his spear; and behold, the chariots and the horsemen followed close behind him.

Abner said to Joab, “Please let the young men arise and compete before us!” Joab said, “Let them arise!”

Then they arose and went over by number: twelve for Benjamin and for Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of David’s servants.

They each caught his opponent by the head and thrust his sword in his fellow’s side; so they fell down together. Therefore that place in Gibeon was called Helkath Hazzurim.

The battle was very severe that day; and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before David’s servants.

But David’s servants had struck Benjamin Abner’s men so that three hundred and sixty men died.

Now there was long war between Saul’s house and David’s house. David grew stronger and stronger, but Saul’s house grew weaker and weaker.

While there was war between Saul’s house and David’s house, Abner made himself strong in Saul’s house.

When Joab had come out from David, he sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the well of Sirah; but David didn’t know it.

Saul’s son had two men who were captains of raiding bands. The name of one was Baanah and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, of the children of Benjamin (for Beeroth also is considered a part of Benjamin;

and the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and have lived as foreigners there until today).

The sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went out and came at about the heat of the day to the house of Ishbosheth as he took his rest at noon.

They came there into the middle of the house as though they would have fetched wheat, and they struck him in the body; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped.

Now when they came into the house as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him, killed him, beheaded him, and took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night.

They brought the head of Ishbosheth to David to Hebron, and said to the king, “Behold, the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life! The LORD has avenged my lord the king today of Saul and of his offspring.”

David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said to them, “As the LORD lives, who has redeemed my soul out of all adversity,

The king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who spoke to David, saying, “The blind and the lame will keep you out of here,” thinking, “David can’t come in here.”

When the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines went up to seek David, but David heard about it and went down to the stronghold.

Now the Philistines had come and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim.

The Philistines came up yet again and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached for God’s ark and took hold of it, for the cattle stumbled.

The messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the field; and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate.

The shooters shot at your servants from off the wall; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.”

Two hundred men went with Absalom out of Jerusalem, who were invited, and went in their simplicity; and they didn’t know anything.

Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counsellor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he was offering the sacrifices. The conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually with Absalom.

A messenger came to David, saying, “The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom.”

David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, “Arise! Let’s flee, or else none of us will escape from Absalom. Hurry to depart, lest he overtake us quickly and bring down evil on us, and strike the city with the edge of the sword.”

The king went out, and all the people after him; and they stayed in Beth Merhak.

Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why do you also go with us? Return, and stay with the king; for you are a foreigner and also an exile. Return to your own place.

When King David came to Bahurim, behold, a man of the family of Saul’s house came out, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera. He came out and cursed as he came.

He cast stones at David and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left.

Shimei said when he cursed, “Be gone, be gone, you man of blood, and wicked fellow!

The LORD has returned on you all the blood of Saul’s house, in whose place you have reigned! The LORD has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son! Behold, you are caught by your own mischief, because you are a man of blood!”

Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head.”

The king said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? Because he curses, and because the LORD has said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’”

David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “Behold, my son, who came out of my bowels, seeks my life. How much more this Benjamite, now? Leave him alone, and let him curse; for the LORD has invited him.

It may be that the LORD will look on the wrong done to me, and that the LORD will repay me good for the cursing of me today.”

So David and his men went by the way; and Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went, threw stones at him, and threw dust.

Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me now choose twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David tonight.

I will come on him while he is weary and exhausted, and will make him afraid. All the people who are with him will flee. I will strike the king only,

Behold, he is now hidden in some pit, or in some other place. It will happen, when some of them have fallen at the first, that whoever hears it will say, ‘There is a slaughter amongst the people who follow Absalom!’

For the battle was there spread over the surface of all the country, and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.

Absalom happened to meet David’s servants. Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak; and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was hanging between the sky and earth; and the mule that was under him went on.

The Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. David grew faint;

and Ishbibenob, who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred shekels of bronze in weight, he being armed with a new sword, thought he would kill David.

There was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on every hand and six toes on every foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was born to the giant.

For the waves of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

The cords of Sheol were around me. The snares of death caught me.

After him was Eleazar the son of Dodai the son of an Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David when they defied the Philistines who were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel had gone away.

After him was Shammah the son of Agee a Hararite. The Philistines had gathered together into a troop where there was a plot of ground full of lentils; and the people fled from the Philistines.

Three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam; and the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim.

David was then in the stronghold; and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem.

Again the LORD’s anger burnt against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.”

“When the sky is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray towards this place and confess your name, and turn from their sin when you afflict them,

“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,

The LORD raised up an adversary to Solomon: Hadad the Edomite. He was one of the king’s offspring in Edom.

God raised up an adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada, who had fled from his lord, Hadadezer king of Zobah.

He was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, in addition to the mischief of Hadad. He abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria.

Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow, also lifted up his hand against the king.

This was the reason why he lifted up his hand against the king: Solomon built Millo, and repaired the breach of his father David’s city.

In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem;

and he took away the treasures of the LORD’s house and the treasures of the king’s house. He even took away all of it, including all the gold shields which Solomon had made.

There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.

There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not allow anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.

Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that was left in the treasures of the LORD’s house, and the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered it into the hand of his servants. Then King Asa sent them to Ben Hadad, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who lived at Damascus, saying,

Ben Hadad listened to King Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel, and struck Ijon, and Dan, and Abel Beth Maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali.

There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

Omri went up from Gibbethon, and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah.

When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the fortified part of the king’s house and burnt the king’s house over him with fire, and died,

Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts: half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath, to make him king, and half followed Omri.

After a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

After these things, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.

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

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.”

Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel to Mount Carmel, and four hundred and fifty of the prophets of Baal, and four hundred of the prophets of the Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

So Ahab sent to all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together to Mount Carmel.

Let them therefore give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under; and I will dress the other bull, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under it.

You call on the name of your god, and I will call on the LORD’s name. The God who answers by fire, let him be God.” All the people answered, “What you say is good.”

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves, and dress it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.”

They took the bull which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, “Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice, and nobody answered. They leapt about the altar which was made.

At noon, Elijah mocked them, and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is deep in thought, or he has gone somewhere, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he sleeps and must be awakened.”

They cried aloud, and cut themselves in their way with knives and lances until the blood gushed out on them.

Ben Hadad the king of Syria gathered all his army together; and there were thirty-two kings with him, with horses and chariots. He went up and besieged Samaria, and fought against it.

He sent messengers into the city to Ahab king of Israel and said to him, “Ben Hadad says,

‘Your silver and your gold are mine. Your wives also and your children, even the best, are mine.’”

The messengers came again and said, “Ben Hadad says, ‘I sent indeed to you, saying, “You shall deliver me your silver, your gold, your wives, and your children;

but I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, and they will search your house and the houses of your servants. Whatever is pleasant in your eyes, they will put it in their hand, and take it away.”’”

Therefore he said to the messengers of Ben Hadad, “Tell my lord the king, ‘All that you sent for to your servant at the first I will do, but this thing I cannot do.’” The messengers departed and brought him back the message.

Ben Hadad sent to him, and said, “The gods do so to me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria will be enough for handfuls for all the people who follow me.”

She wrote in the letters, saying, “Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high amongst the people.

Set two men, wicked fellows, before him, and let them testify against him, saying, ‘You cursed God and the king!’ Then carry him out, and stone him to death.”

The men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had instructed them in the letters which she had written and sent to them.

They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high amongst the people.

The two men, the wicked fellows, came in and sat before him. The wicked fellows testified against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king!” Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him to death with stones.

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?”

Say, ‘The king says, “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace.”’”

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will disguise myself and go into the battle, but you put on your robes.” The king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle.

Now the king of Syria had commanded the thirty-two captains of his chariots, saying, “Don’t fight with small nor great, except only with the king of Israel.”

When the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “Surely that is the king of Israel!” and they came over to fight against him. Jehoshaphat cried out.

When the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him.

A certain man drew his bow at random, and struck the king of Israel between the joints of the armour. Therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, “Turn around, and carry me out of the battle, for I am severely wounded.”

The battle increased that day. The king was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians, and died at evening. The blood ran out of the wound into the bottom of the chariot.

A cry went throughout the army about the going down of the sun, saying, “Every man to his city, and every man to his country!”

So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom, and they marched for seven days along a circuitous route. There was no water for the army or for the animals that followed them.

They beat down the cities; and on every good piece of land each man cast his stone, and filled it. They also stopped all the springs of water and cut down all the good trees, until in Kir Hareseth all they left was its stones; however the men armed with slings went around it and attacked it.

When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too severe for him, he took with him seven hundred men who drew a sword, to break through to the king of Edom; but they could not.

Then he took his oldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. There was great wrath against Israel; and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

When Elisha had come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and lying on his bed.

So they poured out for the men to eat. As they were eating some of the stew, they cried out and said, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.

The Syrians had gone out in bands, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little girl, and she waited on Naaman’s wife.

After this, Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.

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.

So we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.”

Then he said, “God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat stays on him today.”

While he was still talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him. Then he said, “Behold, this evil is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”

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 the LORD has called for a famine. It will also come on the land for seven years.”

“Now as soon as this letter comes to you, since your master’s sons are with you, and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city also, and armour,

select the best and fittest of your master’s sons, set him on his father’s throne, and fight for your master’s house.”

But they were exceedingly afraid, and said, “Behold, the two kings didn’t stand before him! How then shall we stand?”

Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying, “If you are on my side, and if you will listen to my voice, take the heads of the men who are your master’s sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time.” Now the king’s sons, being seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who brought them up.

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

from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan.

Then Hazael king of Syria went up and fought against Gath, and took it; and Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem.

Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own holy things, and all the gold that was found in the treasures of the LORD’s house, and of the king’s house, and sent it to Hazael king of Syria; and he went away from Jerusalem.

In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.

In those days, the LORD began to send Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah against Judah.

Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war. They besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him.

At that time Rezin king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria, and drove the Jews from Elath; and the Syrians came to Elath, and lived there to this day.

The king of Assyria discovered a conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him, and bound him in prison.

Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.

Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have offended you. Withdraw from me. That which you put on me, I will bear.” The king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

At that time, Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the LORD’s temple, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

The king of Assyria sent Tartan, Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field.

When they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came out to them.

Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?

You say (but they are but vain words), ‘There is counsel and strength for war.’ Now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

Now, behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt. If a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust on him.

But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?

Now therefore, please give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

Have I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? the LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”’”

They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.

When he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Behold, he has come out to fight against you,” he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,

“Tell Hezekiah king of Judah this: ‘Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Will you be delivered?

Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?’”

In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him.

The LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, bands of the Syrians, bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the LORD’s word which he spoke by his servants the prophets.

The king of Egypt didn’t come out of his land any more; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that belonged to the king of Egypt.

At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it,

and Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon—he, his mother, his servants, his princes, and his officers; and the king of Babylon captured him in the eighth year of his reign.

He carried out from there all the treasures of the LORD’s house and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the LORD’s temple, as the LORD had said.

He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. No one remained except the poorest people of the land.

He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the chief men of the land. He carried them into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

All the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it around it.

So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

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.

But the Chaldean army pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.

He burnt the LORD’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He burnt every great house with fire.

All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive the rest of the people who were left in the city and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the multitude.

The Chaldeans broke up the pillars of bronze that were in the LORD’s house and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the LORD’s house, and carried the bronze pieces to Babylon.

