I also thought to myself, “It is ¹  for the sake of people, ²  so God can clearly ³  show ⁴  them that they are like animals.

For he does not think ¹  much about the fleeting ²  days of his life because God keeps him preoccupied ³  with the joy he derives from his activity. ⁴ 

This alone have I discovered: God made humankind upright, but they have sought many evil schemes.

Go, eat your food ¹  with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, because God has already approved your works.

Having heard everything, I have reached this conclusion: ¹  Fear God and keep his commandments, because this is the whole duty ²  of man.

For God will evaluate every deed, ¹  including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Then those living in the towns of Judah and in Jerusalem will ¹  go and cry out for help to the gods to whom they have been sacrificing. However, those gods will by no means ²  be able to save them when disaster strikes them.

Now as for these four young men, God endowed them with knowledge and skill in all sorts of literature and wisdom – and Daniel had insight into all kinds of visions and dreams.

The Nephilim ¹  were on the earth in those days (and also after this) ²  when the sons of God were having sexual relations with ³  the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. ⁴  They were the mighty heroes ⁵  of old, the famous men. ⁶ 

Then in the dream God replied to him, “Yes, I know that you have done this with a clear conscience. ¹  That is why I have kept you ²  from sinning against me and why ³  I did not allow you to touch her.

Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. ¹  He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out ²  for the place God had spoken to him about.

When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there ¹  and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up ²  his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

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.”

¹ During ²  that long period of time ³  the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites ⁴  groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry ⁵  because of their slave labor went up to God.

Now Moses ¹  was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert ²  and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. ³ 

He replied, ¹  “Surely I will be with you, ²  and this will be the sign ³  to you that I have sent you: When you bring the people out of Egypt, you and they will serve ⁴  God on this mountain.”

Moses said ¹  to God, “If ²  I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ ³  – what should I say ⁴  to them?”

So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our ¹  men and go out, fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.”

Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought ¹  a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, ²  and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat food ³  with the father-in-law of Moses before God.

Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, ¹  that the fear of him ²  may be before you so that you do not ³  sin.”