On that day ¹  I will make the leaders of Judah like an igniter ²  among sticks and a burning torch among sheaves, and they will burn up all the surrounding nations right and left. Then the people of Jerusalem will settle once more in their place, the city of Jerusalem.

All the land will change and become like the Arabah ¹  from Geba to Rimmon, ²  south of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem will be raised up and will stay in its own place from the Benjamin Gate to the site of the First Gate ³  and on to the Corner Gate, ⁴  and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses. ⁵ 

They will be like a shrub ¹  in the desert. They will not experience good things even when they happen. It will be as though they were growing in the desert, in a salt land where no one can live.

(The Emites ¹  used to live there, a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites.

The land of Judah will be inhabited by people who live in its towns as well as by farmers and shepherds with their flocks. ¹ 

Now ¹  in those days a decree ²  went out from Caesar ³  Augustus ⁴  to register ⁵  all the empire ⁶  for taxes.

Abram traveled through the land as far as the oak tree ¹  of Moreh ²  at Shechem. ³  (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) ⁴ 

(That also is considered to be a land of the Rephaites. ¹  The Rephaites lived there originally; the Ammonites call them Zamzummites. ² 

Then they went on to Gilead and to the region of Tahtim Hodshi, coming to Dan Jaan and on around to Sidon. ¹ 

“Hazor will become a permanent wasteland, a place where only jackals live. ¹  No one will live there. No human being will settle in it.” ² 

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, ¹  and then the end will come.

Then David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. (They had been living in that land for a long time, from the approach ¹  to Shur as far as the land of Egypt.)

Wherever human beings, ¹  wild animals, ²  and birds of the sky live – he has given them into your power. ³  He has given you authority over them all. You are the head of gold.

One of them, named Agabus, got up ¹  and predicted ²  by the Spirit that a severe ³  famine ⁴  was about to come over the whole inhabited world. ⁵  (This ⁶  took place during the reign of Claudius.) ⁷ 

Previously the Horites ¹  lived in Seir but the descendants of Esau dispossessed and destroyed them and settled in their place, just as Israel did to the land it came to possess, the land the Lord gave them.) ² 

Their descendants ¹  entered and possessed the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites who were the inhabitants of the land. You delivered them into their hand, together with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with as they pleased.

This is a message ¹  about the animals in the Negev: Through a land of distress and danger, inhabited by lionesses and roaring lions, ²  by snakes and darting adders, ³  they transport ⁴  their wealth on the backs of donkeys, their riches on the humps of camels, to a nation that cannot help them. ⁵ 

“I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘You and your people are saying ²  about this place, “It lies in ruins. There are no people or animals in it.” That is true. The towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem ³  will soon be desolate, uninhabited either by people or by animals. But happy sounds will again be heard in these places.

The queen of the South ¹  will rise up at the judgment ²  with the people ³  of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon – and now, ⁴  something greater ⁵  than Solomon is here!