They took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered.

The captain of the guard took away the fire pans, the basins, that which was of gold, for gold, and that which was of silver, for silver.

Jehozadak went into captivity when the LORD carried Judah and Jerusalem away by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.

Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on Mount Gilboa.

The Philistines followed hard after Saul and after his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.

The battle went hard against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was distressed by reason of the archers.

Then Saul said to his armour bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me.” But his armour bearer would not, for he was terrified. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell on it.

When all the men of Israel who were in the valley saw that they fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and lived in them.

On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.

They stripped him and took his head and his armour, then sent into the land of the Philistines all around to carry the news to their idols and to the people.

They put his armour in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the house of Dagon.

Now the Philistines had come and made a raid in the valley of Rephaim.

The Philistines made another raid in the valley.

When the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David, Hanun and the children of Ammon sent one thousand talents of silver to hire chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, out of Aram-maacah, and out of Zobah.

So they hired for themselves thirty-two thousand chariots, and the king of Maacah with his people, who came and encamped near Medeba. The children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle.

When David heard of it, he sent Joab with all the army of the mighty men.

The children of Ammon came out, and put the battle in array at the gate of the city; and the kings who had come were by themselves in the field.

Now when Joab saw that the battle was set against him before and behind, he chose some of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians.

The rest of the people he committed into the hand of Abishai his brother; and they put themselves in array against the children of Ammon.

He said, “If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you are to help me; but if the children of Ammon are too strong for you, then I will help you.

When the Syrians saw that they were defeated by Israel, they sent messengers and called out the Syrians who were beyond the River, with Shophach the captain of the army of Hadadezer leading them.

either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days of the sword of the LORD, even pestilence in the land, and the LORD’s angel destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’”

“When the sky is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray towards this place and confess your name, and turn from their sin when you afflict them,

“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—

“If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to a land far off or near;

“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 amongst my people,

with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen. The people were without number who came with him out of Egypt: the Lubim, the Sukkiim, and the Ethiopians.

He took the fortified cities which belonged to Judah, and came to Jerusalem.

Now Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the princes of Judah, who were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, “The LORD says, ‘You have forsaken me, therefore I have also left you in the hand of Shishak.’”

Nevertheless they will be his servants, that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.”

So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem and took away the treasures of the LORD’s house and the treasures of the king’s house. He took it all away. He also took away the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

Worthless men were gathered to him, wicked fellows who strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tender hearted, and could not withstand them.

But Jeroboam caused an ambush to come about behind them; so they were before Judah, and the ambush was behind them.

When Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind them; and they cried to the LORD, and the priests sounded with the trumpets.

Abijah and his people killed them with a great slaughter, so five hundred thousand chosen men of Israel fell down slain.

Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million troops and three hundred chariots, and he came to Mareshah.

Then Asa went out to meet him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah.

In those times there was no peace to him who went out, nor to him who came in; but great troubles were on all the inhabitants of the lands.

They were broken in pieces, nation against nation, and city against city; for God troubled them with all adversity.

In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not allow anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will disguise myself, and go into the battle; but you put on your robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself; and they went into the battle.

Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of his chariots, saying, “Don’t fight with small nor great, except only with the king of Israel.”

When the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “It is the king of Israel!” Therefore they turned around to fight against him. But Jehoshaphat cried out, and the LORD helped him; and God moved them to depart from him.

When the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him.

A certain man drew his bow at random, and struck the king of Israel between the joints of the armour. Therefore he said to the driver of the chariot, “Turn around and carry me out of the battle, for I am severely wounded.”

The battle increased that day. However, the king of Israel propped himself up in his chariot against the Syrians until the evening; and at about sunset, he died.

After this, the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.

Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).

and they came up against Judah, broke into it, and carried away all the possessions that were found in the king’s house, including his sons and his wives, so that there was no son left to him except Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons.

In process of time, at the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness, and he died of severe diseases. His people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his place, because the band of men who came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the oldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned.

He also followed their counsel, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram.

He returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which they had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. Azariah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring of the house of Judah.

For again the Edomites had come and struck Judah, and carried away captives.

The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the lowland and of the South of Judah, and had taken Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and also Gimzo and its villages; and they lived there.

Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came to him and gave him trouble, but didn’t strengthen him.

In the time of his distress, he trespassed yet more against the LORD, this same King Ahaz.

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

After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, entered into Judah, encamped against the fortified cities, and intended to win them for himself.

When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that he was planning to fight against Jerusalem,

After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem, (now he was attacking Lachish, and all his forces were with him), to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were at Jerusalem, saying,

Sennacherib king of Assyria says, “In whom do you trust, that you remain under siege in Jerusalem?

Doesn’t Hezekiah persuade you to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, ‘The LORD our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria’?

Don’t you know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands in any way able to deliver their land out of my hand?

Who was there amongst all the gods of those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand?

However, concerning the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent to him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him to test him, that he might know all that was in his heart.

When he was in distress, he begged the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

Nebuchadnezzar also carried some of the vessels of the LORD’s house to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.

At the return of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, with the valuable vessels of the LORD’s house, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building.

They hired counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

In the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.

In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his companions wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in Syrian and delivered in the Syrian language.

Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows.

Then Rehum the chancellor, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions, the Dinaites, and the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Shushanchites, the Dehaites, the Elamites,

Then work stopped on God’s house which is at Jerusalem. It stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

At the same time Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, came to them, with Shetharbozenai and their companions, and asked them, “Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this wall?”

They also asked for the names of the men who were making this building.

They said to me, “The remnant who are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burnt with fire.”

But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite servant, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they ridiculed us and despised us, and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?”

But when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry, and was very indignant, and mocked the Jews.

He spoke before his brothers and the army of Samaria, and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, since they are burnt?”

Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, “What they are building, if a fox climbed up it, he would break down their stone wall.”

But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabians, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem went forward, and that the breaches began to be filled, they were very angry;

and they all conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem, and to cause confusion amongst us.

Judah said, “The strength of the bearers of burdens is fading and there is much rubble, so that we are not able to build the wall.”

Our adversaries said, “They will not know or see, until we come in amongst them and kill them, and cause the work to cease.”

I said to the nobles, and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread out, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another.

Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come! Let’s meet together in the villages in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to harm me.

They sent to me four times like this; and I answered them the same way.

Then Sanballat sent his servant to me the same way the fifth time with an open letter in his hand,

in which was written, “It is reported amongst the nations, and Gashmu says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel. Because of that, you are building the wall. You would be their king, according to these words.

You have also appointed prophets to proclaim of you at Jerusalem, saying, ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now it will be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let’s take counsel together.”

Then I sent to him, saying, “There are no such things done as you say, but you imagine them out of your own heart.”

Also they spoke of his good deeds before me, and reported my words to him. Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear.

who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives who had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away.

In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, and chose the twelfth month, which is the month Adar.

Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed amongst the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws are different from other people’s. They don’t keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not for the king’s profit to allow them to remain.

If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who are in charge of the king’s business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.”

The king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ enemy.

The king said to Haman, “The silver is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.”

Then the king’s scribes were called in on the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month; and all that Haman commanded was written to the king’s local governors, and to the governors who were over every province, and to the princes of every people, to every province according to its writing, and to every people in their language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus, and it was sealed with the king’s ring.

because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast “Pur”, that is the lot, to consume them and to destroy them;

But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.”

The LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burnt up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.”

because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither do I have rest; but trouble comes.”

But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.

whose harvest the hungry eat up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance.

For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground;

but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away;

In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.

The caravans that travel beside them turn away. They go up into the waste, and perish.

The caravans of Tema looked. The companies of Sheba waited for them.

They were distressed because they were confident. They came there, and were confounded.

“Isn’t a man forced to labour on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand?

so I am made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.

My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good.

The eye of him who sees me will see me no more. Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be.

As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more.

He will return no more to his house, neither will his place know him any more.

that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?

If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?

If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent.

The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If not he, then who is it?

“Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away. They see no good.

They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.

You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me.

In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips.

Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand?

Behold, he will kill me. I have no hope. Nevertheless, I will maintain my ways before him.

You also put my feet in the stocks, and mark all my paths. You set a bound to the soles of my feet,

though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.

He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.

Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgement with you?

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can’t pass.

Look away from him, that he may rest, until he accomplishes, as a hireling, his day.

“For there is hope for a tree if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease.

Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground,

The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man.

You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away.

But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”

He will not depart out of darkness. The flame will dry up his branches. He will go away by the breath of God’s mouth.

It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green.

He will shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and will cast off his flower as the olive tree.

But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made all my company desolate.

You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.

He has torn me in his wrath and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.

God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.

His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my bile on the ground.

He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs at me like a giant.

For when a few years have come, I will go the way of no return.

Upright men will be astonished at this. The innocent will stir himself up against the godless.

My days are past. My plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.

They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.

If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’

where then is my hope? As for my hope, who will see it?

Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”

For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh.

A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him.

A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him on the path.

Terrors will make him afraid on every side, and will chase him at his heels.

His strength will be famished. Calamity will be ready at his side.

The members of his body will be devoured. The firstborn of death will devour his members.

There will dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulphur will be scattered on his habitation.

His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above.

His memory will perish from the earth. He will have no name in the street.

He will be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

He will have neither son nor grandson amongst his people, nor any remaining where he lived.

“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?

If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach,

know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.

He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.

He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.

He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. He has plucked my hope up like a tree.

He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me amongst his adversaries.

His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.

He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him.

All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire will devour him. It will consume that which is left in his tent.

The heavens will reveal his iniquity. The earth will rise up against him.

The increase of his house will depart. They will rush away in the day of his wrath.

This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”

As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?

that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, that they are led out to the day of wrath?

or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you.

Will you keep the old way, which wicked men have trodden,

who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream,

But he knows the way that I take. When he has tried me, I will come out like gold.

They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain.

If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?”

“How have you helped him who is without power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength!

Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him?

If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword. His offspring will not be satisfied with bread.

Those who remain of him will be buried in death. His widows will make no lamentation.

The east wind carries him away, and he departs. It sweeps him out of his place.

For it hurls at him, and does not spare, as he flees away from his hand.

For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me.

On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet. They cast their ways of destruction up against me.

They mar my path. They promote my destruction without anyone’s help.

As through a wide breach they come. They roll themselves in amid the ruin.

“Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold of me.

In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.

My garment is disfigured by great force. It binds me about as the collar of my tunic.

He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes.

You have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of your hand you persecute me.

You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it. You dissolve me in the storm.

“However doesn’t one stretch out a hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?

When I looked for good, then evil came. When I waited for light, darkness came.

My heart is troubled, and doesn’t rest. Days of affliction have come on me.

My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burnt with heat.

for it is a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase.

Yes, I gave you my full attention, but there was no one who convinced Job, or who answered his words, amongst you.

for he has not directed his words against me; neither will I answer him with your speeches.

“They are amazed. They answer no more. They don’t have a word to say.

Shall I wait, because they don’t speak, because they stand still, and answer no more?

Behold, my breast is as wine which has no vent; like new wineskins it is ready to burst.

Behold, he finds occasions against me. He counts me for his enemy.

He puts my feet in the stocks. He marks all my paths.’

“He is chastened also with pain on his bed, with continual strife in his bones,

What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water,

In a moment they die, even at midnight. The people are shaken and pass away. The mighty are taken away without a hand.

