They ¹  searched for their records in the genealogical materials, but did not find them. ²  They were therefore excluded ³  from the priesthood.

Then Mordecai again sat at the king’s gate, while Haman hurried away to his home, mournful and with a veil over his head.

The Lord’s words are absolutely reliable. ¹  They are as untainted as silver purified in a furnace on the ground, where it is thoroughly refined. ² 

The sacrifices God desires are a humble spirit ¹  – O God, a humble and repentant heart ²  you will not reject. ³ 

I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. ¹  You knew me thoroughly; ² 

You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your sexually aroused neighbors, ¹  multiplying your promiscuity and provoking me to anger.

so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in consoling them.

So I poured my anger on them ¹  because of the blood they shed on the land and because of the idols with which they defiled it. ² 

I know Ephraim all too well; ¹  the evil of ²  Israel is not hidden from me. For you have engaged in prostitution, O Ephraim; Israel has defiled itself. ³ 

But you are the ones who will be forced to leave! ¹  For this land is not secure! ²  Sin will thoroughly destroy it! ³ 

But I am greatly displeased with the nations that take my grace for granted. ¹  I was a little displeased with them, but they have only made things worse for themselves.

Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers ¹  of the field grow; they do not work ²  or spin.

(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they perform a ritual washing, ¹  holding fast to the tradition of the elders.

That ¹  servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or do what his master asked ²  will receive a severe beating.

You study the scriptures thoroughly ¹  because you think in them you possess eternal life, ²  and it is these same scriptures ³  that testify about me,

Now when the commander ¹  of the temple guard ²  and the chief priests heard this report, ³  they were greatly puzzled concerning it, ⁴  wondering what this could ⁵  be.

He ¹  was a devout, God-fearing man, ²  as was all his household; he did many acts of charity for the people ³  and prayed to God regularly.

For we do not write you anything other than what ¹  you can read and also understand. But I hope that you will understand completely ² 

And even if I am unskilled ¹  in speaking, yet I am certainly not so in knowledge. Indeed, we have made this plain to you in everything in every way.

For this is what the high and exalted one says, the one who rules ¹  forever, whose name is holy: “I dwell in an exalted and holy place, but also with the discouraged and humiliated, ²  in order to cheer up the humiliated and to encourage the discouraged. ³