whenever I want to heal Israel, the sin of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed. For they do what is wrong; thieves break into houses, and gangs rob people out in the streets.

“I will turn Samaria ¹  into a heap of ruins in an open field – vineyards will be planted there! ²  I will tumble ³  the rubble of her stone walls ⁴  down into the valley, and tear down her fortifications to their foundations. ⁵ 

and when he had been abandoned, ¹  Pharaoh’s daughter adopted ²  him and brought him up ³  as her own son.

Their ¹  corpses will lie in the street ²  of the great city that is symbolically ³  called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was also crucified.

Judah replied, “What can we say ¹  to my lord? What can we speak? How can we clear ourselves? ²  God has exposed the sin of your servants! ³  We are now my lord’s slaves, we and the one in whose possession the cup was found.”

When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house, ¹  Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to meet him. ²  She said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished ³  himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants’ slave girls the way a vulgar fool ⁴  might do!”

They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ¹  These are things they ²  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ³  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ⁴  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ⁵ 

The men of Zebulun were not concerned about their lives; ¹  Naphtali charged on to the battlefields. ² 

Elisha ¹  just stared at him until Hazael became uncomfortable. ²  Then the prophet started crying.

Your own mouth condemns ¹  you, not I; your own lips testify against ²  you.

The heavens reveal his iniquity; the earth rises up against him.

“May my enemy be like the wicked, ¹  my adversary ²  like the unrighteous. ³ 

who says to a king, ¹  ‘Worthless man’ ²  and to nobles, ‘Wicked men,’

Rise up, Lord! ¹  Don’t let men be defiant! ²  May the nations be judged in your presence!

Your thunderous voice was heard in the wind; the lightning bolts lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook. ¹ 

May the arrogant be humiliated, for they have slandered me! ¹  But I meditate on your precepts.

You despise ¹  all who stray from your statutes, for they are deceptive and unreliable. ² 

The one who conducts himself ¹  in integrity ²  will live ³  securely, but the one who behaves perversely ⁴  will be found out.

The one who is slow to anger has great understanding, but the one who has a quick temper ¹  exalts ²  folly.

The human spirit ¹  is like ²  the lamp ³  of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts. ⁴