He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others;

I wish that Job were tried to the end, because of his answering like wicked men.

If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions,

They die in youth. Their life perishes amongst the unclean.

“But you are full of the judgement of the wicked. Judgement and justice take hold of you.

Would your wealth sustain you in distress, or all the might of your strength?

which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?

A Psalm by David, when he fled from Absalom his son. LORD, how my adversaries have increased! Many are those who rise up against me.

Many there are who say of my soul, “There is no help for him in God.” Selah.

let the enemy pursue my soul, and overtake it; yes, let him tread my life down to the earth, and lay my glory in the dust. Selah.

The LORD will also be a high tower for the oppressed; a high tower in times of trouble.

He lurks in secret as a lion in his ambush. He lies in wait to catch the helpless. He catches the helpless when he draws him in his net.

The helpless are crushed. They collapse. They fall under his strength.

lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him;” lest my adversaries rejoice when I fall.

They have now surrounded us in our steps. They set their eyes to cast us down to the earth.

He is like a lion that is greedy of his prey, as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.

The cords of Sheol were around me. The snares of death came on me.

They came on me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my support.

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high,

All those who see me mock me. They insult me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying,

“He trusts in the LORD. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, since he delights in him.”

Don’t be far from me, for trouble is near. For there is no one to help.

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

They open their mouths wide against me, lions tearing prey and roaring.

I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought me into the dust of death.

For in the day of trouble, he will keep me secretly in his pavilion. In the secret place of his tabernacle, he will hide me. He will lift me up on a rock.

Don’t deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen up against me, such as breathe out cruelty.

For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.

Unrighteous witnesses rise up. They ask me about things that I don’t know about.

But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease.

Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me.

Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my soul from their destruction, my precious life from the lions.

For your arrows have pierced me, your hand presses hard on me.

They also who seek after my life lay snares. Those who seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and meditate deceits all day long.

But I, as a deaf man, don’t hear. I am as a mute man who doesn’t open his mouth.

Yes, I am as a man who doesn’t hear, in whose mouth are no reproofs.

For I said, “Don’t let them gloat over me, or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips.”

For I am ready to fall. My pain is continually before me.

But my enemies are vigorous and many. Those who hate me without reason are numerous.

“An evil disease”, they say, “has afflicted him. Now that he lies he shall rise up no more.”

Yes, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me.

Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.

But now you rejected us, and brought us to dishonour, and don’t go out with our armies.

You make us turn back from the adversary. Those who hate us take plunder for themselves.

You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us amongst the nations.

You sell your people for nothing, and have gained nothing from their sale.

You make us a reproach to our neighbours, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us.

You make us a byword amongst the nations, a shaking of the head amongst the peoples.

All day long my dishonour is before me, and shame covers my face,

at the taunt of one who reproaches and verbally abuses, because of the enemy and the avenger.

though you have crushed us in the haunt of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death.

Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.

For our soul is bowed down to the dust. Our body clings to the earth.

though its waters roar and are troubled, though the mountains tremble with their swelling. Selah.

My enemies want to swallow me up all day long, for they are many who fight proudly against me.

My soul is amongst lions. I lie amongst those who are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.

They have prepared a net for my steps. My soul is bowed down. They dig a pit before me. They fall into the middle of it themselves. Selah.

For, behold, they lie in wait for my soul. The mighty gather themselves together against me, not for my disobedience, nor for my sin, LORD.

I have done no wrong, yet they are ready to attack me. Rise up, behold, and help me!

For the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips, let them be caught in their pride, for the curses and lies which they utter.

They shall wander up and down for food, and wait all night if they aren’t satisfied.

For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “The Lily of the Covenant.” A teaching poem by David, when he fought with Aram Naharaim and with Aram Zobah, and Joab returned, and killed twelve thousand of Edom in the Valley of Salt. God, you have rejected us. You have broken us down. You have been angry. Restore us, again.

You have made the land tremble. You have torn it. Mend its fractures, for it quakes.

You have shown your people hard things. You have made us drink the wine that makes us stagger.

How long will you assault a man? Would all of you throw him down, like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence?

They fully intend to throw him down from his lofty place. They delight in lies. They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah.

But those who seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth.

They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be jackal food.

to shoot innocent men from ambushes. They shoot at him suddenly and fearlessly.

They encourage themselves in evil plans. They talk about laying snares secretly. They say, “Who will see them?”

They plot injustice, saying, “We have made a perfect plan!” Surely man’s mind and heart are cunning.

For you, God, have tested us. You have refined us, as silver is refined.

You brought us into prison. You laid a burden on our backs.

You allowed men to ride over our heads. We went through fire and through water, but you brought us to the place of abundance.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

They also gave me poison for my food. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.

You, who have shown us many and bitter troubles, you will let me live. You will bring us up again from the depths of the earth.

But as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For all day long I have been plagued, and punished every morning.

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!

he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink.

He sent amongst them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.

He also gave their increase to the caterpillar, and their labour to the locust.

He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.

He also gave over their livestock to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil.

He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,

and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.

You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in large measure.

You make us a source of contention to our neighbours. Our enemies laugh amongst themselves.

The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it.

It’s burnt with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke.

You called in trouble, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah.” Selah.

They conspire with cunning against your people. They plot against your cherished ones.

“Come,” they say, “let’s destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”

For they have conspired together with one mind. They form an alliance against you.

The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab, and the Hagrites;

Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;

Assyria also is joined with them. They have helped the children of Lot. Selah.

In the day of my trouble I will call on you, for you will answer me.

God, the proud have risen up against me. A company of violent men have sought after my soul, and they don’t hold regard for you before them.

For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol.

You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves. Selah.

Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off.

They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me.

You have broken down all his hedges. You have brought his strongholds to ruin.

All who pass by the way rob him. He has become a reproach to his neighbours.

You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries. You have made all of his enemies rejoice.

Yes, you turn back the edge of his sword, and haven’t supported him in battle.

You have shortened the days of his youth. You have covered him with shame. Selah.

With which your enemies have mocked, LORD, with which they have mocked the footsteps of your anointed one.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen evil.

My eye has also seen my enemies. My ears have heard of the wicked enemies who rise up against me.

The floods have lifted up, LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice. The floods lift up their waves.

Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,

when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my work.

For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burnt as a torch.

My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.

By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin.

My enemies reproach me all day. Those who are mad at me use my name as a curse.

He weakened my strength along the course. He shortened my days.

He called for a famine on the land. He destroyed the food supplies.

He sent a man before them. Joseph was sold for a slave.

They bruised his feet with shackles. His neck was locked in irons,

He turned their waters into blood, and killed their fish.

Their land swarmed with frogs, even in the rooms of their kings.

He spoke, and swarms of flies came, and lice in all their borders.

He gave them hail for rain, with lightning in their land.

He struck their vines and also their fig trees, and shattered the trees of their country.

but gave in to craving in the desert, and tested God in the wasteland.

They angered him also at the waters of Meribah, so that Moses was troubled for their sakes;

They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way. They found no city to live in.

Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.

Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron,

Therefore he brought down their heart with labour. They fell down, and there was no one to help.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.

Fools are afflicted because of their disobedience, and because of their iniquities.

Their soul abhors all kinds of food. They draw near to the gates of death.

Then they cry to the LORD in their trouble, and he saves them out of their distresses.

They mount up to the sky; they go down again to the depths. Their soul melts away because of trouble.

They reel back and forth, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.

Then they cry to the LORD in their trouble, and he brings them out of their distress.

Again, they are diminished and bowed down through oppression, trouble, and sorrow.

for they have opened the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit against me. They have spoken to me with a lying tongue.

They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause.

In return for my love, they are my adversaries; but I am in prayer.

Let his days be few. Let another take his office.

My knees are weak through fasting. My body is thin and lacks fat.

The cords of death surrounded me, the pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.

I believed, therefore I said, “I was greatly afflicted.”

The ropes of the wicked bind me, but I won’t forget your law.

My soul is continually in my hand, yet I won’t forget your law.

Trouble and anguish have taken hold of me. Your commandments are my delight.

I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.

then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul.

Then the proud waters would have gone over our soul.

A Song of Ascents. Many times they have afflicted me from my youth up. Let Israel now say:

For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

Though I walk in the middle of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies. Your right hand will save me.

those who devise mischief in their hearts. They continually gather themselves together for war.

They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent. Viper’s poison is under their lips. Selah.

The proud have hidden a snare for me, they have spread the cords of a net by the path. They have set traps for me. Selah.

when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you.

you are trapped by the words of your mouth; you are ensnared with the words of your mouth.

for she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty army.

Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the rooms of death.

A righteous person is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked takes his place.

All the days of the afflicted are wretched, but one who has a cheerful heart enjoys a continual feast.

The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the hearts.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?

Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will imagine confusing things.

Yes, you will be as he who lies down in the middle of the sea, or as he who lies on top of the rigging:

“They hit me, and I was not hurt! They beat me, and I don’t feel it! When will I wake up? I can do it again. I will look for more.”

If you falter in the time of trouble, your strength is small.

for a righteous man falls seven times and rises up again, but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

for their calamity will rise suddenly. Who knows what destruction may come from them both?

Confidence in someone unfaithful in time of trouble is like a bad tooth or a lame foot.

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace for gold; but man is refined by his praise.

I have seen the burden which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.

I said in my heart, “As for the sons of men, God tests them, so that they may see that they themselves are like animals.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; yes, God has made the one side by side with the other, to the end that man should not find out anything after him.

For man also doesn’t know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.

There was a little city, and few men within it; and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it.

He who digs a pit may fall into it; and whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake.

Whoever carves out stones may be injured by them. Whoever splits wood may be endangered by it.

Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war.

Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread, and wear our own clothing. Just let us be called by your name. Take away our reproach.”

In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

David’s house was told, “Syria is allied with Ephraim.” His heart trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind.

Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have plotted evil against you, saying,

“Let’s go up against Judah, and tear it apart, and let’s divide it amongst ourselves, and set up a king within it, even the son of Tabeel.”

He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he will be a stumbling stone and a rock that makes them fall. For the people of Jerusalem, he will be a trap and a snare.

Many will stumble over it, fall, be broken, be snared, and be captured.”

Manasseh eating Ephraim and Ephraim eating Manasseh, and they together will be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

They will only bow down under the prisoners, and will fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation!

I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

However, he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.

This very day he will halt at Nob. He shakes his hand at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by the Mighty One.

In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.

In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

Ah, the uproar of many peoples who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!

In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it;

The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.

A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.

You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.

The burden on Arabia. You will lodge in the thickets in Arabia, you caravans of Dedanites.

For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.

For the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,

and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken it.”

The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops?

You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town, your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.

All your rulers fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away.

For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, the LORD of Armies, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.”

Elam carried his quiver, with chariots of men and horsemen; and Kir uncovered the shield.

Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate.

You saw the breaches of David’s city, that they were many; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool.

You counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.

Pass through your land like the Nile, daughter of Tarshish. There is no restraint any more.

It will happen that he who flees from the noise of the fear will fall into the pit; and he who comes up out of the middle of the pit will be taken in the snare; for the windows on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

LORD, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before you, LORD.

We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

Therefore the LORD’s word will be to them precept on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, fall backward, be broken, be snared, and be taken.

“Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and we are in agreement with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it won’t come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and we have hidden ourselves under falsehood.’”

The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, will be like a dream, a vision of the night.

It will be like when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his hunger isn’t satisfied; or like when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and behold, he is faint, and he is still thirsty. The multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion will be like that.

Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

For the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers.

therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work amongst this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden.”

The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people.

For days beyond a year you will be troubled, you careless women; for the vintage will fail. The harvest won’t come.

Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway.

Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to give birth.

‘They will take away your sons who will issue from you, whom you shall father, and they will be eunuchs in the king of Babylon’s palace.’”

Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall;

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burnt, and flame will not scorch you.

“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.

Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers.

But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day: the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments.

“Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have laboured from your youth, as if you might profit, as if you might prevail.

You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you.

Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow bronze;

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.

“Therefore I will yet contend with you,” says the LORD, “and I will contend with your children’s children.

Is Israel a slave? Is he born into slavery? Why has he become a captive?

As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so the house of Israel is ashamed— they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets,

who tell wood, ‘You are my father,’ and a stone, ‘You have given birth to me,’ for they have turned their back to me, and not their face, but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise, and save us!’

“But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble, for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.

Why do you go about so much to change your ways? You will be ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria.

You will also leave that place with your hands on your head; for the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you won’t prosper with them.

“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.

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.

Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says the LORD. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say.

Their quiver is an open tomb. They are all mighty men.

They will eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They will eat up your flocks and your herds. They will eat up your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword.

“Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the middle of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem, for evil looks out from the north with a great destruction.

I will cut off the beautiful and delicate one, the daughter of Zion.

Shepherds with their flocks will come to her. They will pitch their tents against her all around. They will feed everyone in his place.”

“Prepare war against her! Arise! Let’s go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

Arise! Let’s go up by night, and let’s destroy her palaces.”

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

As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness. Violence and destruction is heard in her. Sickness and wounds are continually before me.

Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”

The LORD of Armies says, “They will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.”

Their houses will be turned to others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land, says the LORD.”

“For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness. From the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they will fall amongst those who fall. When I visit them, they will be cast down,” says the LORD.

Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

Therefore The LORD says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together will stumble against them. The neighbour and his friend will perish.”

The LORD says, “Behold, a people comes from the north country. A great nation will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.

They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.”

Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves committing iniquity.

Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says the LORD.

Therefore the LORD of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart, he waits to ambush him.

Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on a nation such as this?

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burnt up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,

but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”

For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

Speak, “The LORD 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.’”

Gather up your wares out of the land, you who live under siege.

For the LORD says, “Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.”

But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter. I didn’t know that they had devised plans against me, saying, “Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit, and let’s cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.”

“Therefore the LORD says concerning the men of Anathoth, who seek your life, saying, ‘You shall not prophesy in the LORD’s name, that you not die by our hand’—

But you, LORD, know me. You see me, and test my heart towards you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.

“If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? Though in a land of peace you are secure, yet how will you do in the pride of the Jordan?

They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns. They have exhausted themselves, and profit nothing. You will be ashamed of your fruits, because of the LORD’s fierce anger.”

What will you say when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?

If you say in your heart, “Why have these things come on me?” Your skirts are uncovered because of the greatness of your iniquity, and your heels suffer violence.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.

This is the LORD’s word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:

“Judah mourns, and its gates languish. They sit in black on the ground. The cry of Jerusalem goes up.

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.

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

Yes, the doe in the field also calves and forsakes her young, because there is no grass.

The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation.

“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says the LORD, “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.

For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land.

I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy. I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

Then they said, “Come! Let’s devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law won’t perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let’s strike him with the tongue, and let’s not give heed to any of his words.”

Give heed to me, LORD, and listen to the voice of those who contend with me.

Let a cry be heard from their houses when you bring a troop suddenly on them; for they have dug a pit to take me and hidden snares for my feet.

“‘“I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.

I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.

I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.”’

and shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies says: “Even so I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t be made whole again. They will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury.

I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence amongst them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”

“‘“‘It will happen that I will punish the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,’ says the LORD, ‘with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

for they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, so that I would drive you out, and you would perish.

Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?

which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon didn’t take when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem—

The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, of evil, and of pestilence.

the LORD of Armies says: “Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can’t be eaten, they are so bad.

Hear therefore the LORD’s word, all you captives whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon.

The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and concerning Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you in my name: “Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he will kill them before your eyes.

A curse will be taken up about them by all the captives of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, ‘The LORD make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire;’

Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it! It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he will be saved out of it.

For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, and say, ‘The LORD says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it;

and Zedekiah king of Judah won’t escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes will see his eyes;

and he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him,” says the LORD, “though you fight with the Chaldeans, you will not prosper”’?”

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, with all his army, all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his dominion, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and against all its cities, saying:

“The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Go, and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, the LORD says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon and he will burn it with fire.

You won’t escape out of his hand, but will surely be taken and delivered into his hand. Your eyes will see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he will speak with you mouth to mouth. You will go to Babylon.”’

when the king of Babylon’s army was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these alone remained of the cities of Judah as fortified cities.

Concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, ‘The LORD says: “You have burnt this scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written therein, saying, “The king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cause to cease from there man and animal”?’”

Pharaoh’s army had come out of Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news of them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.

When Jeremiah had come into the dungeon house and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days,

Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah spoke to all the people, saying,

Then they took Jeremiah and threw him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king’s son, that was in the court of the guard. They let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.

In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and besieged it.

In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city.

All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate: Nergal Sharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim the Rabsaris, Nergal Sharezer the Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.

When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled and went out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls; and he went out towards the Arabah.

But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. When they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgement on him.

Then the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in Riblah before his eyes. The king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah.

Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

The Chaldeans burnt the king’s house and the people’s houses with fire and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the rest of the people who remained.

“Go, and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, ‘The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will bring my words on this city for evil, and not for good; and they will be accomplished before you in that day.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains amongst all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were carried away captive to Babylon.

Then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah arose, and the ten men who were with him, and struck Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword and killed him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land.

then it will happen that the sword, which you fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, will follow close behind you there in Egypt; and you will die there.

So will it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there. They will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. None of them will remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.’

Now therefore know certainly that you will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live.”

“Don’t let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape. In the north by the river Euphrates they have stumbled and fallen.

The nations have heard of your shame, and the earth is full of your cry; for the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty, they both fall together.”

The word that the LORD spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt:

“Declare in Egypt, publish in Migdol, and publish in Memphis and in Tahpanhes; say, ‘Stand up, and prepare, for the sword has devoured around you.’

“Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his dregs, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone into captivity; therefore his taste remains in him, and his scent is not changed.

Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will send to him those who pour off, and they will pour him off; and they will empty his vessels, and break their containers in pieces.

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 the LORD of Armies.

“The calamity of Moab is near to come, and his affliction hurries fast.

“You daughter who dwells in Dibon, come down from your glory, and sit in thirst; for the destroyer of Moab has come up against you. He has destroyed your strongholds.

Inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and watch. Ask him who flees, and her who escapes; say, ‘What has been done?’

“Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste! Cry, you daughters of Rabbah! Clothe yourself in sackcloth. Lament, and run back and forth amongst the fences; for Malcam will go into captivity, his priests and his princes together.

Why do you boast in the valleys, your flowing valley, backsliding daughter? You trusted in her treasures, saying, ‘Who will come to me?’

Behold, I will bring a terror on you,” says the Lord, the LORD of Armies, “from all who are around you. All of you will be driven completely out, and there will be no one to gather together the fugitives.

Of Edom, the LORD of Armies says: “Is wisdom no more in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom vanished?

Flee! Turn back! Dwell in the depths, inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau on him when I visit him.

If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? If thieves came by night, wouldn’t they steal until they had enough?

But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he will not be able to hide himself. His offspring is destroyed, with his brothers and his neighbours; and he is no more.

For the LORD says: “Behold, they to whom it didn’t pertain to drink of the cup will certainly drink; and are you he who will altogether go unpunished? You won’t go unpunished, but you will surely drink.

A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction.

I have laid a snare for you, and you are also taken, Babylon, and you weren’t aware. You are found, and also caught, because you have fought against the LORD.

Come against her from the farthest border. Open her storehouses. Cast her up as heaps. Destroy her utterly. Let nothing of her be left.

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

“Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp against her all around. Let none of it escape. Pay her back according to her work. According to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says the LORD.

“Behold, I am against you, you proud one,” says the Lord, the LORD of Armies; “for your day has come, the time that I will visit you.

The proud one will stumble and fall, and no one will raise him up. I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour all who are around him.”

The LORD of Armies says: “The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together. All who took them captive hold them fast. They refuse to let them go.

I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around.

In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about.

So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city 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 all around. The men of war went towards the Arabah,

but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.

Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgement on him.

He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.

Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem.

All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.

The Chaldeans broke the pillars of bronze that were in the LORD’s house and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the LORD’s house in pieces, and carried all of their bronze to Babylon.

They also took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered.

The captain of the guard took away the cups, the fire pans, the basins, the pots, the lamp stands, the spoons, and the bowls; that which was of gold, as gold, and that which was of silver, as silver.

They took the two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which King Solomon had made for the LORD’s house. The bronze of all these vessels was without weight.

Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells amongst the nations. She finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her in her distress.

He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.

He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked.

He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.

He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.

He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood.

He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.

Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness.

My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.

Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.”

They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.

They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.

Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.”

the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long.

You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.

How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how they are esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

Even the jackals offer their breast. They nurse their young ones. But the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace dunghills.

For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment. No hands were laid on her.

Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like wood.

Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field.

The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

The LORD has accomplished his wrath. He has poured out his fierce anger. He has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations.

The kings of the earth didn’t believe, neither did all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.

It is because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the middle of her.

They wander as blind men in the streets. They are polluted with blood, So that men can’t touch their garments.

“Go away!” they cried to them. “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said amongst the nations, “They can’t live here any more.”

The LORD’s anger has scattered them. He will not pay attention to them any more. They didn’t respect the persons of the priests. They didn’t favour the elders.

Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

They hunt our steps, so that we can’t go in our streets. Our end is near. Our days are fulfilled, for our end has come.

Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They chased us on the mountains. They set an ambush for us in the wilderness.

We must pay for water to drink. Our wood is sold to us.

Our pursuers are on our necks. We are weary, and have no rest.

We have given our hands to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

But you, son of man, behold, they will put ropes on you, and will bind you with them, and you will not go out amongst them.

I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be mute and will not be able to correct them, for they are a rebellious house.

“‘The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within. He who is in the field will die by the sword. He who is in the city will be devoured by famine and pestilence.

They will cast their silver in the streets, and their gold will be as an unclean thing. Their silver and their gold won’t be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath. They won’t satisfy their souls or fill their bellies; because it has been the stumbling block of their iniquity.

I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder; and they will profane it.

Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they will possess their houses. I will also make the pride of the strong to cease. Their holy places will be profaned.

Destruction comes! They will seek peace, and there will be none.

Mischief will come on mischief, and rumour will be on rumour. They will seek a vision of the prophet; but the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

The king will mourn, and the prince will be clothed with desolation. The hands of the people of the land will be troubled. I will do to them after their way, and according to their own judgements I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’”

Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire has devoured both its ends, and the middle of it is burnt. Is it profitable for any work?

