Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, ¹  “Who among you ²  has built a new house and not dedicated ³  it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else ⁴  dedicate it.

The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to choose ¹  me as your king, then come along, find safety under my branches! ²  Otherwise ³  may fire blaze from the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’

Saul said to the Kenites, “Go on and leave! Go down from among the Amalekites! Otherwise I will sweep you away ¹  with them! After all, you were kind to all the Israelites when they came up from Egypt.” So the Kenites withdrew from among the Amalekites.

Neither man nor woman would David leave alive so as to bring them back to Gath. He was thinking, “This way they can’t tell on us, saying, ‘This is what David did.’” Such was his practice the entire time ¹  that he lived in the country of the Philistines.

She replied, “In that case, ¹  let the king invoke the name of ²  the Lord your God so that the avenger of blood may not kill! Then they will not destroy my son!” He replied, “As surely as the Lord lives, not a single hair of your son’s head ³  will fall to the ground.”

Then David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bicri will cause greater disaster for us than Absalom did! Take your lord’s servants and pursue him. Otherwise he will secure ¹  fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”

Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As certainly as the Lord God of Israel lives (whom I serve), ¹  there will be no dew or rain in the years ahead unless I give the command.” ² 

Now he was acting as the guardian ¹  of Hadassah ²  (that is, Esther), the daughter of his uncle, for neither her father nor her mother was alive. ³  This young woman was very attractive and had a beautiful figure. ⁴  When her father and mother died, Mordecai had raised her ⁵  as if she were his own daughter.

O royal family descended from David. ¹  The Lord says: ‘See to it that people each day ²  are judged fairly. ³  Deliver those who have been robbed from those ⁴  who oppress them. Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you. It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out because of the evil that you have done. ⁵ 

One of their own people will be their leader. Their ruler will come from their own number. ¹  I will invite him to approach me, and he will do so. ²  For no one would dare approach me on his own. ³  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁴ 

Then Johanan son of Kareah spoke privately to Gedaliah there at Mizpah, “Let me go and kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah before anyone knows about it. Otherwise he will kill you ¹  and all the Judeans who have rallied around you will be scattered. Then what remains of Judah will disappear.”

After they had gone, an ¹  angel of the Lord ²  appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod ³  is going to look for the child to kill him.”

He ¹  said also to the man ²  who had invited him, “When you host a dinner or a banquet, ³  don’t invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors so you can be invited by them in return and get repaid.