Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain ¹  that your descendants will be strangers ²  in a foreign country. ³  They will be enslaved and oppressed ⁴  for four hundred years.

Stay ¹  in this land. Then I will be with you and will bless you, ²  for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, ³  and I will fulfill ⁴  the solemn promise I made ⁵  to your father Abraham.

He commanded them, “This is what you must say to my lord Esau: ‘This is what your servant ¹  Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban until now.

So Jacob told his household and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have among you. ¹  Purify yourselves and change your clothes. ² 

So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that were in their possession ¹  and the rings that were in their ears. ²  Jacob buried them ³  under the oak ⁴  near Shechem

So Jacob came back to his father Isaac in Mamre, ¹  to Kiriath Arba ²  (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. ³ 

You may have the Sabbath produce ¹  of the land to eat – you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you, ² 

You are to rejoice in your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows who are in your villages. ¹ 

But his master said to him, “We should not stop at a foreign city where non-Israelites live. ¹  We will travel on to Gibeah.”

So the woman did as the prophet said. ¹  She and her family went and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

“But if you people ¹  ever turn away from me, fail to obey the regulations and rules I instructed you to keep, ²  and decide to serve and worship other gods, ³ 

The Lord protects those residing outside their native land; he lifts up the fatherless and the widow, ¹  but he opposes the wicked. ² 

I decreed and delivered and proclaimed, and there was no other god among you. You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “that I am God.

For this is what the sovereign Lord says: “In the beginning my people went to live temporarily in Egypt; Assyria oppressed them for no good reason.

But your sinful acts have alienated you from your God; your sins have caused him to reject you and not listen to your prayers. ¹ 

I will dry up the waterways and hand the land over to ¹  evil men. I will make the land and everything in it desolate by the hand of foreigners. I, the Lord, have spoken!

This is what the sovereign Lord says: No foreigner, who is uncircumcised in heart and flesh among all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, will enter into my sanctuary. ¹ 

Foreigners are consuming what his strenuous labor produced, ¹  but he does not recognize it! His head is filled with gray hair, but he does not realize it!

They ¹  show that the work of the law is written ²  in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend ³  them, ⁴ 

not that there really is another gospel, ¹  but ²  there are some who are disturbing you and wanting ³  to distort the gospel of Christ.