She cried on his shoulder ¹  until the party was almost over. ²  Finally, on the seventh day, he told her because she had nagged him so much. ³  Then she told the young men the solution to the riddle. ⁴ 

(May those who hate the Lord ¹  cower in fear ²  before him! May they be permanently humiliated!) ³ 

You have not abandoned your fellow Israelites ¹  this entire time, ²  right up to this very day. You have completed the task given you by the Lord your God. ³ 

In the thirty-eighth year of King Azariah’s reign over Judah, Jeroboam’s son Zechariah became king over Israel. He reigned in Samaria ¹  for six months.

The king of Assyria marched through ¹  the whole land. He attacked Samaria and besieged it for three years.

He deported to Babylon all who escaped the sword. They served him and his sons until the Persian kingdom rose to power.

He displayed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of his majestic greatness for a lengthy period of time ¹  – a hundred and eighty days, to be exact! ² 

It lasted until the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year. ¹  On that day they broke through the city walls.

“People of Babylonia, ¹  you plundered my people. ²  That made you happy and glad. You frolic about like calves in a pasture. ³  Your joyous sounds are like the neighs of a stallion. ⁴ 

Ish-bosheth son of Saul was forty years old when he began to rule over Israel. He ruled two years. However, the people ¹  of Judah followed David.

However, the war was prolonged between the house of Saul and the house of David. David was becoming steadily stronger, while the house of Saul was becoming increasingly weaker.

So the Lord sent a plague through Israel from the morning until the completion of the appointed time. Seventy thousand men died from Dan to Beer Sheba.

Samaria’s food supply ran out. ¹  They laid siege to it so long that ²  a donkey’s head was selling for eighty shekels of silver ³  and a quarter of a kab ⁴  of dove’s droppings ⁵  for five shekels of silver. ⁶ 

The Lord afflicted the king with an illness; he suffered from a skin disease ¹  until the day he died. He lived in separate quarters, ²  while his son Jotham was in charge of the palace and ruled over the people of the land.

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. ¹  His mother ²  was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan, from Jerusalem.

They were hiring advisers to oppose them, so as to frustrate their plans, throughout the time ¹  of King Cyrus of Persia until the reign of King Darius ²  of Persia. ³ 

When those days ¹  were completed, the king then provided a seven-day ²  banquet for all the people who were present ³  in Susa the citadel, for those of highest standing to the most lowly. ⁴  It was held in the court located in the garden of the royal palace.

The Lord says, ¹  “Listen, ²  nation of Israel! ³  I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you. It will be a nation that was founded long ago and has lasted for a long time. It will be a nation whose language you will not know. Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand.

Around three o’clock ¹  Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ² 

During David’s reign there was a famine for three consecutive years. So David inquired of the Lord. ¹  The Lord said, “It is because of Saul and his bloodstained family, ²  because he murdered the Gibeonites.”