I for my part will stay at Mizpah to represent you before the Babylonians ¹  whenever they come to us. You for your part go ahead and harvest the wine, the dates, the figs, ²  and the olive oil, and store them in jars. Go ahead and settle down in the towns that you have taken over.” ³ 

Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were broken in pieces without distinction ¹  and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors that the wind carries away. Not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a large mountain that filled the entire earth.

So I weep along with Jazer ¹  over the vines of Sibmah. I will saturate you ²  with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh, for the conquering invaders shout triumphantly over your fruit and crops. ³ 

When David had gone a short way beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth was there to meet him. He had a couple of donkeys that were saddled, and on them were two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred raisin cakes, a hundred baskets of summer fruit, ¹  and a container of wine.

The withering flower, its beautiful splendor, situated at the head of a rich valley, will be like an early fig before harvest – as soon as someone notices it, he grabs it and swallows it. ¹ 

When Ehud approached him, he was sitting in his well-ventilated ¹  upper room all by himself. Ehud said, “I have a message from God ²  for you.” When Eglon rose up from his seat, ³ 

When Ehud had left, Eglon’s ¹  servants came and saw the locked doors of the upper room. They said, “He must be relieving himself ²  in the well-ventilated inner room.” ³ 

For this is what the Lord has told me: “I will wait ¹  and watch from my place, like scorching heat produced by the sunlight, ²  like a cloud of mist ³  in the heat ⁴  of harvest.” ⁵ 

As Ehud went out into the vestibule, ¹  he closed the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

The drought as well as the heat carry away the melted snow; ¹  so the grave ²  takes away those who have sinned. ³ 

You, whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of the south wind,

This is why the sky ¹  has held back its dew and the earth its produce. ² 

Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest, ¹  so is a faithful messenger to those who send him, for he refreshes the heart ²  of his masters.

Those survivors from ¹  Jacob will live ²  in the midst of many nations. ³  They will be like the dew the Lord sends, like the rain on the grass, that does not hope for men to come or wait around for humans to arrive. ⁴ 

by asking both the priests of the temple ¹  of the Lord who rules over all and the prophets, “Should we weep in the fifth month, ²  fasting as we have done over the years?”

“Speak to all the people and priests of the land as follows: ‘When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh ¹  months through all these seventy years, did you truly fast for me – for me, indeed?

“You are also to observe ¹  the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors that you have sown in the field, and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year ²  when you have gathered in ³  your harvest ⁴  out of the field.

Is this not the time of the wheat harvest? I will call on the Lord so that he makes it thunder and rain. Realize and see what a great sin you have committed before the Lord by asking for a king for yourselves.”

When those days ¹  were completed, the king then provided a seven-day ²  banquet for all the people who were present ³  in Susa the citadel, for those of highest standing to the most lowly. ⁴  It was held in the court located in the garden of the royal palace.

They will be like a tree planted near a stream whose roots spread out toward the water. It has nothing to fear when the heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no need to be concerned in a year of drought. It does not stop bearing fruit.