Look up at the sky! Look at the earth below! For the sky will dissipate ¹  like smoke, and the earth will wear out like clothes; its residents will die like gnats. But the deliverance I give ²  is permanent; the vindication I provide ³  will not disappear. ⁴ 

So like a lion from the thicket their enemies will kill them. Like a wolf from the desert they will destroy them. Like a leopard they will lie in wait outside their cities and totally destroy anyone who ventures out. ¹  For they have rebelled so much and done so many unfaithful things. ² 

Because of that, ¹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ²  said to me, ³  “Because these people have spoken ⁴  like this, ⁵  I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire. And I will make this people like wood which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ⁶ 

The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ¹  But other birds of prey are all around them. ²  Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts. Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ³ 

“‘For the Lord says concerning the palace of the king of Judah, “This place looks like a veritable forest of Gilead to me. It is like the wooded heights of Lebanon in my eyes. But I swear that I will make it like a wilderness whose towns have all been deserted. ¹ 

“Look! Enemies are gathering in the north like water rising in a river. ¹  They will be like an overflowing stream. They will overwhelm the whole country and everything in it like a flood. They will overwhelm the cities and their inhabitants. People will cry out in alarm. Everyone living in the country will cry out in pain.

“From its earliest days Moab has lived undisturbed. It has never been taken into exile. Its people are like wine allowed to settle undisturbed on its dregs, never poured out from one jar to another. They are like wine which tastes like it always did, whose aroma has remained unchanged. ¹ 

ד (Dalet) He prepared his bow ¹  like an enemy; his right hand was ready to shoot. ²  Like a foe he killed everyone, even our strong young men; ³  he has poured out his anger like fire on the tent ⁴  of Daughter Zion.

Now in that very moment ¹  this pronouncement about ²  Nebuchadnezzar came true. ³  He was driven from human society, he ate grass like oxen, and his body became damp with the dew of the sky, until his hair became long like an eagle’s feathers, and his nails like a bird’s claws. ⁴ 

It will be ¹  a day of dreadful darkness, ²  a day of foreboding storm clouds, ³  like blackness ⁴  spread over the mountains. It is a huge and powerful army ⁵  – there has never been anything like it ever before, and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ⁶ 

But when I saw that they were not behaving consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas ¹  in front of them all, “If you, although you are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you try to force ²  the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Now ¹  the beast that I saw was like a leopard, but its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. The ²  dragon gave the beast ³  his power, his throne, and great authority to rule. ⁴ 

for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open ¹  and you will be like divine beings who know ²  good and evil.” ³ 

He was a mighty hunter ¹  before the Lord. ²  (That is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.”)

He did not recognize him because his hands were hairy, like his brother Esau’s hands. So Isaac blessed Jacob. ¹ 

So Jacob worked for seven years to acquire Rachel. ¹  But they seemed like only a few days to him ²  because his love for her was so great. ³ 

Hasn’t he treated us like foreigners? He not only sold us, but completely wasted ¹  the money paid for us! ² 

But you ¹  said, ‘I will certainly make you prosper ²  and will make ³  your descendants like the sand on the seashore, too numerous to count.’” ⁴ 

So Pharaoh asked his officials, “Can we find a man like Joseph, ¹  one in whom the Spirit of God is present?” ² 

Joseph stored up a vast amount of grain, like the sand of the sea, ¹  until he stopped measuring it because it was impossible to measure.