(4:1) ¹  For look! In those ²  days and at that time I will return the exiles ³  to Judah and Jerusalem. ⁴ 

You sold Judeans and Jerusalemites to the Greeks, removing them far from their own country. ¹ 

Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah: ‘I am ready ¹  to shake the sky ²  and the earth.

The Lord will take possession of ¹  Judah as his portion in the holy land and he will choose Jerusalem once again.

Then the leaders of Judah will say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem are a means of strength to us through their God, the Lord who rules over all.’

The offerings ¹  of Judah and Jerusalem ²  will be pleasing to the Lord as in former times and years past.

The men of Judah were unable to conquer the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. ¹  The Jebusites live with the people of Judah in Jerusalem to this very day. ² 

Now the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the people of Judah from the City of Date Palm Trees to Arad in the desert of Judah, ¹  located in the Negev. ²  They went and lived with the people of Judah. ³ 

The Levite ¹  said to him, “We are traveling from Bethlehem ²  in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That’s where I’m from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I’m heading home. ³  But no one has invited me into their home.

The men of Judah came and there they anointed David as king over the people ¹  of Judah. David was told, ²  “The people ³  of Jabesh Gilead are the ones who buried Saul.”

If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, ¹  their loyalty could shift to their former master, ²  King Rehoboam of Judah. They might kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.”

“King Manasseh of Judah has committed horrible sins. ¹  He has sinned more than the Amorites before him and has encouraged Judah to sin by worshiping his disgusting idols. ² 

He eliminated ¹  the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices ²  on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices ³  to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.)

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh ¹  day of the twelfth month, ²  King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him ⁴  from prison.

The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, and Shelah. These three were born to him by Bathshua, ¹  a Canaanite woman. Er, Judah’s firstborn, displeased the Lord, so the Lord killed him. ² 

The Lord God of Israel chose me out of my father’s entire family to become king over Israel and have a permanent dynasty. ¹  Indeed, ²  he chose Judah as leader, and my father’s family within Judah, and then he picked me out from among my father’s sons and made me king over all Israel. ³ 

In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign, King Baasha of Israel attacked Judah, and he established Ramah as a military outpost to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the land of King Asa of Judah. ¹ 

Amaziah assembled the people of Judah ¹  and assigned them by families to the commanders of units of a thousand and the commanders of units of a hundred for all Judah and Benjamin. He counted those twenty years old and up and discovered there were 300,000 young men of fighting age ²  equipped with spears and shields. ³ 

The Israelites and people of Judah ¹  who lived in the cities of Judah also contributed a tenth of their cattle and sheep, as well as a tenth of the holy items consecrated to the Lord their God. They brought them and placed them in many heaps. ² 

Afterward King Sennacherib of Assyria, while attacking Lachish with all his military might, sent his messengers ¹  to Jerusalem. The message was for King Hezekiah of Judah and all the people of ²  Judah who were in Jerusalem. It read: