Then the Lord God made ¹  a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, ¹  and while he was asleep, ²  he took part of the man’s side ³  and closed up the place with flesh. ⁴ 

“Then ¹  a second beast appeared, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and there were three ribs ²  in its mouth between its teeth. ³  It was told, ⁴  ‘Get up and devour much flesh!’

Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like bars of iron.

You are to make two gold rings for it under its border, on its two flanks; you are to make them on its two sides. ¹  The rings ²  will be places ³  for poles to carry it with.

As if with choice meat ¹  you satisfy my soul. ²  My mouth joyfully praises you, ³ 

Better a meal of vegetables where there is love ¹  than a fattened ox where there is hatred. ² 

They ¹  entered the house under the pretense of getting wheat and mortally wounded him ²  in the stomach. Then Recab and his brother Baanah escaped.

He built an extension all around the walls of the temple’s main hall and holy place and constructed side rooms in it. ¹ 

The roof above the beams supported by the pillars was also made of cedar; there were forty-five beams, fifteen per row.

When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside at the gate as if to speak privately with him. Joab then stabbed him ¹  in the abdomen and killed him, avenging the shed blood of his brother Asahel. ² 

I will attack them like a bear robbed of her cubs – I will rip open their chests. I will devour them there like a lion – like a wild animal would tear them apart.

But Asahel ¹  refused to turn aside. So Abner struck him in the abdomen with the back end of his ²  spear. The spear came out his back; Asahel ³  collapsed on the spot and died there right before Abner. ⁴  Everyone who now comes to the place where Asahel fell dead pauses in respect. ⁵ 

Amasa did not protect himself from the knife in Joab’s other hand, and Joab ¹  stabbed him in the abdomen, causing Amasa’s ²  intestines to spill out on the ground. There was no need to stab him again; the first blow was fatal. ³  Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bicri.

Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Look! The feast I have prepared for you is ready. ¹  My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.”’

The one who observes the day does it for the Lord. The ¹  one who eats, eats for the Lord because he gives thanks to God, and the one who abstains from eating abstains for the Lord, and he gives thanks to God.