When the evening shadows ¹  began to fall on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered ²  the doors to be closed. I further directed that they were not to be opened until after the Sabbath. I positioned ³  some of my young men at the gates so that no load could enter on the Sabbath day.

He built a hedge around it, ¹  removed its stones, and planted a vine. He built a tower in the middle of it, and constructed a winepress. He waited for it to produce edible grapes, but it produced sour ones instead. ² 

So I did just as I was commanded. I carried out my belongings packed for exile during the day, and at evening I dug myself a hole through the wall with my hands. I went out in the darkness, carrying my baggage ¹  on my shoulder while they watched.

I looked up ¹  and saw ²  a ³  ram with two horns standing at the canal. Its two horns were both long, ⁴  but one was longer than the other. The longer one was coming up after the shorter one.

Both Paul and Barnabas replied courageously, ¹  “It was necessary to speak the word of God ²  to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy ³  of eternal life, we ⁴  are turning to the Gentiles. ⁵ 

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

King Rehoboam solidified his rule in Jerusalem; ¹  he ²  was forty-one years old when he became king and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord chose from all the tribes of Israel to be his home. ³  Rehoboam’s ⁴  mother was an Ammonite named Naamah.