Now one ¹  day, as Jesus ²  was teaching the people in the temple courts ³  and proclaiming ⁴  the gospel, the chief priests and the experts in the law ⁵  with the elders came up ⁶ 

From that time on ¹  Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem ²  and suffer ³  many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, ⁴  and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

“Woe to you, experts in the law ¹  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth ²  of mint, dill, and cumin, ³  yet you neglect what is more important in the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness! You ⁴  should have done these things without neglecting the others.

There was a great commotion, ¹  and some experts in the law ²  from the party of the Pharisees stood up ³  and protested strongly, ⁴  “We find nothing wrong ⁵  with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?”

So the royal scribes ¹  were summoned in the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month. Everything Haman commanded was written to the king’s satraps ²  and governors who were in every province and to the officials of every people, province by province according to its script and people by people according to its language. In the name of King Ahasuerus it was written and sealed with the king’s signet ring.

The king’s scribes were quickly ¹  summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. ²  They wrote out ³  everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia ⁴  – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.

Your courtiers ¹  are like locusts, your officials ²  are like a swarm of locusts! They encamp in the walls on a cold day, yet when the sun rises, they ³  fly away; ⁴  and no one knows where they ⁵  are. ⁶ 

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people met together in the palace of the high priest, who was named Caiaphas.

Woe to you! ¹  You are like unmarked graves, and people ²  walk over them without realizing it!” ³ 

From there they attacked the people of Debir. ¹  (Debir used to be called Kiriath Sepher.)

These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of King Hezekiah of Judah copied: ¹ 

So ¹  Jesus asked ²  the experts in religious law ³  and the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath ⁴  or not?”

He went down to the chamber of the royal secretary in the king’s palace and found all the court officials in session there. Elishama ¹  the royal secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, ²  Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials were seated there.

As soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns ¹  of the scroll, the king ²  would cut them off with a penknife ³  and throw them on the fire in the firepot. He kept doing so until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire. ⁴ 

and said to him, ¹  “Tell us: By what authority ²  are you doing these things? ³  Or who it is who gave you this authority?”

He will come and destroy ¹  those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” ²  When the people ³  heard this, they said, “May this never happen!” ⁴ 

The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He went and got it from the room of Elishama, the royal secretary. Then he himself ¹  read it to the king and all the officials who were standing around him.