but we will maintain ourselves in armed readiness ¹  and go before the Israelites until whenever we have brought them to their place. Our descendants will be living in fortified towns as a protection against ²  the inhabitants of the land.

As a result we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions you are enduring.

For we were not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach as far as you, because we were the first to reach as far as you with the gospel about Christ. ¹ 

For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another.

So we decided to build this altar, not for burnt offerings and sacrifices,

So when we could bear it no longer, we decided to stay on in Athens ¹  alone.

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.”

We even saw the Nephilim ¹  there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves ²  and to them.” ³ 

They lament, ¹  ‘Why don’t you notice when we fast? Why don’t you pay attention when we humble ourselves?’ Look, at the same time you fast, you satisfy your selfish desires, ²  you oppress your workers. ³ 

King Hezekiah and all the people of Judah did not put him to death, did they? Did not Hezekiah show reverence for the Lord and seek the Lord’s favor? ¹  Did not ²  the Lord forgo destroying them ³  as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves.” ⁴ 

But we have rejected ¹  shameful hidden deeds, ²  not behaving ³  with deceptiveness ⁴  or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God.

They say, ¹  “Let’s tear off the shackles they’ve put on us! ²  Let’s free ourselves from ³  their ropes!”

For none of us lives for himself and none dies for himself.

The sin we committed at Peor was bad enough. To this very day we have not purified ourselves; it even brought a plague on the community of the Lord. ¹ 

If we have built ¹  an altar for ourselves to turn back from following the Lord by making ²  burnt sacrifices and grain offerings on it, or by offering ³  tokens of peace ⁴  on it, the Lord himself will punish us. ⁵ 

They replied, “The man questioned us ¹  thoroughly ²  about ourselves and our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ ³  So we answered him in this way. ⁴  How could we possibly know ⁵  that he would say, ⁶  ‘Bring your brother down’?”

The men of Jabesh said, “Tomorrow we will come out to you ¹  and you can do with us whatever you wish.” ² 

Then those in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers ¹  has failed! The debris is so great that we are unable to rebuild the wall.”

We also accept responsibility for ¹  bringing the first fruits of our land and the first fruits of every fruit tree year by year to the temple of the LORD.

All the people said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God on behalf of us – your servants – so we won’t die, for we have added to all our sins by asking for a king.” ¹