“For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem ¹  to kill both people and animals!

and say to them, ¹  ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, ²  I am against you. ³  I will draw my sword ⁴  from its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. ⁵ 

They are determined to be experts at doing evil; ¹  government officials and judges take bribes, ²  prominent men make demands, and they all do what is necessary to satisfy them. ³ 

“I will destroy people and animals; I will destroy the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. (The idolatrous images of these creatures will be destroyed along with evil people.) ¹  I will remove ²  humanity from the face of the earth,” says the Lord.

May the Lord cut off from the community ¹  of Jacob every last person who does this, ²  as well as the person who presents improper offerings to the Lord who rules over all!

so that you may be like ¹  your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

This became known to all who lived in Ephesus, ¹  both Jews and Greeks; fear came over ²  them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised. ³ 

For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to die, because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to people.

In the same way, you who are younger, ¹  be subject to the elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. ² 

He also caused ¹  everyone (small and great, rich and poor, free and slave ² ) to obtain a mark on their right hand or on their forehead.

They did so; Aaron extended his hand with his staff, he struck the dust of the ground, and it became gnats on people ¹  and on animals. All the dust of the ground became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.

“And this is yours: the raised offering of their gift, along with all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I have given them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a perpetual ordinance. Everyone who is ceremonially clean in your household may eat of it.

On the other hand, you may slaughter and eat meat as you please when the Lord your God blesses you ¹  in all your villages. ²  Both the ritually pure and impure may eat it, whether it is a gazelle or an ibex.

So go now and strike down the Amalekites. Destroy everything that they have. Don’t spare ¹  them. Put them to death – man, woman, child, infant, ox, sheep, camel, and donkey alike.’”

He then handed out to each member of the entire assembly of Israel, ¹  both men and women, a portion of bread, a date cake, ²  and a raisin cake. Then all the people went home. ³ 

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself to the ground before the temple of God, a very large crowd of Israelites – men, women, and children alike – gathered around him. The people wept loudly. ¹ 

Nations will take them and bring them back to their own place. Then the family of Jacob will make foreigners their servants as they settle in the Lord’s land. ¹  They will make their captors captives and rule over the ones who oppressed them.

They will eat up your crops and your food. They will kill off ¹  your sons and your daughters. They will eat up your sheep and your cattle. They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ²  Their weapons will batter down ³  the fortified cities you trust in.

Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you. ¹  Vent it on the peoples ²  who do not worship you. ³  For they have destroyed the people of Jacob. ⁴  They have completely destroyed them ⁵  and left their homeland in utter ruin.

I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another.”’” ¹