“‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you are to have a holy assembly; you must do no ordinary work, and you must keep a festival to the Lord for seven days.

This is the land we brought under our control at that time: The territory extending from Aroer ¹  by the Wadi Arnon and half the Gilead hill country with its cities I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites. ² 

Then he ¹  said to me, “Get up, set out leading ²  the people so they may go and possess ³  the land I promised to give to their ancestors.” ⁴ 

The witnesses ¹  must be first to begin the execution, and then all the people ²  are to join in afterward. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

Then if you and your descendants ¹  turn to the Lord your God and obey him with your whole mind and being ²  just as ³  I am commanding you today,

I will sharpen my lightning-like sword, and my hand will grasp hold of the weapon of judgment; ¹  I will execute vengeance on my foes, and repay those who hate me! ² 

I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh – the blood of the slaughtered and captured, the chief ¹  of the enemy’s leaders!’”

So Joshua said to the Israelites: “How long do you intend to put off occupying ¹  the land the Lord God of your ancestors ²  has given you?

Pick three men from each tribe. I will send them out to walk through the land and make a map of it for me. ¹ 

They ruthlessly oppressed ¹  the Israelites that eighteenth year ²  – that is, all the Israelites living east of the Jordan in Amorite country in Gilead.

Jephthah said to them, “My people and I were entangled in controversy with the Ammonites. ¹  I asked for your help, but you did not deliver me from their power. ² 

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.

She said, “In the past they would always say, ‘Let them inquire in Abel,’ and that is how they settled things.

At the time of ¹  the harvest three ²  of the thirty leaders went down to ³  David at the cave of Adullam. A band of Philistines was camped in the valley of Rephaim.

In the twelfth year of the reign of Israel’s King Joram, son of Ahab, Jehoram’s son Ahaziah became king over Judah.

In the east they settled as far as the entrance to the desert that stretches to the Euphrates River, for their cattle had increased in numbers in the land of Gilead.

They crossed the Jordan River ¹  in the first month, ²  when it was overflowing its banks, and routed those living in all the valleys to the east and west. ³ 

The Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he followed in his ancestor ¹  David’s footsteps at the beginning of his reign. ²  He did not seek the Baals,

Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak began ¹  to rebuild the temple of God in Jerusalem. The prophets of God were with them, supporting them.

Indeed, these are but the outer fringes of his ways! ¹  How faint is the whisper ²  we hear of him! But who can understand the thunder of his power?”