By his will ¹  we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

For every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature ¹  is subdued and has been subdued by humankind. ² 

You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

I am writing to you, ¹  little children, that ²  your sins have been forgiven because of his ³  name.

If you know that he is righteous, you also know ¹  that everyone who practices righteousness has been fathered ²  by him.

For we have been sold ¹  – both I and my people – to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation! If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king.”

Now some of the officers of the Judean army and their troops had been hiding in the countryside. They heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam to govern ¹  the country. They also heard that he had been put in charge over the men, women, and children from the poorer classes of the land who had not been carried off into exile in Babylon. ² 

God blessed the seventh day and made it holy ¹  because on it he ceased all the work that he ²  had been doing in creation. ³ 

So the Lord God expelled him ¹  from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.

After Isaac ¹  had been there a long time, ²  Abimelech king of the Philistines happened to look out a window and observed ³  Isaac caressing ⁴  his wife Rebekah.

There he said to them, “I can tell that your father’s attitude toward me has changed, ¹  but the God of my father has been with me.

“I have been with you for the past twenty years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks.

He commanded them, “This is what you must say to my lord Esau: ‘This is what your servant ¹  Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban until now.

then you must say, ¹  ‘They belong ²  to your servant Jacob. ³  They have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. ⁴  In fact Jacob himself is behind us.’” ⁵ 

So Esau said, “Let me leave some of my men with you.” ¹  “Why do that?” Jacob replied. ²  “My lord has already been kind enough to me.” ³ 

He recognized it and exclaimed, “It is my son’s tunic! A wild animal has eaten him! ¹  Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!”

So he returned to Judah and said, “I couldn’t find her. Moreover, the men of the place said, ‘There has been no cult prostitute here.’”

The dream was repeated to Pharaoh ¹  because the matter has been decreed ²  by God, and God will make it happen soon. ³ 

For these past two years there has been famine in ¹  the land and for five more years there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.

For by now I could have stretched out ¹  my hand and struck you and your people with plague, and you would have been destroyed ²  from the earth.