Your altars will be ruined and your incense altars will be broken. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. ¹ 

O Samaria, he has rejected your calf idol! My anger burns against them! They will not survive much longer without being punished, ¹  even though they are Israelites!

For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build ¹  an embankment ²  against you and surround you and close in on you from every side.

Who struck down Abimelech the son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone ¹  down on him from the wall so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go so close to the wall?’ just say to him, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’”

So Joab’s men ¹  came and laid siege against him in Abel of Beth Maacah. They prepared a siege ramp outside the city which stood against its outer rampart. As all of Joab’s soldiers were trying to break through ²  the wall so that it would collapse,

Sennacherib’s ¹  servants further insulted ²  the Lord God and his servant Hezekiah.

They destroy ¹  my path; they succeed in destroying me ²  without anyone assisting ³  them.

They say, ¹  “Let’s tear off the shackles they’ve put on us! ²  Let’s free ourselves from ³  their ropes!”

But I trust in you, O Lord! I declare, “You are my God!”

Rise up, O judge of the earth! Pay back the proud!

The arrogant dig pits to trap me, ¹  which violates your law. ² 

who delight ¹  in doing ²  evil, ³  they rejoice in perverse evil; ⁴ 

Open the gates so a righteous nation can enter – one that remains trustworthy.

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 

They will discard their silver in the streets, and their gold will be treated like filth. ¹  Their silver and gold will not be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord’s fury. ²  They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs because their wealth ³  was the obstacle leading to their iniquity. ⁴ 

The Israelites ¹  turn justice into bitterness; ²  they throw what is fair and right ³  to the ground. ⁴ 

Then ¹  Jesus ²  entered the temple courts ³  and began to drive out those who were selling things there, ⁴ 

Let anyone who has no love for the Lord be accursed. Our Lord, come! ¹ 

Have you suffered so many things for nothing? – if indeed it was for nothing.

So you, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.