Then ¹  the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn for her because no one buys their cargo ²  any longer –

Indeed, ask about the distant past, starting from the day God created humankind ¹  on the earth, and ask ²  from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has ever been such a great thing as this, or even a rumor of it.

You shall rejoice in the presence of the Lord your God, along with your sons, daughters, male and female servants, and the Levites in your villages ¹  (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you). ² 

The leaders of the Philistines asked, “What about these Hebrews?” Achish said to the leaders of the Philistines, “Isn’t this David, the servant of King Saul of Israel, who has been with me for quite some time? ¹  I have found no fault with him from the day of his defection until the present time!” ² 

Of course, who can really build a temple for him, since the sky ¹  and the highest heavens cannot contain him? Who am I that I should build him a temple! It will really be only a place to offer sacrifices before him. ² 

that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ¹  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ²  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

“Now, my lord, as surely as the Lord lives and as surely as you live, it is the Lord who has kept you from shedding blood and taking matters into your own hands. Now may your enemies and those who seek to harm my lord be like Nabal.

Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah, said, “My lord should not say, ‘They have killed all the young men who are the king’s sons.’ For only Amnon is dead. This is what Absalom has talked about ¹  from the day that Amnon ²  humiliated his sister Tamar.

So the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you insist on doing these things and have not kept the covenantal rules I gave you, ¹  I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.

From the days of our fathers until this very day our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities we, along with our kings and ¹  priests, have been delivered over by the local kings ²  to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment – right up to the present time.

For the law possesses a shadow of the good things to come but not the reality itself, and is therefore completely unable, by the same sacrifices offered continually, year after year, to perfect those who come to worship. ¹ 

Indeed, ¹  you had little before I arrived, ²  but now your possessions have increased many times over. ³  The Lord has blessed you wherever I worked. ⁴  But now, how long must it be before I do something for my own family too?” ⁵ 

Then he set up the peeled branches in all the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. He set up the branches in front of the flocks when they were in heat and came to drink. ¹ 

Judah recognized them and said, “She is more upright ¹  than I am, because I wouldn’t give her to Shelah my son.” He did not have sexual relations with her ²  again.

“So now, when I return to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us – his very life is bound up in his son’s life. ¹ 

the priest must then examine it, ¹  and if ²  the disease covers his whole body, he is to pronounce the person with the infection clean. ³  He has turned all white, so he is clean. ⁴ 

God came to Balaam that night, and said to him, “If the men have come to call you, get up and go with them; but the word that I will say to you, that you must do.”

I left here full, ¹  but the Lord has caused me to return empty-handed. ²  Why do you call me ‘Naomi,’ seeing that ³  the Lord has opposed me, ⁴  and the Sovereign One ⁵  has caused me to suffer?” ⁶ 

She asked, ¹  ‘May I follow the harvesters and gather ²  grain among the bundles?’ ³  Since she arrived she has been working hard ⁴  from this morning until now ⁵  – except for ⁶  sitting ⁷  in the resting hut ⁸  a short time.” ⁹ 

Ruth ¹  knelt before him with her forehead to the ground ²  and said to him, “Why are you so kind ³  and so attentive to me, ⁴  even though ⁵  I am a foreigner?” ⁶