The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ¹  But other birds of prey are all around them. ²  Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts. Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ³ 

This will happen because the people of Israel and Judah have repeatedly done what displeases me ¹  from their earliest history until now ²  and because they ³  have repeatedly made me angry by the things they have done. ⁴  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁵ 

“Your royal Majesty, those men have been very wicked in all that they have done to the prophet Jeremiah. They have thrown him into a cistern and he is sure to die of starvation there because there is no food left in the city. ¹ 

“Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not suffer ¹  for his father’s iniquity?’ When the son does what is just and right, and observes all my statutes and carries them out, he will surely live.

The wise men replied to the king, “There is no man on earth who is able to disclose the king’s secret, ¹  for no king, regardless of his position and power, has ever requested such a thing from any magician, astrologer, or wise man.

Does the family ¹  of Jacob say, ²  ‘The Lord’s patience ³  can’t be exhausted – he would never do such things’? ⁴  To be sure, my commands bring a reward for those who obey them, ⁵ 

This is what the Lord says: “The prophets who mislead my people are as good as dead. ¹  If someone gives them enough to eat, they offer an oracle of peace. ²  But if someone does not give them food, they are ready to declare war on him. ³ 

At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin, ¹  those who think to themselves, ²  ‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’ ³ 

From that time ¹  when one came expecting a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures from it, there were only twenty.

The angel of the Lord then asked, “Lord who rules over all, ¹  how long before you have compassion on Jerusalem ²  and the other cities of Judah which you have been so angry with for these seventy years?” ³ 

Should you not have obeyed the words that the Lord cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem ¹  was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah ²  were also populated?

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.”

But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. ¹  He has been raised! ²  He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him.

But in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s days, ¹  when the sky ²  was shut up three and a half years, and ³  there was a great famine over all the land.

For whoever is ashamed ¹  of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person ²  when he comes in his glory and in the glory ³  of the Father and of the holy angels.

John answered, ¹  “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop ²  him because he is not a disciple ³  along with us.”

The hired hand, ¹  who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons ²  the sheep and runs away. ³  So the wolf attacks ⁴  the sheep and scatters them.

Jesus replied, ¹  “The one who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, ²  but is completely ³  clean. ⁴  And you disciples ⁵  are clean, but not every one of you.”

the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, ¹  because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides ²  with you and will be ³  in you.

“Peace I leave with you; ¹  my peace I give to you; I do not give it ²  to you as the world does. ³  Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage. ⁴