Now the troops Amaziah had dismissed and had not allowed to fight in the battle ¹  raided ²  the cities of Judah from Samaria ³  to Beth Horon. They killed ⁴  3,000 people and carried off a large amount of plunder.

After this Manasseh ¹  built up the outer wall of the City of David ²  on the west side of the Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate and all around the terrace; he made it much higher. He placed army officers in all the fortified cities in Judah.

He told the Levites, who instructed all Israel about things consecrated to the Lord, “Place the holy ark in the temple which King Solomon son of David of Israel built. Don’t carry it on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel!

Furthermore let the gold and silver vessels of the temple of God, which Nebuchadnezzar brought from the temple in Jerusalem and carried to Babylon, be returned and brought to their proper place in the temple in Jerusalem. Let them be deposited in the temple of God.’

In the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar), on its thirteenth day, the edict of the king and his law were to be executed. It was on this day that the enemies of the Jews had supposed that they would gain power over them. But contrary to expectations, the Jews gained power over their enemies.

But these people are looted and plundered; all of them are trapped in pits ¹  and held captive ²  in prisons. They were carried away as loot with no one to rescue them; they were carried away as plunder, and no one says, “Bring that back!” ³ 

“Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you are more arrogant ¹  than the nations around you, ²  you have not followed my statutes and have not carried out my regulations. You have not even ³  carried out the regulations of the nations around you!

So I did just as I was commanded. I carried out my belongings packed for exile during the day, and at evening I dug myself a hole through the wall with my hands. I went out in the darkness, carrying my baggage ¹  on my shoulder while they watched.

He has carried out his threats ¹  against us and our rulers ²  who were over ³  us by bringing great calamity on us – what has happened to Jerusalem has never been equaled under all heaven!

“I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. ¹  I killed your young men with the sword, along with the horses you had captured. I made the stench from the corpses ²  rise up into your nostrils. Still you did not come back to me.” The Lord is speaking!

Then Joseph gave orders to fill ¹  their bags with grain, to return each man’s money to his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. His orders were carried out. ² 

and the Lord turned a very strong west wind, ¹  and it picked up the locusts and blew them into the Red Sea. ²  Not one locust remained in all the territory of Egypt.

You are to make two gold rings for it under its border, on its two flanks; you are to make them on its two sides. ¹  The rings ²  will be places ³  for poles to carry it with.

So Moses ¹  cut out two tablets of stone like the first; ²  early in the morning he went up ³  to Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

all the rest of the bull ¹  – he must bring outside the camp ²  to a ceremonially clean place, ³  to the fatty ash pile, ⁴  and he must burn ⁵  it on a wood fire; it must be burned on the fatty ash pile.

He must tear down the house, ¹  its stones, its wood, and all the plaster of the house, and bring all of it ²  outside the city to an unclean place.

So Moses and Aaron and the entire community of the Israelites did this with the Levites. According to all that the Lord commanded Moses concerning the Levites, this is what the Israelites did with them.

After this, the Levites went in to do their work in the tent of meeting before Aaron and before his sons. As the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did.

Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”

And he said to the community, “Move away from the tents of these wicked ¹  men, and do not touch anything they have, lest you be destroyed because ²  of all their sins.” ³