Fathers, ¹  do not provoke ²  your children, so they will not become disheartened.

when they see your pure and reverent conduct. ¹ 

In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see.

What will you say ¹  when the Lord ²  appoints as rulers over you those allies that you, yourself, had actually prepared as such? ³  Then anguish and agony will grip you like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. ⁴ 

Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ¹  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ²  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ³ 

Should I ¹  not be even more ²  concerned ³  about Nineveh, this enormous city? ⁴  There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, ⁵  as well as many animals!” ⁶ 

The Ephraimites will be like warriors and will rejoice as if they had drunk wine. Their children will see it and rejoice; they will celebrate in the things of the Lord.

For they were pleased to do this, and indeed they are indebted to the Jerusalem saints. ¹  For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are obligated also to minister to them in material things.

You give me ¹  your protective shield; ²  your willingness to help enables me to prevail. ³ 

If ¹  I say, ²  “My bed will comfort me, ³  my couch will ease ⁴  my complaint,”

“But ¹  if I speak, my pain is not relieved, ²  and if I refrain from speaking – how ³  much of it goes away?

Let his own eyes see his destruction; ¹  let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

When people are brought low ¹  and you say ‘Lift them up!’ ²  then he will save the downcast; ³ 

I am numb with pain and severely battered; ¹  I groan loudly because of the anxiety I feel. ² 

All day long I feel humiliated ¹  and am overwhelmed with shame, ² 

As a father has compassion on his children, ¹  so the Lord has compassion on his faithful followers. ² 

A bright look ¹  brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the body. ² 

There is a generation who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not washed ¹  from their filthiness. ² 

Better is one handful with some rest than two hands full of toil ¹  and chasing the wind.

Here is ¹  another misfortune ²  that I have seen on earth, ³  and it weighs ⁴  heavily on people: ⁵