Let it be known to the king that we have gone to the province of Judah, to the temple of the great God. It is being built with large stones, ¹  and timbers are being placed in the walls. This work is being done with all diligence and is prospering in their hands.

We will be innocent if we carefully keep all these commandments ¹  before the Lord our God, just as he demands.” ² 

Let the oppressed eat and be filled! ¹  Let those who seek his help praise the Lord! May you ²  live forever!

Then Herod ¹  privately summoned the wise men and determined from them when the star had appeared.

For the unconverted ¹  pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

So ¹  it seemed good to me as well, ²  because I have followed ³  all things carefully from the beginning, to write an orderly account ⁴  for you, most excellent Theophilus,

but (because they assumed that he was in their group of travelers) ¹  they went a day’s journey. Then ²  they began to look for him among their relatives and acquaintances. ³ 

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was diligently seeking, but the elect obtained it. The ¹  rest were hardened,

God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, ¹  to acknowledge those who labor among you and preside over you in the Lord and admonish you,

Thus we must make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by following the same pattern of disobedience.

Concerning this salvation, ¹  the prophets ²  who predicted the grace that would come to you ³  searched and investigated carefully.

Watch out, so that you do not lose the things we have worked for, ¹  but receive a full reward. ² 

and then you are careful to observe all these commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities ³  to these three.

The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his ¹  commandments which I am urging ²  you today to be careful to do.

“But if you ignore ¹  the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: ² 

Gather the people – men, women, and children, as well as the resident foreigners in your villages – so they may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the words of this law.

“I, King Artaxerxes, hereby issue orders to all the treasurers of ¹  Trans-Euphrates, that you precisely execute all that Ezra the priestly scribe of the law of the God of heaven may request of you –

When Herod ¹  saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became enraged. He sent men ²  to kill all the children in Bethlehem ³  and throughout the surrounding region from the age of two and under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men.

And now, if you will diligently listen to me ¹  and keep ²  my covenant, then you will be my ³  special possession ⁴  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine,