“Bring with you your brothers, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, so that they may join ¹  with you and minister to you while ²  you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony.

When such a person ¹  hears the words of this oath he secretly ²  blesses himself ³  and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” ⁴  This will destroy ⁵  the watered ground with the parched. ⁶ 

But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “The only way I will make a treaty with you is if you let me gouge out the right eye of every one of you and in so doing humiliate all Israel!”

All Judah was happy about the oath, because they made the vow with their whole heart. They willingly sought the Lord and he responded to them. ¹  He made them secure on every side. ² 

So the king summoned Jehoiada the chief priest, ¹  and said to him, “Why have you not made ²  the Levites collect ³  from Judah and Jerusalem the tax authorized by Moses the Lord’s servant and by the assembly of Israel at the tent containing the tablets of the law?” ⁴ 

“I want to make a treaty with you, like the one our fathers made. ¹  See, I have sent you silver and gold as a present. Break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel, so he will retreat from my land.” ² 

“I want to make a treaty with you, like the one our fathers made. ¹  See, I have sent you silver and gold. Break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel, so he will retreat from my land.” ² 

It is a sign between me and the Israelites forever; for in six days ¹  the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’” ² 

and that priest must dip his finger in the blood ¹  and sprinkle ²  some of the blood seven times ³  before the Lord toward ⁴  the front of the veil-canopy. ⁵ 

¹ On ²  the day that the tabernacle was set up, ³  the cloud ⁴  covered the tabernacle – the tent of the testimony ⁵  – and from evening until morning there was ⁶  a fiery appearance ⁷  over the tabernacle.

I will write on the tablets the same words ¹  that were on the first tablets you broke, and you must put them into the ark.”

Then I turned, went down the mountain, and placed the tablets into the ark I had made – they are still there, just as the Lord commanded me.

but with whoever stands with us here today before the Lord our God as well as those not with us here today. ¹ 

After Gideon died, the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They made Baal-Berith ¹  their god.

They paid him seventy silver shekels out of the temple of Baal-Berith. Abimelech then used the silver to hire some lawless, dangerous ¹  men as his followers. ² 

So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he had promised him. And Hiram and Solomon were at peace and made a treaty. ¹ 

But the Lord was unwilling to destroy Judah. He preserved Judah for the sake of ¹  his servant David to whom he had promised a perpetual dynasty. ² 

But they were unfaithful to the God of their ancestors ¹  and worshiped instead ²  the gods of the native peoples ³  whom God had destroyed before them.

These are the men David put in charge of music in the Lord’s sanctuary, ¹  after the ark was placed there.

Everyone was supposed to free their male and female Hebrew slaves. No one was supposed to keep a fellow Judean enslaved. ¹