Trust in him at all times, you people! Pour out your hearts before him! ¹  God is our shelter! (Selah)

He rules ¹  by his power forever; he watches ²  the nations. Stubborn rebels should not exalt ³  themselves. (Selah)

Arrange the table, lay out ¹  the carpet, eat and drink! ²  Get up, you officers, smear oil on the shields! ³ 

The fortified city (along with the very tops of your ¹  walls) ²  he will knock down, he will bring it down, he will throw it down to the dusty ground. ³ 

The Lord said to me, ¹  “I have made you like a metal assayer to test my people like ore. ²  You are to observe them and evaluate how they behave.” ³ 

Does the snow ever completely vanish from the rocky slopes of Lebanon? Do the cool waters from those distant mountains ever cease to flow? ¹ 

As they wail they will lament over you, chanting: “Who was like Tyre, like a tower ¹  in the midst of the sea?”

Tyre built herself a fortification and piled up silver like dust and gold like the mud of the streets!

Otherwise, ¹  when he has laid ²  a foundation and is not able to finish the tower, ³  all who see it ⁴  will begin to make fun of ⁵  him.

Ezra the scribe stood on a towering wooden platform ¹  constructed for this purpose. Standing near him on his right were Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Masseiah. On his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.

He will pour the water out of his buckets, ¹  and their descendants will be like abundant ²  water; ³  their king will be greater than Agag, ⁴  and their kingdom will be exalted.

When the men of Judah ¹  arrived at the observation post overlooking the desert and looked at ²  the huge army, they saw dead bodies on the ground; there were no survivors!

I then put in charge over Jerusalem ¹  my brother Hanani and Hananiah ²  the chief of the citadel, for he was a faithful man and feared God more than many do.

Fortified cities will disappear from Ephraim, and Damascus will lose its kingdom. ¹  The survivors in Syria will end up like the splendor of the Israelites,” says the Lord who commands armies.

Indeed, ¹  you have made the city ²  into a heap of rubble, the fortified town into a heap of ruins; the fortress of foreigners ³  is no longer a city, it will never be rebuilt.

For the fortress is neglected; the once-crowded ¹  city is abandoned. Hill ²  and watchtower are permanently uninhabited. ³  Wild donkeys love to go there, and flocks graze there. ⁴ 

ח (Khet) The Lord was determined to tear down Daughter Zion’s wall. He prepared to knock it down; ¹  he did not withdraw his hand from destroying. ²  He made the ramparts and fortified walls lament; together they mourned their ruin. ³ 

I am against ¹  you and your waterways. I will turn the land of Egypt into an utter desolate ruin from Migdol ²  to Syene, ³  as far as the border with Ethiopia.

“‘This is what the Lord says: Egypt’s supporters will fall; her confident pride will crumble. ¹  From Migdol to Syene ²  they will die by the sword within her, declares the sovereign Lord.

After this Manasseh ¹  built up the outer wall of the City of David ²  on the west side of the Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate and all around the terrace; he made it much higher. He placed army officers in all the fortified cities in Judah.