and prayed: ¹  “O Lord God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven or on earth! You maintain covenantal loyalty ²  to your servants who obey you with sincerity. ³ 

‘The Lord says this: “Do not attack and make war with your brothers. Each of you go home, for I have caused this to happen.”’” ¹  They obeyed the Lord and called off the attack against Jeroboam. ² 

But Josiah did not turn back from him; ¹  he disguised himself for battle. He did not take seriously ²  the words of Necho which he had received from God; he went to fight him in the Plain of Megiddo. ³ 

I got up during the night, along with a few men who were with me. But I did not tell anyone what my God was putting on my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no animals with me, except for the one ¹  I was riding.

Esther was still not divulging her lineage or her people, ¹  just as Mordecai had instructed her. ²  Esther continued to do whatever Mordecai said, just as she had done when he was raising her.

Do not forsake your friend and your father’s friend, and do not enter your brother’s house in the day of your disaster; a neighbor nearby is better than a brother far away. ¹ 

Do not let your mouth cause you ¹  to sin, and do not tell the priest, ²  “It was a mistake!” ³  Why make God angry at you ⁴  so that he would destroy the work of your hands?”

For no one knows what is best for a person during his life ¹  – during the few days of his fleeting life – for ²  they pass away ³  like a shadow. Nor can anyone tell him what the future will hold for him on earth. ⁴ 

So I reflected on all this, ¹  attempting to clear ²  it all up. I concluded that ³  the righteous and the wise, as well as their works, are in the hand of God; whether a person will be loved or hated ⁴  – no one knows what lies ahead. ⁵ 

Do not curse a king even in your thoughts, and do not curse the rich ¹  while in your bedroom; ²  for a bird ³  might report what you are thinking, ⁴  or some winged creature ⁵  might repeat your ⁶  words. ⁷ 

He will judge disputes between nations; he will settle cases for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, ¹  and their spears into pruning hooks. ²  Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.

My hand discovered the wealth of the nations, as if it were in a nest, as one gathers up abandoned eggs, I gathered up the whole earth. There was no wing flapping, or open mouth chirping.” ¹ 

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is an eternal God, the creator of the whole earth. ¹  He does not get tired or weary; there is no limit to his wisdom. ² 

You did not hear, you do not know, you were not told beforehand. ¹  For I know that you are very deceitful; ²  you were labeled ³  a rebel from birth.

“They will go out and observe the corpses of those who rebelled against me, for the maggots that eat them will not die, ¹  and the fire that consumes them will not die out. ²  All people will find the sight abhorrent.” ³ 

They do not say to themselves, ¹  “Let us revere the Lord our God. It is he who gives us the autumn rains and the spring rains at the proper time. It is he who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest.” ² 

So, watch out!” ¹  says the Lord. “The time will soon come when people will no longer call those places Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom. But they will call that valley ²  the Valley of Slaughter and they will bury so many people in Topheth they will run out of room. ³ 

¹ The Lord says, “Wise people should not boast that they are wise. Powerful people should not boast that they are powerful. ²  Rich people should not boast that they are rich. ³ 

But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’” ¹ 

Those who have been killed by the Lord at that time will be scattered from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be mourned over, gathered up, or buried. ¹  Their dead bodies will lie scattered over the ground like manure.