20 gold bowls worth 1,000 darics, and two exquisite vessels of gleaming bronze, as valuable as gold.

Then the priests and the Levites took charge of ¹  the silver, the gold, and the vessels that had been weighed out, to transport them to Jerusalem to the temple of our God.

I was very upset, and I threw all of Tobiah’s household possessions out of the storeroom.

Then I gave instructions that the storerooms should be purified, and I brought back the equipment ¹  of the temple of God, along with the grain offering and the incense.

I will express my thanks to you with a stringed instrument, praising ¹  your faithfulness, O my God! I will sing praises to you accompanied by a harp, O Holy One of Israel! ² 

Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner can destroy much that is good.

They come from a distant land, from the horizon. ¹  It is the Lord with his instruments of judgment, ²  coming to destroy the whole earth. ³ 

They sit among the tombs ¹  and keep watch all night long. ²  They eat pork, ³  and broth ⁴  from unclean sacrificial meat is in their pans.

I will send men against it to destroy it ¹  with their axes and hatchets. They will hack up its fine cedar panels and columns and throw them into the fire.

“Babylon, ¹  you are my war club, ²  my weapon for battle. I used you to smash nations. ³  I used you to destroy kingdoms.

Then he shouted in my ears, “Approach, ¹  you who are to visit destruction on the city, each with his destructive weapon in his hand!”

Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your clients; they exchanged slaves and bronze items for your merchandise.

Israel will be swallowed up among the nations; they will be like a worthless piece of pottery.

They sing ¹  to the tune of ²  stringed instruments; ³  like David they invent ⁴  musical instruments.

Her conquerors cry out: ¹  “Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold!” There is no end to the treasure; riches of every kind of precious thing.

Again the Lord said to me, “Take up once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. ¹ 

He made all the utensils of the altar – the pots, the shovels, the tossing bowls, the meat hooks, and the fire pans – he made all its utensils of bronze.

Also, anything they fall on ¹  when they die will become unclean – any wood vessel or garment or article of leather or sackcloth. Any such vessel with which work is done must be immersed in water ²  and will be unclean until the evening. Then it will become clean.

But appoint ¹  the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, ²  over all its furnishings and over everything in it. They must carry ³  the tabernacle and all its furnishings; and they ⁴  must attend to it and camp around it. ⁵ 

Then they must place on it all its implements with which they serve there – the trays, the meat forks, the shovels, the basins, and all the utensils of the altar – and they must spread on it a covering of fine leather, and then insert its poles. ¹