They served only for matters of food and drink ¹  and various washings; they are external regulations ²  imposed until the new order came. ³ 

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkled on those who are defiled consecrated them and provided ritual purity, ¹ 

So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, and ¹  I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” ² 

You know that from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors you were ransomed – not by perishable things like silver or gold,

But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend. ¹ 

“Son of man, say to the prince ¹  of Tyre, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: “‘Your heart is proud ²  and you said, “I am a god; ³  I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas” – yet you are a man and not a god, though you think you are godlike. ⁴ 

Look, this town ¹  over here is close enough to escape to, and it’s just a little one. ²  Let me go there. ³  It’s just a little place, isn’t it? ⁴  Then I’ll survive.” ⁵ 

“Listen, sir, ¹  you are a mighty prince ²  among us! You may bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb to prevent you ³  from burying your dead.”

When your ancestors went down to Egypt, they numbered only seventy, but now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky. ¹ 

If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, ¹  and regards him as mere property ²  and sells him, that kidnapper ³  must die. In this way you will purge ⁴  evil from among you.

For this is no idle word for you – it is your life! By this word you will live a long time in the land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.”

Why are you ¹  scorning my sacrifice and my offering that I commanded for my dwelling place? ²  You have honored your sons more than you have me by having made yourselves fat from the best parts of all the offerings of my people Israel.’

Then Samuel set out and went up from Gilgal ¹  to Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin. ²  Saul mustered the army that remained with him; there were about six hundred men.

Now don’t let my blood fall to the ground away from the Lord’s presence, for the king of Israel has gone out to look for a flea the way one looks for a partridge ¹  in the hill country.”

Now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in my father David’s place, even though I am only a young man and am inexperienced. ¹ 

Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. ¹  His mother ²  was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.

For we are resident foreigners and nomads in your presence, like all our ancestors; ¹  our days are like a shadow on the earth, without security. ² 

Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.

Men are nothing but a mere breath; human beings are unreliable. ¹  When they are weighed in the scales, all of them together are lighter than air. ² 

For Syria’s leader is Damascus, and the leader of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will no longer exist as a nation. ¹