Then in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought to me, ¹  I took the wine and gave it to the king. Previously ²  I had not been depressed ³  in the king’s presence. ⁴ 

“Because of the violence done to the oppressed, ¹  because of the painful cries ²  of the needy, I will spring into action,” ³  says the Lord. “I will provide the safety they so desperately desire.” ⁴ 

You visit the earth and give it rain; ¹  you make it rich and fertile ²  with overflowing streams full of water. ³  You provide grain for them, ⁴  for you prepare the earth to yield its crops. ⁵ 

Your people willingly follow you ¹  when you go into battle. ²  On the holy hills ³  at sunrise ⁴  the dew of your youth ⁵  belongs to you. ⁶ 

Then I considered ¹  all the skillful work ²  that is done: Surely it is nothing more than ³  competition ⁴  between one person and another. ⁵  This also is profitless – like ⁶  chasing the wind.

The fig tree has budded, the vines have blossomed and give off their fragrance. Arise, come away my darling; my beautiful one, come away with me!”

Don’t be so happy, all you Philistines, just because the club that beat you has been broken! ¹  For a viper will grow out of the serpent’s root, and its fruit will be a darting adder. ² 

It shatters in pieces like a clay jar, so shattered to bits that none of it can be salvaged. ¹  Among its fragments one cannot find a shard large enough ²  to scoop a hot coal from a fire ³  or to skim off water from a cistern.” ⁴ 

“Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, ¹  and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”

As a well continually pours out fresh water so it continually pours out wicked deeds. ¹  Sounds of violence and destruction echo throughout it. ²  All I see are sick and wounded people.’ ³ 

You are the one in whom Israel may find hope. ¹  All who leave you will suffer shame. Those who turn away from you ²  will be consigned to the nether world. ³  For they have rejected you, the Lord, the fountain of life. ⁴ 

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: In the first month, on the first day of the month, you must take an unblemished young bull and purify the sanctuary.

Do not fear, wild animals! ¹  For the pastures of the wilderness are again green with grass. Indeed, the trees bear their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield to their fullest. ² 

The Lord God appointed ¹  a little plant ²  and caused it to grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to rescue ³  him from his misery. ⁴  Now Jonah was very delighted ⁵  about the little plant.

“But be on your guard ¹  so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day close down upon you suddenly like a trap. ² 

because the Lamb in the middle of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” ¹ 

The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, ¹  every tree that was pleasing to look at ²  and good for food. (Now ³  the tree of life ⁴  and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ⁵  were in the middle of the orchard.)

The border then descended southward to the Valley of Kanah. Ephraim was assigned cities there among the cities of Manasseh, ¹  but the border of Manasseh was north of the valley and ended at the sea.

Deborah said to Barak, “Spring into action, ¹  for this is the day the Lord is handing Sisera over to you! ²  Has the Lord not taken the lead?” ³  Barak quickly went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him.

The Lord spoke to Gideon again, “There are still too many men. ¹  Bring them down to the water and I will thin the ranks some more. ²  When I say, ‘This one should go with you,’ pick him to go; ³  when I say, ⁴  ‘This one should not go with you,’ do not take him.” ⁵