“‘If a man consecrates his house as holy to the Lord, the priest will establish its conversion value, whether good or bad. Just as the priest establishes its conversion value, thus it will stand. ¹ 

These are the final words of David: “The oracle of David son of Jesse, the oracle of the man raised up as the ruler chosen by the God of Jacob, ¹  Israel’s beloved ²  singer of songs:

My dynasty is approved by God, ¹  for he has made a perpetual covenant with me, arranged in all its particulars and secured. He always delivers me, and brings all I desire to fruition. ² 

May Joab and his descendants be perpetually guilty of their shed blood, but may the Lord give perpetual peace to David, his descendants, his family, ¹  and his dynasty.” ² 

So the Lord rejected all of Israel’s descendants; he humiliated ¹  them and handed them over to robbers, until he had thrown them from his presence.

Finally ¹  the Lord rejected Israel ²  just as he had warned he would do ³  through all his servants the prophets. Israel was deported from its land to Assyria and remains there to this very day.

Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end, ¹  in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the Lord. ² 

Joab son of Zeruiah started to count the men but did not finish. God was angry with Israel ¹  because of this, so the number was not recorded in the scroll ²  called The Annals of King David.

I also know that whatever God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken away from it. God has made it this way, so that men will fear him.

“Let them produce evidence! Let them tell us what will happen! Tell us about your earlier predictive oracles, ¹  so we may examine them ²  and see how they were fulfilled. ³  Or decree for us some future events!

I will send people to winnow Babylonia like a wind blowing away chaff. ¹  They will winnow her and strip her land bare. ²  This will happen when ³  they come against her from every direction, when it is time to destroy her. ⁴ 

Do not give her archers time to string their bows or to put on their coats of armor. ¹  Do not spare any of her young men. Completely destroy ²  her whole army.

ט (Tet) Her menstrual flow ¹  has soiled ²  her clothing; ³  she did not consider ⁴  the consequences of her sin. ⁵  Her demise ⁶  was astonishing, ⁷  and there was no one to comfort her. She cried, “Look, ⁸  O Lord, on my ⁹  affliction because my enemy boasts!”

They exposed her nakedness, seized her sons and daughters, and killed her with the sword. She became notorious ¹  among women, and they executed judgments against her.

The Arvadites ¹  joined your army on your walls all around, and the Gammadites ²  were in your towers. They hung their quivers ³  on your walls all around; they perfected your beauty.

They will designate men to scout continually ¹  through the land, burying those who remain on the surface of the ground, ²  in order to cleanse it. They will search for seven full months.

Then he said, “I am going to inform you about what will happen in the latter time of wrath, for the vision ¹  pertains to the appointed time of the end.

They turn to Baal; ¹  they are like an unreliable bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because their prayers to Baal ²  have made me angry. So people will disdain them in the land of Egypt. ³ 

“What are you, you great mountain? ¹  Because of Zerubbabel you will become a level plain! And he will bring forth the temple ²  capstone with shoutings of ‘Grace! Grace!’ ³  because of this.”

On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do ¹  many powerful deeds?’