The Lord says, ‘Be very careful if you value your lives! ¹  Do not carry any loads ²  in through ³  the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

The people of Gaza will shave their heads in mourning. The people of Ashkelon will be struck dumb. How long will you gash yourselves to show your sorrow, ¹  you who remain of Philistia’s power? ² 

Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition ¹  or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself.

you yourselves, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood and to offer ¹  spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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

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  –

Now select for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one per tribe.

So now take ¹  seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job will intercede ²  for you, and I will respect him, ³  so that I do not deal with you ⁴  according to your folly, ⁵  because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has.” ⁶ 

Remember this, so you can be brave! ¹  Think about it, you rebels! ² 

But God will judge those outside. Remove the evil person from among you. ¹ 

also to submit to people like this, and to everyone who cooperates in the work and labors hard.

“This is to be a perpetual statute for you. ¹  In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you must humble yourselves ²  and do no work of any kind, ³  both the native citizen and the foreigner who resides ⁴  in your midst,

However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you.

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.

Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment, you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the Lord and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, ¹  people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. If you do not, ²  my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you that no one will be able to extinguish. That will happen because of the evil you have done.”

making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

¹ Wives, submit ²  to your husbands as to the Lord,