On the fifteenth day of the eighth month (a date he had arbitrarily chosen) ¹  Jeroboam ²  offered sacrifices on the altar he had made in Bethel. ³  He inaugurated a festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to offer sacrifices.

Therefore, because of the account found in this letter and what they had faced in this regard and what had happened to them, the Jews established as binding on themselves, their descendants, and all who joined their company that they should observe these two days without fail, just as written and at the appropriate time on an annual basis.

They are to eat those things by which atonement was made ¹  to consecrate and to set them apart, but no one else ²  may eat them, for they are holy.

And you must not go out from the entrance of the Meeting Tent for seven days, until the day when your days of ordination are completed, because you must be ordained over a seven-day period. ¹ 

“‘Then the land will make up for ¹  its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths.

The first time you did not carry it; that is why the Lord God attacked us, because we did not ask him about the proper way to carry it.” ¹ 

to establish these days of Purim in their proper times, just as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had established, and just as they had established both for themselves and their descendants, matters pertaining to fasting and lamentation.

You visit the earth and give it rain; ¹  you make it rich and fertile ²  with overflowing streams full of water. ³  You provide grain for them, ⁴  for you prepare the earth to yield its crops. ⁵ 

God has made everything fit beautifully ¹  in its appropriate time, but ²  he has also placed ignorance ³  in the human heart ⁴  so that ⁵  people ⁶  cannot discover what God has ordained, ⁷  from the beginning to the end ⁸  of their lives. ⁹ 

¹ Certainly you must have heard! ²  Long ago I worked it out, in ancient times I planned ³  it, and now I am bringing it to pass. The plan is this: Fortified cities will crash into heaps of ruins. ⁴ 

I announced them to you beforehand; before they happened, I predicted them for you, so you could never say, ‘My image did these things, my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

This will be for the priests who are set apart from the descendants of Zadok who kept my charge and did not go astray when the people of Israel strayed off, like the Levites did. ¹ 

He told them, “You will drink my cup, ¹  but to sit at my right and at my left is not mine to give. Rather, it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

and said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of children and nursing infants you have prepared praise for yourself’?” ¹ 

For certain men ¹  have secretly slipped in among you ²  – men who long ago ³  were marked out ⁴  for the condemnation I am about to describe ⁵  – ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil ⁶  and who deny our only Master ⁷  and Lord, ⁸  Jesus Christ.

The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron and his descendants were chosen on a permanent basis to consecrate the most holy items, to offer sacrifices before the Lord, to serve him, and to praise his name. ¹ 

Jehoiada then assigned the duties of the Lord’s temple to the priests, the Levites whom David had assigned to the Lord’s temple. They were responsible for offering burnt sacrifices to the Lord with joy and music, according to ¹  the law of Moses and the edict of David.

For ¹  the burial place is already prepared; ²  it has been made deep and wide for the king. ³  The firewood is piled high on it. ⁴  The Lord’s breath, like a stream flowing with brimstone, will ignite it.

“You should fear me!” says the Lord. “You should tremble in awe before me! ¹  I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea, a permanent barrier that it can never cross. Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail. They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” ² 

ע (Ayin) The Lord has done what he planned; he has fulfilled ¹  his promise ²  that he threatened ³  long ago: ⁴  He has overthrown you without mercy ⁵  and has enabled the enemy to gloat over you; he has exalted your adversaries’ power. ⁶