Behold, when it was whole, it was suitable for no work. How much less, when the fire has devoured it, and it has been burnt, will it yet be suitable for any work?”

Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company won’t help him in the war, when they cast up mounds and build forts to cut off many persons.

I will spread my net on him, and he will be taken in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, and will enter into judgement with him there for his trespass that he has trespassed against me.

All his fugitives in all his bands will fall by the sword, and those who remain will be scattered towards every wind. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken it.’

But it was plucked up in fury. It was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit. Its strong branches were broken off and withered. The fire consumed them.

Now it is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land.

Fire has gone out of its branches. It has devoured its fruit, so that there is in it no strong branch to be a sceptre to rule.’ This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.”

Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them amongst the nations and disperse them through the countries,

Moreover also I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances in which they couldn’t live.

I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgement with you face to face.

Just as I entered into judgement with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgement with you,” says the Lord GOD.

“For there is a trial. What if even the rod that condemns will be no more?” says the Lord GOD.

I will scatter you amongst the nations, and disperse you through the countries. I will purge your filthiness out of you.

“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.

Therefore the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the middle of Jerusalem.

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.

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.

The company will stone them with stones and dispatch them with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.

By reason of the abundance of his horses, their dust will cover you. Your walls will shake at the noise of the horsemen, of the wagons, and of the chariots, when he enters into your gates, as men enter into a city which is broken open.

He will tread down all your streets with the hoofs of his horses. He will kill your people with the sword. The pillars of your strength will go down to the ground.

They will make a plunder of your riches and make a prey of your merchandise. They will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses. They will lay your stones, your timber, and your dust in the middle of the waters.

I will cause the noise of your songs to cease. The sound of your harps won’t be heard any more.

I will make you a bare rock. You will be a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built no more; for I the LORD have spoken it,’ says the Lord GOD.

They will take up a lamentation over you, and tell you, “How you are destroyed, who were inhabited by seafaring men, the renowned city, who was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who caused their terror to be on all who lived there!”

“For the Lord GOD says: ‘When I make you a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the deep on you, and the great waters cover you,

Your rowers have brought you into great waters. The east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas.

Your riches, your wares, your merchandise, your mariners, your pilots, your repairers of ship seams, the dealers in your merchandise, and all your men of war who are in you, with all your company which is amongst you, will fall into the heart of the seas in the day of your ruin.

In the time that you were broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters, your merchandise and all your company fell within you.

When they took hold of you by your hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders. When they leaned on you, you broke and paralysed all of their thighs.”

No foot of man will pass through it, nor will any animal foot pass through it. It won’t be inhabited for forty years.

I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the middle of the countries that are desolate. Her cities amongst the cities that are laid waste will be a desolation forty years. I will scatter the Egyptians amongst the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.”

“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre. Every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet he had no wages, nor did his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it.

I will set a fire in Egypt Sin will be in great anguish. No will be broken up. Memphis will have adversaries in the daytime.

The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth will fall by the sword. They will go into captivity.

At Tehaphnehes also the day will withdraw itself, when I break the yokes of Egypt there. The pride of her power will cease in her. As for her, a cloud will cover her, and her daughters will go into captivity.

therefore prophesy, and say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Because, even because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that you might be a possession to the residue of the nations, and you are taken up in the lips of talkers, and the evil report of the people;”

therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD: The Lord GOD says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which have become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are all around;

You will ascend. You will come like a storm. You will be like a cloud to cover the land, you and all your hordes, and many peoples with you.”

Sheba, Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all its young lions, will ask you, ‘Have you come to take the plunder? Have you assembled your company to take the prey, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’”’

You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you, and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.

You will come up against my people Israel as a cloud to cover the land. It will happen in the latter days that I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me when I am sanctified in you, Gog, before their eyes.”

For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath I have spoken. Surely in that day there will be a great shaking in the land of Israel,

so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals of the field, all creeping things who creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface of the earth will shake at my presence. Then the mountains will be thrown down, the steep places will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground.

I will call for a sword against him to all my mountains,” says the Lord GOD. “Every man’s sword will be against his brother.

I will enter into judgement with him with pestilence and with blood. I will rain on him, on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, torrential rains with great hailstones, fire, and sulphur.

“You, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Behold, I am against you, Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he carried them into the land of Shinar to the house of his god. He brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.

The king spoke to Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring in some of the children of Israel, even of the royal offspring and of the nobles:

The king appointed for them a daily portion of the king’s delicacies and of the wine which he drank, and that they should be nourished three years, that at its end they should stand before the king.

Now amongst these of the children of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

The prince of the eunuchs gave names to them: to Daniel he gave the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.

The prince of the eunuchs said to Daniel, “I fear my lord the king, who has appointed your food and your drink. For why should he see your faces worse looking than the youths who are of your own age? Then you would endanger my head with the king.”

“Test your servants, I beg you, ten days; and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink.

So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days.

Because of this, the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed.

So the decree went out, and the wise men were to be slain. They sought Daniel and his companions to be slain.

Then Daniel returned answer with counsel and prudence to Arioch the captain of the king’s guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon.

He answered Arioch the king’s captain, “Why is the decree so urgent from the king?” Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.

Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would appoint him a time, and he would show the king the interpretation.

Then Daniel went to his house and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:

that they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret, that Daniel and his companions would not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and fury commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. Then these men were brought before the king.

Nebuchadnezzar answered them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don’t serve my gods and you don’t worship the golden image which I have set up?

Now if you are ready whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image which I have made, good; but if you don’t worship, you shall be cast the same hour into the middle of a burning fiery furnace. Who is that god who will deliver you out of my hands?”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

If it happens, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.

But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.”

Then Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the form of his appearance was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He spoke, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated.

He commanded certain mighty men who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.

Then these men were bound in their pants, their tunics, and their mantles, and their other clothes, and were cast into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.

Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent and the furnace exceedingly hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.

I saw a dream which made me afraid; and the thoughts on my bed and the visions of my head troubled me.

Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let an animal’s heart be given to him. Then let seven times pass over him.

You will be driven from men and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. You will be made to eat grass as oxen, and will be wet with the dew of the sky, and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will.

You shall be driven from men, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like oxen. Seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will.’”

This was fulfilled the same hour on Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men and ate grass like oxen; and his body was wet with the dew of the sky until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.

But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.

He was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the animals’, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky, until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he sets up over it whomever he will.

All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the local governors, the counsellors and the governors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a strong decree, that whoever asks a petition of any god or man for thirty days, except of you, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.

Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, that it not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn’t alter.”

Therefore King Darius signed the writing and the decree.

Then they came near, and spoke before the king concerning the king’s decree: “Haven’t you signed a decree that every man who makes a petition to any god or man within thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered, “This thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn’t alter.”

Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.”

A stone was brought, and laid on the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.

“After this I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there was a fourth animal, awesome, powerful, and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth. It devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet. It was different from all the animals that were before it. It had ten horns.

“I considered the horns, and behold, there came up amongst them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots; and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking arrogantly.

“I watched at that time because of the voice of the arrogant words which the horn spoke. I watched even until the animal was slain, and its body destroyed, and it was given to be burnt with fire.

I saw, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them,

He will speak words against the Most High, and will wear out the saints of the Most High. He will plan to change the times and the law; and they will be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time.

Out of one of them came out a little horn which grew exceedingly great—towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the glorious land.

It grew great, even to the army of the sky; and it cast down some of the army and of the stars to the ground and trampled on them.

Yes, it magnified itself, even to the prince of the army; and it took away from him the continual burnt offering, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

The army was given over to it together with the continual burnt offering through disobedience. It cast down truth to the ground, and it did its pleasure and prospered.

“Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times.

After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing. The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined.

He will make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate; and even to the decreed full end, wrath will be poured out on the desolate.”

When he stands up, his kingdom will be broken and will be divided towards the four winds of the sky, but not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion with which he ruled; for his kingdom will be plucked up, even for others besides these.

At the end of years they will join themselves together; and the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to make an agreement, but she will not retain the strength of her arm. He will also not stand, nor will his arm; but she will be given up, with those who brought her, and he who became the father of her, and he who strengthened her in those times.

His sons will wage war, and will assemble a multitude of great forces which will come on, and overflow, and pass through. They will return and wage war, even to his fortress.

“The king of the south will be moved with anger and will come out and fight with him, even with the king of the north. He will send out a great multitude, and the multitude will be given into his hand.

The multitude will be carried off, and his heart will be exalted. He will cast down tens of thousands, but he won’t prevail.

“In those times many will stand up against the king of the south. Also the children of the violent amongst your people will lift themselves up to establish the vision, but they will fall.

So the king of the north will come and cast up a mound, and take a well-fortified city. The forces of the south won’t stand, neither will his select troops, neither will there be any strength to stand.

But he who comes against him will do according to his own will, and no one will stand before him. He will stand in the glorious land, and destruction will be in his hand.

He will set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom, and with him equitable conditions. He will perform them. He will give him the daughter of women, to destroy the kingdom, but she will not stand, and won’t be for him.

After this he will turn his face to the islands, and will take many, but a prince will cause the reproach offered by him to cease. Yes, moreover, he will cause his reproach to turn on him.

Then he will turn his face towards the fortresses of his own land; but he will stumble and fall, and won’t be found.

“Then one who will cause a tax collector to pass through the kingdom to maintain its glory will stand up in his place; but within few days he shall be destroyed, not in anger, and not in battle.

“In his place a contemptible person will stand up, to whom they had not given the honour of the kingdom; but he will come in time of security, and will obtain the kingdom by flatteries.

The overwhelming forces will be overwhelmed from before him, and will be broken. Yes, also the prince of the covenant.

In time of security he will come even on the fattest places of the province. He will do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers. He will scatter amongst them prey, plunder, and wealth. Yes, he will devise his plans against the strongholds, but only for a time.

“He will stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south will wage war in battle with an exceedingly great and mighty army, but he won’t stand; for they will devise plans against him.

Yes, those who eat of his delicacies will destroy him, and his army will be swept away. Many will fall down slain.

As for both these kings, their hearts will be to do evil, and they will speak lies at one table; but it won’t prosper, for the end will still be at the appointed time.

Then he will return into his land with great wealth. His heart will be against the holy covenant. He will take action, and return to his own land.

“He will return at the appointed time and come into the south; but it won’t be in the latter time as it was in the former.

For ships of Kittim will come against him. Therefore he will be grieved, and will return, and have indignation against the holy covenant, and will take action. He will even return, and have regard to those who forsake the holy covenant.

“Forces from him will profane the sanctuary, even the fortress, and will take away the continual burnt offering. Then they will set up the abomination that makes desolate.

“Those who are wise amongst the people will instruct many; yet they will fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder, many days.

Now when they fall, they will be helped with a little help; but many will join themselves to them with flatteries.

Some of those who are wise will fall—to refine them, and to purify, and to make them white, even to the time of the end, because it is yet for the time appointed.

“At the time of the end the king of the south will contend with him; and the king of the north will come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, with horsemen, and with many ships. He will enter into the countries, and will overflow and pass through.

He will enter also into the glorious land, and many countries will be overthrown; but these will be delivered out of his hand: Edom, Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.

He will also stretch out his hand on the countries. The land of Egypt won’t escape.

But he will have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt. The Libyans and the Ethiopians will follow his steps.

