Finally the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and the disgusting things you did. That is why your land has become the desolate, uninhabited ruin that it is today. That is why it has become a proverbial example used in curses. ¹ 

That is why its name was called ¹  Babel ²  – because there the Lord confused the language of the entire world, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of the entire earth.

Laban said to him, ¹  “Come, you who are blessed by the Lord! ²  Why are you standing out here when I have prepared ³  the house and a place for the camels?”

So Esau said to Jacob, “Feed ¹  me some of the red stuff – yes, this red stuff – because I’m starving!” (That is why he was also called ²  Edom.) ³ 

So Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, “She is really ¹  your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac replied, “Because I thought someone might kill me to get her.” ² 

In the morning Jacob discovered it was Leah! ¹  So Jacob ²  said to Laban, “What in the world have you done to me! ³  Didn’t I work for you in exchange for Rachel? Why have you tricked ⁴  me?”

She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, “Now this time my husband will show me affection, ¹  because I have given birth to three sons for him.” That is why he was named Levi. ² 

She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” That is why she named him Judah. ¹  Then she stopped having children.

That is why to this day ¹  the Israelites do not eat the sinew which is attached to the socket of the hip, because he struck ²  the socket of Jacob’s hip near the attached sinew.

They had not gone very far from the city ¹  when Joseph said ²  to the servant who was over his household, “Pursue the men at once! ³  When you overtake ⁴  them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid good with evil?

Look, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. Why then would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house?

When the money from the lands of Egypt and Canaan was used up, all the Egyptians ¹  came to Joseph and said, “Give us food! Why should we die ²  before your very eyes because our money has run out?”

But he did not purchase the land of the priests because the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh and they ate from their allotment that Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.

When he went out ¹  the next day, ²  there were ³  two Hebrew men fighting. So he said to the one who was in the wrong, ⁴  “Why are you attacking ⁵  your fellow Hebrew?” ⁶ 

He said ¹  to his daughters, “So where is he? ²  Why in the world ³  did you leave the man? Call him, so that he may eat ⁴  a meal ⁵  with us.”

But you must require ¹  of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. ²  Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. ³  That is why they are crying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to our God.’

The Israelite foremen whom Pharaoh’s slave masters had set over them were beaten and were asked, ¹  “Why did you not complete your requirement for brickmaking as in the past – both yesterday and today?” ² 

But the people were very thirsty ¹  there for water, and they murmured against Moses and said, “Why in the world ²  did you bring us up out of Egypt – to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” ³ 

But Moses sought the favor ¹  of the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Why ¹  should the Egyptians say, ²  ‘For evil ³  he led them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy ⁴  them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger, and relent ⁵  of this evil against your people.