Look! It is Solomon’s portable couch! ¹  It is surrounded by sixty warriors, some of Israel’s mightiest warriors.

ruin and misery are in their paths,

They will bring back all your countrymen ¹  from all the nations as an offering to the Lord. They will bring them ²  on horses, in chariots, in wagons, on mules, and on camels ³  to my holy hill Jerusalem,” says the Lord, “just as the Israelites bring offerings to the Lord’s temple in ritually pure containers.

So they tracked them ¹  as far as the Jordan. The road was filled with clothes and equipment that the Syrians had discarded in their haste. ²  The scouts ³  went back and told the king.

Every shrewd ¹  person acts with knowledge, but a fool displays ²  his folly.

Let them fall ¹  slain in the land of Babylonia, ²  mortally wounded in the streets of her cities. ³ 

The slain will fall among you and then you will know that I am the Lord. ¹ 

Your dead bodies ¹  will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me.

Gideon ¹  said to him, “But Lord, ²  how ³  can I deliver Israel? Just look! My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my family.” ⁴ 

They will lay it waste. It will lie parched ¹  and empty before me. The whole land will be laid waste. But no one living in it will pay any heed. ² 

You will become fuel for the fire – your blood will stain the middle of the land; ¹  you will no longer be remembered, for I, the Lord, have spoken.’”

They ¹  utter empty words, ²  taking ³  false oaths and making empty ⁴  agreements. Therefore legal disputes sprout up like poisonous weeds ⁵  in the furrows of a plowed field.

The women singing in the temple ¹  will wail in that day.” The sovereign Lord is speaking. “There will be many corpses littered everywhere! ²  Be quiet!”

“I will turn Samaria ¹  into a heap of ruins in an open field – vineyards will be planted there! ²  I will tumble ³  the rubble of her stone walls ⁴  down into the valley, and tear down her fortifications to their foundations. ⁵ 

You will defeat every fortified city and every important ¹  city. You must chop down ²  every productive ³  tree, stop up all the springs, and cover all the cultivated land with stones.” ⁴ 

Before I restore them ¹  I will punish them in full ²  for their sins and the wrongs they have done. For they have polluted my land with the lifeless statues of their disgusting idols. They have filled the land I have claimed as my own ³  with their detestable idols.” ⁴ 

‘The defenders of the city will go out and fight with the Babylonians. ¹  But they will only fill those houses and buildings with the dead bodies of the people that I will kill in my anger and my wrath. ²  That will happen because I have decided to turn my back on ³  this city on account of the wicked things they have done. ⁴ 

(5:1) As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, ¹  seemingly insignificant ²  among the clans of Judah – from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, ³  one whose origins ⁴  are in the distant past. ⁵ 

But so that you may know ¹  that the Son of Man ²  has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the paralyzed man ³  – “I tell you, stand up, take your stretcher ⁴  and go home.” ⁵ 

They tore down the cities and each man threw a stone into every cultivated field until they were covered. ¹  They stopped up every spring and chopped down every productive tree. Only Kir Hareseth was left intact, ²  but the slingers surrounded it and attacked it.