But news out of the east and out of the north will trouble him; and he will go out with great fury to destroy and utterly to sweep away many.

He will plant the tents of his palace between the sea and the glorious holy mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.

“At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people; and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.

I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.

“From the time that the continual burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate set up, there will be one thousand and two hundred and ninety days.

For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.

You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.

“Blow the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin!

Ephraim will become a desolation in the day of rebuke. Amongst the tribes of Israel, I have made known that which will surely be.

Ephraim is oppressed, he is crushed in judgement, because he is intent in his pursuit of idols.

Therefore I am to Ephraim like a moth, and to the house of Judah like rottenness.

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

When they go, I will spread my net on them. I will bring them down like the birds of the sky. I will chastise them, as their congregation has heard.

For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

Israel is swallowed up. Now they are amongst the nations like a worthless thing.

For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers for himself.

It also will be carried to Assyria for a present to a great king. Ephraim will receive shame, and Israel will be ashamed of his own counsel.

Samaria and her king float away like a twig on the water.

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, “Cover us!” and the hills, “Fall on us!”

“Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah. There they remained. The battle against the children of iniquity doesn’t overtake them in Gibeah.

When it is my desire, I will chastise them; and the nations will be gathered against them when they are bound to their two transgressions.

Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh, so I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephraim. Judah will plough. Jacob will break his clods.

You have ploughed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, for you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men.

Therefore a battle roar will arise amongst your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces with her children.

The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him. He is an unwise son, for when it is time, he doesn’t come to the opening of the womb.

Though he is fruitful amongst his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up. He will plunder the storehouse of treasure.

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.

For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness.

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.

They rush on the city. They run on the wall. They climb up into the houses. They enter in at the windows like thieves.

The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

The LORD thunders his voice before his army, for his forces are very great; for he is strong who obeys his command; for the day of the LORD is great and very awesome, and who can endure it?

But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind;

“I sent plagues amongst you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD.

“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 the LORD.

Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel:

“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.”

For the Lord GOD says: “The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out one hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”

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.

“Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light.

As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him.

Won’t the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?

The high places of Isaac will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the middle of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words.

For Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’”

Amaziah also said to Amos, “You seer, go, flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there,

but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!”

But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress.

Don’t enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don’t look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity.

Don’t stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don’t deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress.

For the day of the LORD is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head.

For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been.

But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty storm on the sea, so that the ship was likely to break up.

Then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone down into the innermost parts of the ship and he was laying down, and was fast asleep.

Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm to us?” For the sea grew more and more stormy.

Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the land; but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them.

So they took up Jonah and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased its raging.

The LORD prepared a huge fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Then Jonah prayed to the LORD, his God, out of the fish’s belly.

For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me.

The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head.

But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine so that it withered.

Now many nations have assembled against you, that say, “Let her be defiled, and let our eye gloat over Zion.”

Now you shall gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.

Hear, you mountains, the LORD’s indictment, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a case against his people, and he will contend with Israel.

For the son dishonours the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots,

the horseman charging, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies

Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

Behold, your troops amongst you are women. The gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies. The fire has devoured your bars.

There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust.

Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.

For, behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.

For even though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive fails, the fields yield no food, the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,

a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high battlements.

For Gaza will be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation. They will drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron will be rooted up.

Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty.

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

He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the LORD’s angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.

For before those days there was no wages for man nor any wages for an animal, neither was there any peace to him who went out or came in, because of the adversary. For I set all men everyone against his neighbour.

Wail, cypress tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has come down.

A voice of the wailing of the shepherds! For their glory is destroyed—a voice of the roaring of young lions! For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.

For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land,” says the LORD; “but, behold, I will deliver every one of the men into his neighbour’s hand and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.”

I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.

Then I said, “I will not feed you. That which dies, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let those who are left eat each other’s flesh.”

I took my staff Favour and cut it apart, that I might break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.

“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling to all the surrounding peoples, and it will also be on Judah in the siege against Jerusalem.

It will happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.

It shall happen that in all the land,” says the LORD, “two parts in it will be cut off and die; but the third will be left in it.

I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them like gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, ‘It is my people;’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”

For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.

“But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap;

and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer to the LORD offerings in righteousness.

You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation.

Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

Most certainly I tell you, you shall by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny.

How narrow is the gate and the way is restricted that leads to life! There are few who find it.

The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock.

The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell—and its fall was great.”

Behold, a violent storm came up on the sea, so much that the boat was covered with the waves; but he was asleep.

But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you.

Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations.

“Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.

“Don’t think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword.

For I came to set a man at odds against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

A man’s foes will be those of his own household.

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgement than for you.

You, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, you will go down to Hades. For if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in you, it would have remained until today.

But I tell you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgement, than for you.”

When the sun had risen, they were scorched. Because they had no root, they withered away.

Others fell amongst thorns. The thorns grew up and choked them.

yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. When oppression or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

but while people slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel weeds also amongst the wheat, and went away.

But when the blade sprang up and produced grain, then the darnel weeds appeared also.

But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

The farmers took his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they treated them the same way.

But the farmers, when they saw the son, said amongst themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and seize his inheritance.’

So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, then killed him.

When therefore the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?”

You will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you aren’t troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places.

But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.

“Then they will deliver you up to oppression and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name’s sake.

Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another.

Many false prophets will arise and will lead many astray.

Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.

For false christs and false prophets will arise, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.

“But immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;

Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

Jesus said to him, “Most certainly I tell you that tonight, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”

He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What, couldn’t you watch with me for one hour?

He came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.

Then he came to his disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Arise, let’s be going. Behold, he who betrays me is at hand.”

While he was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

Now he who betrayed him had given them a sign, saying, “Whoever I kiss, he is the one. Seize him.”

Immediately he came to Jesus, and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

Jesus said to him, “Friend, why are you here?” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus, and took him.

Behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear.

How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so?”

In that hour Jesus said to the multitudes, “Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to seize me? I sat daily in the temple teaching, and you didn’t arrest me.

The high priest stood up and said to him, “Have you no answer? What is this that these testify against you?”

What do you think?” They answered, “He is worthy of death!”

Then they spat in his face and beat him with their fists, and some slapped him,

saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who hit you?”

Now Peter was sitting outside in the court, and a maid came to him, saying, “You were also with Jesus, the Galilean!”

But he denied it before them all, saying, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

When he had gone out onto the porch, someone else saw him and said to those who were there, “This man also was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

Again he denied it with an oath, “I don’t know the man.”

After a little while those who stood by came and said to Peter, “Surely you are also one of them, for your speech makes you known.”

Then he began to curse and to swear, “I don’t know the man!” Immediately the rooster crowed.

Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Then he went out and wept bitterly.

Now when morning had come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.

They bound him, led him away, and delivered him up to Pontius Pilate, the governor.

Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, saying, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said to him, “So you say.”

When he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing.

Then Pilate said to him, “Don’t you hear how many things they testify against you?”

He gave him no answer, not even one word, so that the governor marvelled greatly.

They had then a notable prisoner called Barabbas.

When therefore they were gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”

For he knew that because of envy they had delivered him up.

While he was sitting on the judgement seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him.”

Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the multitudes to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.

But the governor answered them, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They said, “Barabbas!”

Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do to Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let him be crucified!”

But the governor said, “Why? What evil has he done?” But they cried out exceedingly, saying, “Let him be crucified!”

So when Pilate saw that nothing was being gained, but rather that a disturbance was starting, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous person. You see to it.”

All the people answered, “May his blood be on us and on our children!”

Then he released Barabbas to them, but Jesus he flogged and delivered to be crucified.

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium, and gathered the whole garrison together against him.

When they had mocked him, they took the robe off him, and put his clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him.

As they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, and they compelled him to go with them, that he might carry his cross.

When they came to a place called “Golgotha”, that is to say, “The place of a skull,”

they gave him sour wine to drink mixed with gall. When he had tasted it, he would not drink.

When they had crucified him, they divided his clothing amongst them, casting lots,

and they sat and watched him there.

Then there were two robbers crucified with him, one on his right hand and one on the left.

Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads

and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.

Now while they were going, behold, some of the guards came into the city and told the chief priests all the things that had happened.

saying, “Say that his disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept.

But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

They watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him.

The Pharisees went out, and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

When his friends heard it, they went out to seize him; for they said, “He is insane.”

Others fell amongst the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

The ones by the road are the ones where the word is sown; and when they have heard, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them.

They have no root in themselves, but are short-lived. When oppression or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they stumble.

Others are those who are sown amongst the thorns. These are those who have heard the word,

A big wind storm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so much that the boat was already filled.

When he had come out of the boat, immediately a man with an unclean spirit met him out of the tombs.

because he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him, and the fetters broken in pieces. Nobody had the strength to tame him.

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

He asked him, “What is your name?” He said to him, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

A certain woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years,

and had suffered many things by many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse,

Seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary to them, about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea; and he would have passed by them,

He called the multitude to himself with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death, and will deliver him to the Gentiles.

But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?”

They said to him, “We are able.” Jesus said to them, “You shall indeed drink the cup that I drink, and you shall be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with;

Again, he sent another servant to them; and they threw stones at him, wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated.

Again he sent another, and they killed him, and many others, beating some, and killing some.

They took him, killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.

They sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to him, that they might trap him with words.

Shall we give, or shall we not give?” But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why do you test me? Bring me a denarius, that I may see it.”

“When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, don’t be troubled. For those must happen, but the end is not yet.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines and troubles. These things are the beginning of birth pains.

“But watch yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils. You will be beaten in synagogues. You will stand before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them.

“Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.

“But when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not” (let the reader understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains,

But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days!

For in those days there will be oppression, such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be.

For false christs and false prophets will arise and will show signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.

But in those days, after that oppression, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light,

the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken.

Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’

Jesus said to him, “Most certainly I tell you that you today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”

He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn’t you watch one hour?

Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Again he returned and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they didn’t know what to answer him.

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.

Arise! Let’s get going. Behold, he who betrays me is at hand.”

Immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came—and with him a multitude with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders.

Now he who betrayed him had given them a sign, saying, “Whomever I will kiss, that is he. Seize him, and lead him away safely.”

When he had come, immediately he came to him and said, “Rabbi! Rabbi!” and kissed him.

They laid their hands on him and seized him.

But a certain one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear.

Jesus answered them, “Have you come out, as against a robber, with swords and clubs to seize me?

I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and you didn’t arrest me. But this is so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.”

They all left him, and fled.

A certain young man followed him, having a linen cloth thrown around himself over his naked body. The young men grabbed him,

but he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.

They led Jesus away to the high priest. All the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes came together with him.

Peter had followed him from a distance, until he came into the court of the high priest. He was sitting with the officers, and warming himself in the light of the fire.

Now the chief priests and the whole council sought witnesses against Jesus to put him to death, and found none.

For many gave false testimony against him, and their testimony didn’t agree with each other.

Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying,

“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’”

Even so, their testimony didn’t agree.

The high priest stood up in the middle, and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer? What is it which these testify against you?”

But he stayed quiet, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”

The high priest tore his clothes and said, “What further need have we of witnesses?

You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?” They all condemned him to be worthy of death.

Some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to beat him with fists, and to tell him, “Prophesy!” The officers struck him with the palms of their hands.

