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 

At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin, ¹  those who think to themselves, ²  ‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’ ³ 

Before that time there was no compensation for man or animal, nor was there any relief from adversity for those who came and went, because I had pitted everybody – each one – against everyone else.

I have ¹  the power to do you harm, but the God of your father told me last night, ‘Be careful ²  that you neither bless nor curse Jacob.’ ³ 

“I have been with you for the past twenty years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks.

It must not be applied ¹  to people’s bodies, and you must not make any like it with the same recipe. It is holy, and it must be holy to you.

No one is to come up with you; do not let anyone be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks or the herds may graze in front of that mountain.”

“‘No grain offering which you present to the Lord can be made with yeast, ¹  for you must not offer up in smoke any yeast or honey as a gift to the Lord. ² 

You must not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you have been living, ¹  and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan into which I am about to bring you; ²  you must not ³  walk in their statutes.

You must not have sexual intercourse with both a woman and her daughter; you must not take as wife either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter to have intercourse with them. ¹  They are closely related to her ²  – it is lewdness. ³ 

You yourselves must obey ¹  my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, ² 

You must not pick your vineyard bare, ¹  and you must not gather up the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You must leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.

“‘You must not present to the Lord something blind, or with a broken bone, or mutilated, or with a running sore, ¹  or with a festering eruption, or with a feverish rash. ²  You must not give any of these as a gift ³  on the altar to the Lord.

Even from a foreigner ¹  you must not present the food of your God from such animals as these, for they are ruined and flawed; ²  they will not be acceptable for your benefit.’”

The owner ¹  must not examine the animals to distinguish between good and bad, and he must not exchange it. If, however, he does exchange it, ²  both the original animal ³  and its substitute will be holy. ⁴  It must not be redeemed.’”

and a man has sexual relations ¹  with her ²  without her husband knowing it, ³  and it is hidden that she has defiled herself, since ⁴  there was no witness against her, nor was she caught –

Why ¹  have you brought us up from Egypt only to bring us to ²  this dreadful place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; nor is there any water to drink!”

For there is no spell against ¹  Jacob, nor is there any divination against Israel. At this time ²  it must be said ³  of Jacob and of Israel, ‘Look at ⁴  what God has done!’

or with any stone large enough that a man could die, without seeing him, and throws it at him, and he dies, even though he was not his enemy nor sought his harm,

It is not because you were more numerous than all the other peoples that the Lord favored and chose you – for in fact you were the least numerous of all peoples.