but those ¹  who did not take ²  the word of the Lord seriously left their servants and their cattle ³  in the field.

You must not oppress your neighbor or commit robbery against him. ¹  You must not withhold ²  the wages of the hired laborer overnight until morning.

Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits ¹  to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God.

Now Boaz, with whose female servants you worked, is our close relative. ¹  Look, tonight he is winnowing barley at the threshing floor. ² 

He will take your male and female servants, as well as your best cattle and your donkeys, and assign them for his own use.

besides 3,300 ¹  officials who supervised the workers. ² 

including craftsmen, builders, and masons, and should buy wood and chiseled stone for the repair work. ¹ 

in using gold, silver, bronze, and iron. ¹  Get up and begin the work! May the Lord be with you!”

and some of the temple servants that David and his officials had established for the work of the Levites – 220 of them. They were all designated by name.

Then those in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers ¹  has failed! The debris is so great that we are unable to rebuild the wall.”

Even I and my relatives ¹  and my associates ²  are lending them money and grain. But let us abandon this practice of seizing collateral! ³ 

Love the Lord, all you faithful followers ¹  of his! The Lord protects those who have integrity, but he pays back in full the one who acts arrogantly. ² 

I reported, ¹  “All of them are the most stubborn of rebels! ²  They are as hard as bronze or iron. They go about telling lies. They all deal corruptly.

Be distressed, ¹  farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley. For the harvest of the field has perished.

“Who then is the faithful and wise slave, ¹  whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves ²  their food at the proper time?

But when he came to his senses ¹  he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have food ²  enough to spare, but here I am dying from hunger!

to be self-controlled, ¹  pure, fulfilling their duties at home, ²  kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the message ³  of God may not be discredited. ⁴ 

Josiah also got rid of ¹  the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, ²  the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, ³  and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law ⁴  recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.

“Now send me a man who is skilled in working with gold, silver, bronze, and iron, as well as purple, crimson, and violet colored fabrics, and who knows how to engrave. He will work with my skilled craftsmen here in Jerusalem ¹  and Judah, whom my father David provided.

He built towers in the desert and dug many cisterns, for he owned many herds in the lowlands ¹  and on the plain. He had workers in the fields and vineyards in the hills and in Carmel, ²  for he loved agriculture. ³