As Peter was in the courtyard below, one of the maids of the high priest came,

and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You were also with the Nazarene, Jesus!”

But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you are saying.” He went out on the porch, and the rooster crowed.

The maid saw him and began again to tell those who stood by, “This is one of them.”

But he again denied it. After a little while again those who stood by said to Peter, “You truly are one of them, for you are a Galilean, and your speech shows it.”

Immediately in the morning the chief priests, with the elders, scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, bound Jesus, carried him away, and delivered him up to Pilate.

Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered, “So you say.”

The chief priests accused him of many things.

Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they testify against you!”

But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate marvelled.

Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”

Pilate again asked them, “What then should I do to him whom you call the King of the Jews?”

Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads and saying, “Ha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days,

Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary, his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which is spoken against.

Even now the axe also lies at the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness

for forty days, being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing in those days. Afterward, when they were completed, he was hungry.

But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land.

They rose up, threw him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill that their city was built on, that they might throw him off the cliff.

Other seed fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture.

Other fell amid the thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it.

Those on the rock are they who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; but these have no root. They believe for a while, then fall away in time of temptation.

But as they sailed, he fell asleep. A wind storm came down on the lake, and they were taking on dangerous amounts of water.

Others, testing him, sought from him a sign from heaven.

But if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.

The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of the man, passes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will turn back to my house from which I came out.’

When he returns, he finds it swept and put in order.

Then he goes and takes seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”

When the multitudes were gathering together to him, he began to say, “This is an evil generation. It seeks after a sign. No sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.

then the lord of that servant will come in a day when he isn’t expecting him and in an hour that he doesn’t know, and will cut him in two, and place his portion with the unfaithful.

That servant who knew his lord’s will, and didn’t prepare nor do what he wanted, will be beaten with many stripes,

“I came to throw fire on the earth. I wish it were already kindled.

Do you think that I have come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, no, but rather division.

For from now on, there will be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.

They will be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

“Strive to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter in and will not be able.

He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come!

Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

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.

You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death.

You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake.

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.

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.

“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;

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.

For it will come like a snare on all those who dwell on the surface of all the earth.

“But you are those who have continued with me in my trials.

The Lord said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have all of you, that he might sift you as wheat,

Then he said to them, “But now, whoever has a purse, let him take it, and likewise a bag. Whoever has none, let him sell his cloak, and buy a sword.

Being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.

While he was still speaking, a crowd appeared. He who was called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He came near to Jesus to kiss him.

But Jesus said to him, “Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”

When those who were around him saw what was about to happen, they said to him, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?”

Jesus said to the chief priests, captains of the temple, and elders, who had come against him, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs?

When I was with you in the temple daily, you didn’t stretch out your hands against me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”

They seized him and led him away, and brought him into the high priest’s house. But Peter followed from a distance.

A certain servant girl saw him as he sat in the light, and looking intently at him, said, “This man also was with him.”

After about one hour passed, another confidently affirmed, saying, “Truly this man also was with him, for he is a Galilean!”

As soon as it was day, the assembly of the elders of the people were gathered together, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away into their council, saying,

They said, “Why do we need any more witness? For we ourselves have heard from his own mouth!”

The whole company of them rose up and brought him before Pilate.

Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “So you say.”

But they insisted, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee even to this place.”

But when Pilate heard Galilee mentioned, he asked if the man was a Galilean.

When he found out that he was in Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem during those days.

Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad, for he had wanted to see him for a long time, because he had heard many things about him. He hoped to see some miracle done by him.

He questioned him with many words, but he gave no answers.

The chief priests and the scribes stood, vehemently accusing him.

Herod with his soldiers humiliated him and mocked him. Dressing him in luxurious clothing, they sent him back to Pilate.

Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people,

and said to them, “You brought this man to me as one that perverts the people, and behold, having examined him before you, I found no basis for a charge against this man concerning those things of which you accuse him.

Neither has Herod, for I sent you to him, and see, nothing worthy of death has been done by him.

When they led him away, they grabbed one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, and laid the cross on him to carry it after Jesus.

For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’

Then they will begin to tell the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and tell the hills, ‘Cover us.’

For if they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?”

There were also others, two criminals, led with him to be put to death.

When they came to the place that is called “The Skull”, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.

The Jews therefore answered him, “What sign do you show us, seeing that you do these things?”

He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.

The sea was tossed by a great wind blowing.

Therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying! Who can listen to it?”

But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble?

The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.

There was much murmuring amongst the multitudes concerning him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others said, “Not so, but he leads the multitude astray.”

The Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring these things concerning him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.

So a division arose in the multitude because of him.

The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said to them, “Why didn’t you bring him?”

They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger.

Therefore a division arose again amongst the Jews because of these words.

During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,

Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burnt.

I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble; but cheer up! I have overcome the world.”

Judas then, having taken a detachment of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.

Jesus therefore, knowing all the things that were happening to him, went out and said to them, “Who are you looking for?”

They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas also, who betrayed him, was standing with them.

The high priest therefore asked Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching.

Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest.

One of the servants of the high priest, being a relative of him whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?”

Peter therefore denied it again, and immediately the rooster crowed.

They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. It was early, and they themselves didn’t enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.

Pilate therefore went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?”

They answered him, “If this man weren’t an evildoer, we wouldn’t have delivered him up to you.”

Pilate therefore said to them, “Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law.” Therefore the Jews said to him, “It is illegal for us to put anyone to death,”

that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spoke, signifying by what kind of death he should die.

Pilate therefore entered again into the Praetorium, called Jesus, and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered him, “Do you say this by yourself, or did others tell you about me?”

Pilate answered, “I’m not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done?”

So then he delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led him away.

He went out, bearing his cross, to the place called “The Place of a Skull”, which is called in Hebrew, “Golgotha”,

where they crucified him, and with him two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the middle.

Most certainly I tell you, when you were young, you dressed yourself and walked where you wanted to. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you don’t want to go.”

Now this man obtained a field with the reward for his wickedness; and falling headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines gushed out.

As they spoke to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came to them,

They laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was now evening.

In the morning, their rulers, elders, and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem.

Annas the high priest was there, with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and as many as were relatives of the high priest.

When they had stood Peter and John in the middle of them, they enquired, “By what power, or in what name, have you done this?”

When they had brought them, they set them before the council. The high priest questioned them,

But they, when they heard this, were cut to the heart, and were determined to kill them.

For before these days Theudas rose up, making himself out to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves. He was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were dispersed and came to nothing.

After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the enrolment, and drew away some people after him. He also perished, and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered abroad.

They agreed with him. Summoning the apostles, they beat them and commanded them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

But some of those who were of the synagogue called “The Libertines”, and of the Cyrenians, of the Alexandrians, and of those of Cilicia and Asia arose, disputing with Stephen.

Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, and came against him and seized him, then brought him in to the council,

and set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.

For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us.”

The high priest said, “Are these things so?”

God spoke in this way: that his offspring would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.

Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. Our fathers found no food.

until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph.

The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive.

But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears, then rushed at him with one accord.

They threw him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Saul was consenting to his death. A great persecution arose against the assembly which was in Jerusalem in that day. They were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except for the apostles.

But Saul ravaged the assembly, entering into every house and dragged both men and women off to prison.

But there was a certain man, Simon by name, who used to practise sorcery in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, making himself out to be some great one,

to whom they all listened, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is that great power of God.”

They listened to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his sorceries.

For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

When many days were fulfilled, the Jews conspired together to kill him,

but their plot became known to Saul. They watched the gates both day and night that they might kill him,

preaching boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus. He spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him.

One of them named Agabus stood up and indicated by the Spirit that there should be a great famine all over the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius.

He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.

When he had arrested him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of four soldiers each to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover.

The same night when Herod was about to bring him out, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains. Guards in front of the door kept the prison.

When they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar Jesus,

But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, and stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and threw them out of their borders.

But the disbelieving Jews stirred up and embittered the souls of the Gentiles against the brothers.

But the multitude of the city was divided. Part sided with the Jews and part with the apostles.

When some of both the Gentiles and the Jews, with their rulers, made a violent attempt to mistreat and stone them,

But some Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many afflictions we must enter into God’s Kingdom.

Now therefore why do you tempt God, that you should put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Then the contention grew so sharp that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus,

When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men, being Jews, are agitating our city

and advocate customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”

The multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore their clothes from them, then commanded them to be beaten with rods.

When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely.

Having received such a command, he threw them into the inner prison and secured their feet in the stocks.

But the unpersuaded Jews took along some wicked men from the marketplace and gathering a crowd, set the city in an uproar. Assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them out to the people.

When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

whom Jason has received. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus!”

The multitude and the rulers of the city were troubled when they heard these things.

But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beroea also, they came there likewise, agitating the multitudes.

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.

They took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is, which you are speaking about?

But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgement seat,

saying, “This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.”

But when some were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.

About that time there arose no small disturbance concerning the Way.

Some therefore cried one thing, and some another, for the assembly was in confusion. Most of them didn’t know why they had come together.

They brought Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. Alexander beckoned with his hand, and would have made a defence to the people.

serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears, and with trials which happened to me by the plots of the Jews;

except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me.

For I know that after my departure, vicious wolves will enter in amongst you, not sparing the flock.

Men will arise from amongst your own selves, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

As they were trying to kill him, news came up to the commanding officer of the regiment that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.

Then the commanding officer came near, arrested him, commanded him to be bound with two chains, and enquired who he was and what he had done.

Some shouted one thing and some another, amongst the crowd. When he couldn’t find out the truth because of the noise, he commanded him to be brought into the barracks.

Aren’t you then the Egyptian who before these days stirred up to sedition and led out into the wilderness the four thousand men of the Assassins?”

They listened to him until he said that; then they lifted up their voice and said, “Rid the earth of this fellow, for he isn’t fit to live!”

the commanding officer commanded him to be brought into the barracks, ordering him to be examined by scourging, that he might know for what crime they shouted against him like that.

When they had tied him up with thongs, Paul asked the centurion who stood by, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and not found guilty?”

But on the next day, desiring to know the truth about why he was accused by the Jews, he freed him from the bonds and commanded the chief priests and all the council to come together, and brought Paul down and set him before them.

The high priest, Ananias, commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth.

Those who stood by said, “Do you malign God’s high priest?”

But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Men and brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. Concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am being judged!”

When he had said this, an argument arose between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the crowd was divided.

When it was day, some of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul.

There were more than forty people who had made this conspiracy.

They came to the chief priests and the elders, and said, “We have bound ourselves under a great curse to taste nothing until we have killed Paul.

Now therefore, you with the council inform the commanding officer that he should bring him down to you tomorrow, as though you were going to judge his case more exactly. We are ready to kill him before he comes near.”

He said, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though intending to enquire somewhat more accurately concerning him.

Therefore don’t yield to them, for more than forty men lie in wait for him, who have bound themselves under a curse to neither eat nor drink until they have killed him. Now they are ready, looking for the promise from you.”

Desiring to know the cause why they accused him, I brought him down to their council.

I found him to be accused about questions of their law, but not to be charged with anything worthy of death or of imprisonment.

When I was told that the Jews lay in wait for the man, I sent him to you immediately, charging his accusers also to bring their accusations against him before you. Farewell.”

When they came to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they also presented Paul to him.

