At noon Elijah mocked them, “Yell louder! After all, he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or perhaps he stepped out for a moment or has taken a trip. Perhaps he is sleeping and needs to be awakened.” ¹ 

I said, ¹  “I will weep and mourn ²  for the grasslands on the mountains, ³  I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness because they are so scorched no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard there. Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields have fled and are gone.”

I listened and my stomach churned; ¹  the sound made my lips quiver. My frame went limp, as if my bones were decaying, ²  and I shook as I tried to walk. ³  I long ⁴  for the day of distress to come upon ⁵  the people who attack us.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about ¹  in the orchard at the breezy time ²  of the day, and they hid ³  from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard.

He said, “I am God, ¹  the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there.

The Lord said to him, “Who gave ¹  a mouth to man, or who makes a person mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ² 

“So you are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And as for me, I will be with your mouth ¹  and with his mouth, ²  and I will teach you both ³  what you must do. ⁴ 

¹ Then Moses and the Israelites sang ²  this song to the Lord. They said, ³  “I will sing ⁴  to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, ⁵  the horse and its rider ⁶  he has thrown into the sea.

Moses ¹  went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, “Thus you will tell the house of Jacob, and declare to the people ²  of Israel:

On ¹  the third day in the morning there was thunder and lightning and a dense ²  cloud on the mountain, and the sound of a very loud ³  horn; ⁴  all the people who were in the camp trembled.

“‘When a person sins ¹  in that he hears a public curse against one who fails to testify ²  and he is a witness (he either saw or knew what had happened ³ ) and he does not make it known, ⁴  then he will bear his punishment for iniquity. ⁵ 

Be very careful, ¹  then, because you saw no form at the time the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire.

Hear ¹  the sound of those who divide the sheep ²  among the watering places; there they tell of ³  the Lord’s victorious deeds, the victorious deeds of his warriors ⁴  in Israel. Then the Lord’s people went down to the city gates –

Then the Lord called Samuel a third time. So he got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me!” Eli then realized that it was the Lord who was calling the boy.

and he cried out to the prophet from Judah, “This is what the Lord says, ‘You ¹  have rebelled against the Lord ²  and have not obeyed the command the Lord your God gave you.

Now the messenger who went to summon Micaiah said to him, “Look, the prophets are in complete agreement that the king will succeed. ¹  Your words must agree with theirs; you must predict success!” ² 

An edict was sent throughout Judah and Jerusalem requiring the people to bring to the Lord the tax that Moses, God’s servant, imposed on Israel in the wilderness. ¹ 

Now when Mordecai became aware of all that had been done, he ¹  tore his garments and put on sackcloth and ashes. He went out into the city, crying out in a loud ²  and bitter voice.

But when they gazed intently ¹  from a distance but did not recognize ²  him, they began to weep loudly. Each of them tore his robes, and they threw dust into the air over their heads. ³ 

I will listen to what God the Lord says. ¹  For he will make ²  peace with his people, his faithful followers. ³  Yet they must not ⁴  return to their foolish ways.