Hezekiah expressed his appreciation to all the Levites, ¹  who demonstrated great skill in serving the Lord. ²  They feasted for the seven days of the festival, ³  and were making peace offerings and giving thanks to the Lord God of their ancestors.

I have not done you wrong, ¹  but you are doing wrong ²  by attacking me. May the Lord, the Judge, judge this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites!’”

The Lord will attack Israel, making it like a reed that sways in the water. ¹  He will remove Israel from this good land he gave to their ancestors ²  and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, ³  because they angered the Lord by making Asherah poles. ⁴ 

as well as masons and stonecutters. They bought wood and chiseled stone to repair the damage to the Lord’s temple and also paid for all the other expenses. ¹ 

The silver brought to the Lord’s temple was not used for silver bowls, trimming shears, basins, trumpets, or any kind of gold or silver implements.

He lifted me out of the watery pit, ¹  out of the slimy mud. ²  He placed my feet on a rock and gave me secure footing. ³ 

“Look, I am making you like ¹  a sharp threshing sledge, new and double-edged. ²  You will thresh the mountains and crush them; you will make the hills like straw. ³ 

Because of that, ¹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ²  said to me, ³  “Because these people have spoken ⁴  like this, ⁵  I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire. And I will make this people like wood which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ⁶ 

Babylonia had been a gold cup in the Lord’s hand. She had made the whole world drunk. The nations had drunk from the wine of her wrath. ¹  So they have all gone mad. ² 

The magicians did the same ¹  with their secret arts and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt too. ² 

Now look, you are standing in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinners, to increase still further the fierce wrath of the Lord against the Israelites.

but with whoever stands with us here today before the Lord our God as well as those not with us here today. ¹ 

Delilah said to Samson, “Look, you deceived ¹  me and told me lies! Now tell me how you can be subdued.”

A blacksmith could not be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines had said, “This will prevent the Hebrews from making swords and spears.”

You have sinned more than all who came before you. You went and angered me by making other gods, formed out of metal; you have completely disregarded me. ¹ 

Nevertheless for David’s sake the Lord his God maintained his dynasty ¹  in Jerusalem by giving him a son ²  to succeed him ³  and by protecting Jerusalem. ⁴ 

This happened because of the sins which Jeroboam committed and which he made Israel commit. These sins angered the Lord God of Israel. ¹ 

Mattithiah, a Levite, the firstborn son ¹  of Shallum the Korahite, was in charge of baking the bread for offerings.

They and their relatives, all of them skilled and trained to make music to the Lord, numbered two hundred eighty-eight. ¹ 

who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers ¹  and humiliates ²  the omen readers, who overturns the counsel of the wise men ³  and makes their advice ⁴  seem foolish,