You saturate ¹  its furrows, and soak ²  its plowed ground. ³  With rain showers you soften its soil, ⁴  and make its crops grow. ⁵ 

Please be willing, O Lord, to rescue me! O Lord, hurry and help me! ¹ 

(and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ¹  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ²  their iniquity,

Should good be paid back with evil? Yet they are virtually digging a pit to kill me. ¹  Just remember how I stood before you pleading on their behalf ²  to keep you from venting your anger on them. ³ 

You must also say, ‘In fact your servant Jacob is behind us.’” ¹  Jacob thought, ²  “I will first appease him ³  by sending a gift ahead of me. ⁴  After that I will meet him. ⁵  Perhaps he will accept me.” ⁶ 

Eli ¹  said, “What message did he speak to you? Don’t conceal it from me. God will judge you severely ²  if you conceal from me anything that he said to you!”

And he will go as forerunner before the Lord ¹  in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, ²  to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.”