Everyone who sees you will turn away from you in disgust; they will say, ‘Nineveh has been devastated! Who will lament for her?’ There will be no one to comfort you!” ¹ 

The just Lord resides ¹  within her; he commits no unjust acts. ²  Every morning he reveals ³  his justice. At dawn he appears without fail. ⁴  Yet the unjust know no shame.

The Lord has removed the judgment against you; ¹  he has turned back your enemy. Israel’s king, the Lord, is in your midst! You no longer need to fear disaster.

“Speak to all the people and priests of the land as follows: ‘When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh ¹  months through all these seventy years, did you truly fast for me – for me, indeed?

You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped ¹  by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? ² 

“When ¹  you fast, do not look sullen like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive ²  so that people will see them fasting. I tell you the truth, ³  they have their reward.

“I tell you the truth, ¹  among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least ²  in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is.

and said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of children and nursing infants you have prepared praise for yourself’?” ¹ 

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. ¹  This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ² 

so that on you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, ¹  whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

When he learned of this, ¹  Jesus said to them, “Why are you arguing ²  about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Have your hearts been hardened?

But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me and do not try to stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹ 

I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater ¹  than John. ²  Yet the one who is least ³  in the kingdom of God ⁴  is greater than he is.”

Consider how the flowers ¹  grow; they do not work ²  or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these!

Sell your possessions ¹  and give to the poor. ²  Provide yourselves purses that do not wear out – a treasure in heaven ³  that never decreases, ⁴  where no thief approaches and no moth ⁵  destroys.

Or what king, going out to confront another king in battle, will not sit down ¹  first and determine whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose ²  the one coming against him with twenty thousand?

but he answered ¹  his father, ‘Look! These many years I have worked like a slave ²  for you, and I never disobeyed your commands. Yet ³  you never gave me even a goat ⁴  so that I could celebrate with my friends!

Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus replied, ¹  “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, ²  I saw you.”

But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, ¹  but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain ²  of water springing up ³  to eternal life.”

For this reason the Jewish leaders ¹  were trying even harder to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God.