David looked up and saw the Lord’s messenger standing between the earth and sky with his sword drawn and in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem. David and the leaders, covered with sackcloth, threw themselves down with their faces to the ground. ¹ 

Of course, who can really build a temple for him, since the sky ¹  and the highest heavens cannot contain him? Who am I that I should build him a temple! It will really be only a place to offer sacrifices before him. ² 

He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; ¹  its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. ²  He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, ³  and spreads it out ⁴  like a pitched tent. ⁵ 

This is what the true God, ¹  the Lord, says – the one who created the sky and stretched it out, the one who fashioned the earth and everything that lives on it, ²  the one who gives breath to the people on it, and life to those who live on it: ³ 

This is what the Lord, your protector, ¹  says, the one who formed you in the womb: “I am the Lord, who made everything, who alone stretched out the sky, who fashioned the earth all by myself, ² 

I commission you ¹  as my spokesman; ²  I cover you with the palm of my hand, ³  to establish ⁴  the sky and to found the earth, to say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” ⁵ 

I will leave you in the wilderness, you and all the fish of your waterways; you will fall in the open field and will not be gathered up or collected. ¹  I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the skies.

Wherever human beings, ¹  wild animals, ²  and birds of the sky live – he has given them into your power. ³  He has given you authority over them all. You are the head of gold.

He builds the upper rooms of his palace ¹  in heaven and sets its foundation supports ²  on the earth. ³  He summons the water of the sea and pours it out on the earth’s surface. The Lord is his name.

“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, ¹  an object something like a large sheet descending, ²  being let down from heaven ³  by its four corners, and it came to me.

After the city secretary ¹  quieted the crowd, he said, “Men of Ephesus, what person ²  is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the keeper ³  of the temple of the great Artemis ⁴  and of her image that fell from heaven? ⁵ 

Then God said, “Let us make ¹  humankind ²  in our image, after our likeness, ³  so they may rule ⁴  over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, ⁵  and over all the creatures that move ⁶  on the earth.”

Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and told them, ‘I will multiply your descendants ¹  like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken about ²  I will give to your descendants, ³  and they will inherit it forever.’”

What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage ¹  by describing people who are more numerous ²  and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven ³  itself! Moreover, they said they saw ⁴  Anakites ⁵  there.”

This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand! I will strike you down and cut off your head. This day I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land. Then all the land will realize that Israel has a God

But if you repent ¹  and obey ²  my commandments and do them, then even if your dispersed people are in the most remote location, ³  I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen for my name to reside.’

Look up at the sky! ¹  Who created all these heavenly lights? ²  He is the one who leads out their ranks; ³  he calls them all by name. Because of his absolute power and awesome strength, not one of them is missing.

I said, ¹  “I will weep and mourn ²  for the grasslands on the mountains, ³  I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness because they are so scorched no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard there. Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields have fled and are gone.”

He stretched out the form ¹  of a hand and grabbed me by a lock of hair on my head. Then a wind ²  lifted me up between the earth and sky and brought me to Jerusalem ³  by means of divine visions, to the door of the inner gate which faces north where the statue ⁴  which provokes to jealousy was located.

And to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give ¹  every green plant for food.” It was so.