“And say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves ¹  for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing ²  of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat, ³  for life ⁴  was good for us in Egypt?” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat.

Get up! Ritually consecrate the people and tell them this: ‘Ritually consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, because the Lord God of Israel says, “You are contaminated, ¹  O Israel! You will not be able to stand before your enemies until you remove what is contaminating you.” ² 

So I entered a complaint with them. I called down a curse on them, and I struck some of the men and pulled out their hair. I had them swear by God saying, “You will not marry off ¹  your daughters to their sons, and you will not take any of their daughters as wives for your sons or for yourselves!

When you present your sacrifices ¹  – when you make your sons pass through the fire – you defile yourselves with all your idols to this very day. Will I allow you to seek me, ²  O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will not allow you to seek me! ³ 

“The ¹  tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. ²  It is to be a holy assembly for you, and you must humble yourselves ³  and present a gift to the Lord.

Now write down for yourselves the following song and teach it to the Israelites. Put it into their very mouths so that this song may serve as my witness against the Israelites!

She told them, “Head ¹  to the hill country, so the ones chasing you don’t find you. ²  Hide from them there for three days, long enough for those chasing you ³  to return. Then you can be on your way.”

Gather together and come! Approach together, you refugees from the nations! Those who carry wooden idols know nothing, those who pray to a god that cannot deliver.

Get dressed ¹  and lament, you priests! Wail, you who minister at the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God, because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings to the temple of your God anymore. ² 

Make this announcement in ¹  the fortresses of Ashdod and in the fortresses in the land of Egypt. Say this: “Gather on the hills around Samaria! ²  Observe the many acts of violence ³  taking place within the city, ⁴  the oppressive deeds ⁵  occurring in it.” ⁶ 

Shave your heads bald as you mourn for the children you love; ¹  shave your foreheads as bald ²  as an eagle, ³  for they are taken from you into exile.

You will plant crops, but will not harvest them; you will squeeze oil from the olives, ¹  but you will have no oil to rub on your bodies; ²  you will squeeze juice from the grapes, but you will have no wine to drink. ³ 

When they arrived, he said to them, “You yourselves know how I lived ¹  the whole time I was with you, from the first day I set foot ²  in the province of Asia, ³ 

The fact that you have lawsuits among yourselves demonstrates that you have already been defeated. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

“‘By these ¹  you defile yourselves; anyone who touches their carcass will be unclean until the evening,

If you think, “These nations are more numerous than I – how can I dispossess them?”

So you must love the resident foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Make sure you do not turn away to serve and worship other gods! ¹ 

Now if you say to yourselves, ¹  ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ ²  –

you know what happened throughout Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John announced: ¹