We have enough straw and grain for our donkeys, and there is enough food and wine for me, your female servant, ¹  and the young man who is with your servants. ²  We lack nothing.”

Once she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, an ephah ¹  of flour, and a container ²  of wine. She brought him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, even though he was young. ³ 

“When you saw that King Nahash of the Ammonites was advancing against you, you said to me, ‘No! A king will rule over us’ – even though the Lord your God is your king!

Until the day he ¹  died Samuel did not see Saul again. Samuel did, however, mourn for Saul, but the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

(Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.) ¹ 

He did what the Lord approved, just as his father Uzziah had done. ¹  (He did not, however, have the audacity to enter the temple.) ²  Yet the people were still sinning.

Ahaz gathered riches ¹  from the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and the officials and gave them to the king of Assyria, but that did not help.

These are the ones that came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer (although they were unable to certify ¹  their family connection ²  or their ancestry, ³  as to whether they really were from Israel):

From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord. However, the Lord’s temple was not at that time established. ¹ 

Then this Sheshbazzar went and laid the foundations of the temple of God in Jerusalem. From that time to the present moment ¹  it has been in the process of being rebuilt, although it is not yet finished.’

These are the ones who came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer (although they were unable to certify ¹  their family connection ²  or their ancestry, ³  as to whether they were really from Israel):

When Esther’s female attendants and her eunuchs came and informed her about Mordecai’s behavior, ¹  the queen was overcome with anguish. Although she sent garments for Mordecai to put on so that he could remove his sackcloth, he would not accept them.

Though these people make an uproar as loud as the roaring of powerful waves, ¹  when he shouts at ²  them, they will flee to a distant land, driven before the wind like dead weeds on the hills, or like dead thistles ³  before a strong gale.

The Lord says, “Do not start following pagan religious practices. ¹  Do not be in awe of signs that occur ²  in the sky even though the nations hold them in awe.

So I, the Lord, say this: ¹  ‘I will soon bring disaster on them which they will not be able to escape! When they cry out to me for help, I will not listen to them.

As a matter of fact, ¹  even your own brothers and the members of your own family have betrayed you too. Even they have plotted to do away with you. ²  So do not trust them even when they say kind things ³  to you.

But just suppose you continue to say, ‘The message of the Lord is burdensome.’ Here is what the Lord says will happen: ‘I sent word to you that you must not say, “The Lord’s message is burdensome.” But you used the words “The Lord’s message is burdensome” anyway.

“Send a message to all the exiles in Babylon. Tell them, ‘The Lord has spoken about Shemaiah the Nehelamite. “Shemaiah has spoken to you as a prophet even though I did not send him. He is making you trust in a lie. ¹ 

The city is sure to fall into the hands of the Babylonians. ¹  Yet, in spite of this, ²  you, Lord God, ³  have said to me, “Buy that field with silver and have the transaction legally witnessed.”’” ⁴ 

Recently, however, you yourselves ¹  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ²