and a fruitful land into a barren place, ¹  because of the sin of its inhabitants.

For if ¹  these things are really yours ²  and are continually increasing, ³  they will keep you from becoming ⁴  ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of ⁵  knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately. ⁶ 

Then you will think to yourself, ¹  ‘Who bore these children for me? I was bereaved and barren, dismissed and divorced. ²  Who raised these children? Look, I was left all alone; where did these children come from?’”

The men of the city said to Elisha, “Look, the city has a good location, as our ¹  master can see. But the water is bad and the land doesn’t produce crops.” ² 

Your teeth are like a flock of newly-shorn sheep coming up from the washing place; ¹  each of them has a twin, and not one of them is missing.

Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing; each has its twin; not one of them is missing.

Now Michal, Saul’s daughter, had no children to the day of her death.

Keen insight ¹  wins ²  favor, but the conduct ³  of the unfaithful is harsh. ⁴ 

I will remove the one from the north ¹  far from you. I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place. Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea, ²  and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea. ³  His stench will rise up as a foul smell.” ⁴  Indeed, the Lord ⁵  has accomplished great things.

I will make streams flow down the slopes and produce springs in the middle of the valleys. I will turn the desert into a pool of water and the arid land into springs.

gaunt ¹  with want and hunger, they would gnaw ²  the parched land, in former time desolate and waste. ³ 

to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, ¹  a desert where there are no human beings, ² 

He opened up a rock and water flowed out; a river ran through dry regions.

The speech ¹  of the righteous bears the fruit of wisdom, ²  but the one who speaks perversion ³  will be destroyed. ⁴ 

therefore you will no longer devour people and no longer bereave your nation of children, declares the sovereign Lord.

Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather ¹  expose them. ² 

But would you like evidence, ¹  you empty fellow, ²  that faith without works is useless? ³ 

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

The goat is to bear on itself all their iniquities into an inaccessible land, ¹  so he is to send the goat away ²  in the wilderness.

Your children ¹  will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.