By the multitude of your iniquities, through the sinfulness of your trade, you desecrated your sanctuaries. So I drew fire out from within you; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth before the eyes of all who saw you.

His body resembled yellow jasper, ¹  and his face had an appearance like lightning. His eyes were like blazing torches; ²  his arms and feet had the gleam of polished bronze. His voice ³  thundered forth like the sound of a large crowd.

May the sovereign God ¹  bless you! May he make you fruitful and give you a multitude of descendants! ²  Then you will become ³  a large nation. ⁴ 

“You must not follow a crowd ¹  in doing evil things; ²  in a lawsuit you must not offer testimony that agrees with a crowd so as to pervert justice, ³ 

Your servant stands ¹  among your chosen people; ²  they are a great nation that is too numerous to count or number.

Do not hand the life of your dove ¹  over to a wild animal! Do not continue to disregard ²  the lives of your oppressed people!

“Because ¹  you have acted like a wanton prostitute ²  – a seductive mistress who practices sorcery, ³  who ⁴  enslaves ⁵  nations by her harlotry, ⁶  and entices peoples by her sorcery ⁷  –

He said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful ¹  and will multiply you. ²  I will make you into a group of nations, and I will give this land to your descendants ³  as an everlasting possession.’ ⁴ 

¹ Now the mixed multitude ²  who were among them craved more desirable foods, ³  and so the Israelites wept again ⁴  and said, “If only we had meat to eat! ⁵ 

There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, ¹  because you will have disobeyed ²  the Lord your God.

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, deported the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. ¹ 

Mordecai the Jew was second only to King Ahasuerus. He was the highest-ranking ¹  Jew, and he was admired by his numerous relatives. ²  He worked enthusiastically ³  for the good of his people and was an advocate for the welfare of ⁴  all his descendants. ⁵ 

Condemn them, ¹  O God! May their own schemes be their downfall! ²  Drive them away ³  because of their many acts of insurrection, ⁴  for they have rebelled against you.

Now the Lord makes this announcement: “Within exactly three years ¹  Moab’s splendor will disappear, along with all her many people; there will be just a few, insignificant survivors left.” ² 

This is a lament; they will chant it. The daughters of the nations will chant it. They will chant it over Egypt and over all her hordes, declares the sovereign Lord.”

“Son of man, wail ¹  over the horde of Egypt. Bring it down; ²  bring ³  her ⁴  and the daughters of powerful nations down to the lower parts of the earth, along with those who descend to the pit.

“Meshech-Tubal is there, along with all her hordes around her grave. ¹  All of them are uncircumcised, killed by the sword, for they spread their terror in the land of the living.

Jerusalem, ¹  Idumea, beyond the Jordan River, ²  and around Tyre ³  and Sidon ⁴  a great multitude came to him when they heard about the things he had done.

Again he began to teach by the lake. Such a large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there while ¹  the whole crowd was on the shore by the lake.

As he approached the road leading down from ¹  the Mount of Olives, ²  the whole crowd of his ³  disciples began to rejoice ⁴  and praise ⁵  God with a loud voice for all the mighty works ⁶  they had seen: ⁷