When the governor had read it, he asked what province he was from. When he understood that he was from Cilicia, he said,

“I will hear you fully when your accusers also arrive.” He commanded that he be kept in Herod’s palace.

After five days, the high priest, Ananias, came down with certain elders and an orator, one Tertullus. They informed the governor against Paul.

When he was called, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, “Seeing that by you we enjoy much peace, and that prosperity is coming to this nation by your foresight,

For we have found this man to be a plague, an instigator of insurrections amongst all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

He even tried to profane the temple, and we arrested him.

By examining him yourself you may ascertain all these things of which we accuse him.”

The Jews also joined in the attack, affirming that these things were so.

When the governor had beckoned to him to speak, Paul answered, “Because I know that you have been a judge of this nation for many years, I cheerfully make my defence,

seeing that you can verify that it is not more than twelve days since I went up to worship at Jerusalem.

In the temple they didn’t find me disputing with anyone or stirring up a crowd, either in the synagogues or in the city.

Nor can they prove to you the things of which they now accuse me.

But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, so I serve the God of our fathers, believing all things which are according to the law, and which are written in the prophets;

asking a favour against him, that he would summon him to Jerusalem, plotting to kill him on the way.

“Let them therefore”, he said, “that are in power amongst you go down with me, and if there is anything wrong in the man, let them accuse him.”

When he had stayed amongst them more than ten days, he went down to Caesarea, and on the next day he sat on the judgement seat, and commanded Paul to be brought.

When he had come, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing against him many and grievous charges which they could not prove,

For if I have done wrong and have committed anything worthy of death, I don’t refuse to die; but if none of those things is true that they accuse me of, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar!”

Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you shall go.”

Now when some days had passed, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea and greeted Festus.

As he stayed there many days, Festus laid Paul’s case before the king, saying, “There is a certain man left a prisoner by Felix;

about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, asking for a sentence against him.

When therefore they had come together here, I didn’t delay, but on the next day sat on the judgement seat and commanded the man to be brought.

When the accusers stood up, they brought no charges against him of such things as I supposed;

but had certain questions against him about their own religion and about one Jesus, who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.

Being perplexed how to enquire concerning these things, I asked whether he was willing to go to Jerusalem and there be judged concerning these matters.

But when Paul had appealed to be kept for the decision of the emperor, I commanded him to be kept until I could send him to Caesar.”

Agrippa said to Festus, “I also would like to hear the man myself.” “Tomorrow,” he said, “you shall hear him.”

So on the next day, when Agrippa and Bernice had come with great pomp, and they had entered into the place of hearing with the commanding officers and the principal men of the city, at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in.

Festus said, “King Agrippa, and all men who are here present with us, you see this man about whom all the multitude of the Jews petitioned me, both at Jerusalem and here, crying that he ought not to live any longer.

But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and as he himself appealed to the emperor, I determined to send him,

of whom I have no certain thing to write to my lord. Therefore I have brought him out before you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, that, after examination I may have something to write.

For it seems to me unreasonable, in sending a prisoner, not to also specify the charges against him.”

For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

As he thus made his defence, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are crazy! Your great learning is driving you insane!”

When it was determined that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Augustan band.

Putting to sea from there, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary.

When we had sailed slowly many days, and had come with difficulty opposite Cnidus, the wind not allowing us further, we sailed under the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone.

With difficulty sailing along it we came to a certain place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.

But before long, a stormy wind beat down from shore, which is called Euroclydon.

When the ship was caught and couldn’t face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along.

Running under the lee of a small island called Clauda, we were able, with difficulty, to secure the boat.

After they had hoisted it up, they used cables to help reinforce the ship. Fearing that they would run aground on the Syrtis sand bars, they lowered the sea anchor, and so were driven along.

As we laboured exceedingly with the storm, the next day they began to throw things overboard.

On the third day, they threw out the ship’s tackle with their own hands.

When neither sun nor stars shone on us for many days, and no small storm pressed on us, all hope that we would be saved was now taken away.

When they had been long without food, Paul stood up in the middle of them and said, “Sirs, you should have listened to me, and not have set sail from Crete and have gotten this injury and loss.

But when the fourteenth night had come, as we were driven back and forth in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors surmised that they were drawing near to some land.

As the sailors were trying to flee out of the ship and had lowered the boat into the sea, pretending that they would lay out anchors from the bow,

Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the boat and let it fall off.

But coming to a place where two seas met, they ran the vessel aground. The bow struck and remained immovable, but the stern began to break up by the violence of the waves.

But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand.

After three days Paul called together those who were the leaders of the Jews. When they had come together, he said to them, “I, brothers, though I had done nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers, still was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans,

who, when they had examined me, desired to set me free, because there was no cause of death in me.

But when the Jews spoke against it, I was constrained to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything about which to accuse my nation.

They said to him, “We neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor did any of the brothers come here and report or speak any evil of you.

But we desire to hear from you what you think. For, as concerning this sect, it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against.”

Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.

For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practise what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.

So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.

For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good.

For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practise.

But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.

I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present.

but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

David says, “Let their table be made a snare, a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution to them.

Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see. Always keep their backs bent.”

Therefore also I was hindered these many times from coming to you,

each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is.

Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.

Therefore I think that because of the distress that is on us, it’s good for a man to remain as he is.

Let’s not commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell.

Let’s not test Christ, as some of them tested, and perished by the serpents.

Don’t grumble, as some of them also grumbled, and perished by the destroyer.

Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

Therefore let him who thinks he stands be careful that he doesn’t fall.

Why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour?

I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

If I fought with animals at Ephesus for human purposes, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, then “let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

for a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia: that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life.

We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not to despair;

For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory,

by glory and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true,

as unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold—we live, as punished and not killed,

Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep.

I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils amongst false brothers;

in labour and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.

In Damascus the governor under King Aretas guarded the Damascenes’ city, desiring to arrest me.

but there isn’t another “good news.” Only there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Good News of Christ.

This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage,

So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental principles of the world.

However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, why do you turn back again to the weak and miserable elemental principles, to which you desire to be in bondage all over again?

But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.

For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Now I desire to have you know, brothers, that the things which happened to me have turned out rather to the progress of the Good News,

having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.

For I desire to have you know how greatly I struggle for you and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;

because we wanted to come to you—indeed, I, Paul, once and again—but Satan hindered us.

that no one would be moved by these afflictions. For you know that we are appointed to this task.

For most certainly, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction, even as it happened, and you know.

For this cause, brothers, we were comforted over you in all our distress and affliction through your faith.

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.

This you know, that all who are in Asia turned away from me, of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.

You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

men who have erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past, and overthrowing the faith of some.

But know this: that in the last days, grievous times will come.

For some of these are people who creep into houses and take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts,

Even as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind, who concerning the faith are rejected.

knowing that such a one is perverted and sinful, being self-condemned.

don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of the trial in the wilderness,

where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years.

but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burnt.

But remember the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great struggle with sufferings:

By faith, Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had gladly received the promises was offering up his only born son,

Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.

They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—

You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations,

knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest!

And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity amongst our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna.

but nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved in various trials,

that the proof of your faith, which is more precious than gold that perishes, even though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise, glory, and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ—

For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;

and, “a stumbling stone and a rock of offence.” For they stumble at the word, being disobedient, to which also they were appointed.

Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,

They think it is strange that you don’t run with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you.

Beloved, don’t be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you to test you, as though a strange thing happened to you.

These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.

promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.

For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

Little children, these are the end times, and as you heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen. By this we know that it is the final hour.

They said to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts.”

“I know your works, and your toil and perseverance, and that you can’t tolerate evil men, and have tested those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and found them false.

“I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. You hold firmly to my name, and didn’t deny my faith in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed amongst you, where Satan dwells.

Because you kept my command to endure, I also will keep you from the hour of testing which is to come on the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

Another came out, a red horse. To him who sat on it was given power to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another. There was given to him a great sword.

When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come and see!” And behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a balance in his hand.

I heard a voice in the middle of the four living creatures saying, “A choenix of wheat for a denarius, and three choenix of barley for a denarius! Don’t damage the oil and the wine!”

And behold, a pale horse, and the name of he who sat on it was Death. Hades followed with him. Authority over one fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth was given to him.

I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood.

The stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind.

The sky was removed like a scroll when it is rolled up. Every mountain and island was moved out of its place.

The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.

for the great day of his wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

The first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. One third of the earth was burnt up, and one third of the trees were burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

The second angel sounded, and something like a great burning mountain was thrown into the sea. One third of the sea became blood,

and one third of the living creatures which were in the sea died. One third of the ships were destroyed.

The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from the sky, burning like a torch, and it fell on one third of the rivers, and on the springs of water.

The name of the star is “Wormwood.” One third of the waters became wormwood. Many people died from the waters, because they were made bitter.

The fourth angel sounded, and one third of the sun was struck, and one third of the moon, and one third of the stars, so that one third of them would be darkened; and the day wouldn’t shine for one third of it, and the night in the same way.

I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid heaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe! Woe! Woe to those who dwell on the earth, because of the other blasts of the trumpets of the three angels, who are yet to sound!”

The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from the sky which had fallen to the earth. The key to the pit of the abyss was given to him.

He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit.

Then out of the smoke came locusts on the earth, and power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

They were given power, not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a person.

In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.

The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people’s faces.

They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions.

They had breastplates like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots and horses rushing to war.

They have tails like those of scorpions, with stingers. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months.

They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is “Abaddon”, but in Greek, he has the name “Apollyon”.

The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this.

saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Free the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates!”

The four angels were freed who had been prepared for that hour and day and month and year, so that they might kill one third of mankind.

The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million. I heard the number of them.

Thus I saw the horses in the vision and those who sat on them, having breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulphur yellow; and the horses’ heads resembled lions’ heads. Out of their mouths proceed fire, smoke, and sulphur.

By these three plagues, one third of mankind was killed: by the fire, the smoke, and the sulphur, which proceeded out of their mouths.

For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents, and have heads; and with them they harm.

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.

They didn’t repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.

Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don’t measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.

When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them.

The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe comes quickly.

There was war in the sky. Michael and his angels made war on the dragon. The dragon and his angels made war.

The serpent spewed water out of his mouth after the woman like a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream.

Then I stood on the sand of the sea. I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten crowns, and on his heads, blasphemous names.

The beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.

One of his heads looked like it had been wounded fatally. His fatal wound was healed, and the whole earth marvelled at the beast.

They worshipped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”

A mouth speaking great things and blasphemy was given to him. Authority to make war for forty-two months was given to him.

It was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. Authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation was given to him.

If anyone is to go into captivity, he will go into captivity. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, he must be killed. Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints.

He causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the slave, to be given marks on their right hands or on their foreheads;

and that no one would be able to buy or to sell unless he has that mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. He who has understanding, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is six hundred and sixty-six.

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,

and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They still didn’t repent of their works.

I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, something like frogs;

for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole inhabited earth, to gather them together for the war of that great day of God the Almighty.

He gathered them together into the place which is called in Hebrew, “Harmagedon”.

There were lightnings, sounds, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake such as has not happened since there were men on the earth—so great an earthquake and so mighty.

The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army.

And after the thousand years, Satan will be released from his prison

and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war, whose number is as the sand of the sea.