So now, listen to this, O one who lives so lavishly, ¹  who lives securely, who says to herself, ²  ‘I am unique! No one can compare to me! ³  I will never have to live as a widow; I will never lose my children.’ ⁴ 

That is, I will punish the Egyptians, the Judeans, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples. ¹  I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the Lord’s sight. ²  Moreover, none of the people of Israel ³  are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.” ⁴ 

But I see the prophets of Jerusalem ¹  doing something just as shocking. They are unfaithful to me and continually prophesy lies. ²  So they give encouragement to people who are doing evil, with the result that they do not stop their evildoing. ³  I consider all of them as bad as the people of Sodom, and the citizens of Jerusalem as bad as the people of Gomorrah. ⁴ 

But ¹  listen to what the Lord has to say, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. The Lord says, ‘I hereby swear by my own great name that none of the people of Judah who are living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name in their oaths! Never again will any of them use it in an oath saying, “As surely as the Lord God lives….” ² 

But they rebelled against me, and refused to listen to me; no one got rid of their detestable idols, ¹  nor did they abandon the idols of Egypt. Then I decided to pour out ²  my rage on them and fully vent my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

In a time of prosperity for the most productive areas of the province he will come and accomplish what neither his fathers nor their fathers accomplished. He will distribute loot, spoils, and property to his followers, and he will devise plans against fortified cities, but not for long. ¹ 

If then I am in the wrong ¹  and have done anything that deserves death, I am not trying to escape dying, ²  but if not one of their charges against me is true, ³  no one can hand me over to them. ⁴  I appeal to Caesar!” ⁵ 

There is no one greater in this household than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. So how could I do ¹  such a great evil and sin against God?”

But against any of the Israelites not even a dog will bark ¹  against either people or animals, ²  so that you may know that the Lord distinguishes ³  between Egypt and Israel.’

But any sin offering from which some of its blood is brought into the Meeting Tent to make atonement in the sanctuary must not be eaten. It must be burned up in the fire. ¹ 

Your dead bodies ¹  will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me.

You will by no means enter into the land where ¹  I swore ²  to settle ³  you. The only exceptions are Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

“‘Also, on the day of the first fruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the Lord during your Feast of Weeks, you are to have a holy assembly. You must do no ordinary work.

In this way the inheritance of the Israelites will not be transferred ¹  from tribe to tribe. But every one of the Israelites must retain the ancestral heritage.

So the Lord our God did indeed give over to us King Og of Bashan and his whole army and we struck them down until not a single survivor was left. ¹ 

Today realize and carefully consider that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below – there is no other!

You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; ¹  you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you.

The men said to her, “If you ¹  die, may we die too! ²  If you do not report what we’ve been up to, ³  then, when the Lord hands the land over to us, we will show unswerving allegiance ⁴  to you.” ⁵ 

However, Moses ¹  did not assign land as an inheritance ²  to the Levites; their inheritance ³  is the sacrificial offerings ⁴  made to the Lord God of Israel, as he instructed ⁵  them.

He said to her, “Get up, let’s leave!” But there was no response. He put her on the donkey and went home. ¹