lest you learn ¹  his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. ² 

Do not envy evil people, ¹  do not desire ²  to be with them;

The one who plans to do evil will be called a scheming person. ¹ 

If ¹  someone pampers his servant from youth, he will be a weakling ²  in the end.

Everyone shares the same fate ¹  – the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, ²  the ceremonially clean and unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. What happens to the good person, also happens to the sinner; ³  what happens to those who make vows, also happens to those who are afraid to make vows.

For messengers are coming, heralding disaster, from the city of Dan and from the hills of Ephraim. ¹ 

He ¹  even tried to desecrate ²  the temple, so we arrested ³  him. ⁴ 

¹  it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger,” ² 

Since many ¹  are boasting according to human standards, ²  I too will boast.

and so incur judgment for breaking their former pledge. ¹ 

Then ¹  seven other cows came up after them; they were scrawny, very bad-looking, and lean. I had never seen such bad-looking cows ²  as these in all the land of Egypt!

When they had eaten them, ¹  no one would have known ²  that they had done so, for they were just as bad-looking as before. Then I woke up.

and they said to them, “May the Lord look on you and judge, ¹  because you have made us stink ²  in the opinion of ³  Pharaoh and his servants, ⁴  so that you have given them an excuse to kill us!” ⁵ 

When the fish ¹  that were in the Nile died, the Nile began ²  to stink, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood ³  everywhere in the land of Egypt!

Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, ¹  and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, ²  will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and presumption is like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as ¹  king.”

So give your servant a discerning mind ¹  so he can make judicial decisions for ²  your people and distinguish right from wrong. ³  Otherwise ⁴  no one is able ⁵  to make judicial decisions for ⁶  this great nation of yours.” ⁷ 

He did evil in the sight of ¹  the Lord, but not to the same degree as his father and mother. He did remove the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made.

Now ¹  let the king be aware that the Jews who came up to us from you have gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and odious city. ²  They are completing its walls and repairing its foundations.

I thought to myself, “God will judge both the righteous and the wicked; for there is an appropriate time for every activity, and there is a time of judgment ¹  for every deed.