Those remaining in Zion, ¹  those left in Jerusalem, ²  will be called “holy,” ³  all in Jerusalem who are destined to live. ⁴ 

Messengers ¹  delivered the letters from the king and his officials throughout Israel and Judah. This royal edict read: ²  “O Israelites, return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so he may return ³  to you who have been spared from the kings of Assyria. ⁴ 

Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. ¹  When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into them, ²  but some survivors ³  fled to the hills. ⁴ 

the whole kingdom of Og in Bashan, who ruled in Ashtaroth and Edrei. (He was one of the few remaining Rephaites.) ¹  Moses defeated them and took their lands. ² 

Israel worshiped ¹  the Lord throughout Joshua’s lifetime and as long as the elderly men who outlived him remained alive. ²  These men had experienced firsthand everything the Lord had done for Israel. ³ 

Now Barak chased the chariots and the army all the way to Harosheth Haggoyim. Sisera’s whole army died ¹  by the edge of the sword; not even one survived! ² 

He went to his father’s home in Ophrah and murdered his half-brothers, ¹  the seventy legitimate ²  sons of Jerub-Baal, on one stone. Only Jotham, Jerub-Baal’s youngest son, escaped, ³  because he hid.

“I overthrew some of you the way God ¹  overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²  You were like a burning stick ³  snatched from the flames. Still you did not come back to me.” The Lord is speaking!

So the Lord ¹  destroyed ²  every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. ³  They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived. ⁴ 

They covered ¹  the surface ²  of all the ground, so that the ground became dark with them, ³  and they ate all the vegetation of the ground and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Nothing green remained on the trees or on anything that grew in the fields throughout the whole land of Egypt.

Then ¹  I, the Lord, promise that ²  I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will slaughter them with the sword. He will not show them any mercy, compassion, or pity.’