So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly which included men and women and all those able to understand what they heard. (This happened on the first day of the seventh month.)

¹ The following events happened ²  in the days of Ahasuerus. ³  (I am referring to ⁴  that Ahasuerus who used to rule over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces ⁵  extending all the way from India to Ethiopia. ⁶ )

Now there happened to be a Jewish man in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai. ¹  He was the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjaminite,

Then Mordecai related to him everything that had happened to him, even the specific amount of money that Haman had offered to pay to the king’s treasuries for the Jews to be destroyed.

All of this happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar. They then rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day for banqueting and happiness.

Whatever has happened was foreordained, ¹  and what happens to a person ²  was also foreknown. It is useless for him to argue with God about his fate because God is more powerful than he is. ³ 

They went up to the temple, ¹  the people of Dibon went up to the high places to lament. ²  Because of what happened to Nebo and Medeba, ³  Moab wails. Every head is shaved bare, every beard is trimmed off. ⁴ 

At that time ¹  those who live on this coast ²  will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

I announced them to you beforehand; before they happened, I predicted them for you, so you could never say, ‘My image did these things, my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

Go west ¹  across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus ²  and see. Send someone east to Kedar ³  and have them look carefully. See if such a thing as this has ever happened:

You will probably ask yourself, ¹  ‘Why have these things happened to me? Why have I been treated like a disgraced adulteress whose skirt has been torn off and her limbs exposed?’ ²  It is because you have sinned so much. ³ 

I will make all the people in all the kingdoms of the world horrified at what has happened to them because of what Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” ¹ 

Now he has brought it about. The Lord has done just as he threatened to do. This disaster has happened because you people sinned against the Lord and did not obey him. ¹ 

This happened because of the wickedness the people living there did. ¹  They made me angry ²  by worshiping and offering sacrifice to ³  other gods whom neither they nor you nor your ancestors ⁴  previously knew. ⁵ 

The prophet Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah while he was writing down in a scroll the words that Jeremiah spoke to him. ¹  This happened in the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. ² 

“Edom will become an object of horror. All who pass by it will be filled with horror; they will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ¹ 

What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger when he drove them out of his sight. ¹  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

מ (Mem) But it happened ¹  due to the sins of her prophets ²  and the iniquities of her priests, who poured out in her midst the blood of the righteous.

As for my food that I gave you – the fine flour, olive oil, and honey I fed you – you placed it before them as a soothing aroma. That is exactly what happened, declares the sovereign Lord.

He has carried out his threats ¹  against us and our rulers ²  who were over ³  us by bringing great calamity on us – what has happened to Jerusalem has never been equaled under all heaven!