“This is what the sovereign Lord says: “You will drink your sister’s deep and wide cup; ¹  you will be scorned and derided, for it holds a great deal.

The cedars in the garden of God could not eclipse it, nor could the fir trees ¹  match its boughs; the plane trees were as nothing compared to its branches; no tree in the garden of God could rival its beauty.

Suppose I tell the righteous that he will certainly live, but he becomes confident in his righteousness and commits iniquity. None of his righteous deeds will be remembered; because of the iniquity he has committed he will die.

As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so will I deal with you – you will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all of Edom – all of it! Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your fathers lived; they will live in it – they and their children and their grandchildren forever. David my servant will be prince over them forever.

Fishermen will stand beside it; from Engedi to En-eglaim they will spread nets. They will catch many kinds of fish, like the fish of the Great Sea. ¹ 

So the king assigned them a daily ration ¹  from his royal delicacies ²  and from the wine he himself drank. They were to be trained ³  for the next three years. At the end of that time they were to enter the king’s service. ⁴ 

The army was given over, ¹  along with the daily sacrifice, in the course of his sinful rebellion. ²  It hurled ³  truth ⁴  to the ground and enjoyed success. ⁵ 

“There will arise in his ¹  place one from her family line ²  who will come against their army and will enter the stronghold of the king of the north and will move against them successfully. ³ 

When the Lord first spoke ¹  through ²  Hosea, he ³  said to him, ⁴  “Go marry ⁵  a prostitute ⁶  who will bear illegitimate children conceived through prostitution, ⁷  because the nation ⁸  continually commits spiritual prostitution ⁹  by turning away from the Lord.”

“At that time ¹  I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creatures that crawl on the ground. I will abolish ²  the warrior’s bow and sword – that is, every weapon of warfare ³  – from the land, and I will allow them to live securely.” ⁴ 

This is what the Lord says: “Just as a shepherd salvages from the lion’s mouth a couple of leg bones or a piece of an ear, so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be salvaged. ¹  They will be left with just a corner of a bed, ²  and a part ³  of a couch.”

“You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight,” ¹  says the Lord. “Certainly I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor ²  and the Arameans from Kir. ³ 

Look, at that time I will deal with those who mistreated you. I will rescue the lame sheep ¹  and gather together the scattered sheep. I will take away their humiliation and make the whole earth admire and respect them. ² 

Should you not have obeyed the words that the Lord cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem ¹  was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah ²  were also populated?

In that day,” says the Lord, “I will strike every horse with confusion and its rider with madness. I will pay close attention to the house of Judah, but will strike all the horses ¹  of the nations ²  with blindness.

“They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ¹  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

Going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in a boat ¹  with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. Then ²  he called them.

It is enough for the disciple to become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much more will they defame the members of his household!

Whoever receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. Whoever ¹  receives a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.