A relative ¹  offended ²  is harder to reach than ³  a strong city, and disputes are like the barred gates ⁴  of a fortified citadel. ⁵ 

My heart is crushed because my dear people ¹  are being crushed. ²  I go about crying and grieving. I am overwhelmed with dismay. ³ 

“‘As for you, profane and wicked prince of Israel, ¹  whose day has come, the time of final punishment,

Jacob’s sons killed them ¹  and looted the city because their sister had been violated. ² 

We have overpowered them; ¹  Heshbon has perished as far as Dibon. We have shattered them as far as Nophah, which ²  reaches to Medeba.”

They ¹  entered the house under the pretense of getting wheat and mortally wounded him ²  in the stomach. Then Recab and his brother Baanah escaped.

Because God fought for them, ¹  they killed many of the enemy. ²  They dispossessed the Hagrites and lived in their land until the exile. ³ 

He executes judgment ¹  against ²  the nations; he fills the valleys with corpses; ³  he shatters their heads over the vast battlefield. ⁴ 

“So the time will certainly come ¹  when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her whole land will be put to shame. All her mortally wounded will collapse in her midst. ² 

“Babylon must fall ¹  because of the Israelites she has killed, ²  just as the earth’s mortally wounded fell because of Babylon. ³ 

“Come on! Let’s return to the Lord! He himself has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us! He has injured ¹  us, but he will bandage our wounds!

For Samaria’s ¹  disease ²  is incurable. It has infected ³  Judah; it has spread to ⁴  the leadership ⁵  of my people and has even contaminated Jerusalem! ⁶ 

When King Ahaziah of Judah saw what happened, he took off ¹  up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him and ordered, “Shoot him too.” They shot him while he was driving his chariot up the ascent of Gur near Ibleam. ²  He fled to Megiddo ³  and died there.

“I will pour out on the kingship ¹  of David and the population of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication so that they will look to me, ²  the one they have pierced. They will lament for him as one laments for an only son, and there will be a bitter cry for him like the bitter cry for a firstborn. ³ 

And I will put hostility ¹  between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; ²  her offspring will attack ³  your head, and ⁴  you ⁵  will attack her offspring’s heel.” ⁶ 

Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah! Listen to me! You wives of Lamech, hear my words! I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man ¹  for hurting me.

Animals torn by wild beasts I never brought to you; I always absorbed the loss myself. ¹  You always made me pay for every missing animal, ²  whether it was taken by day or at night.

O my soul, do not come into their council, do not be united to their assembly, my heart, ¹  for in their anger they have killed men, and for pleasure they have hamstrung oxen.

The Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous snake and set it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks ¹  at it, he will live.”

God brought them out of Egypt. They have, as it were, the strength of a young bull; they will devour hostile people ¹  and will break their bones and will pierce them through with arrows.