He was still talking to them when ¹  the messenger approached ²  and said, “Look, the Lord is responsible for this disaster! ³  Why should I continue to wait for the Lord to help?”

King Rehoboam consulted with the older advisers who had served ¹  his father Solomon when he had been alive. He asked them, ²  “How do you advise me to answer these people?”

I have not failed to tell about your justice; ¹  I spoke about your reliability and deliverance; I have not neglected to tell the great assembly about your loyal love and faithfulness. ² 

Whom are you worried about? Whom do you fear, that you would act so deceitfully and not remember me or think about me? ¹  Because I have been silent for so long, ²  you are not afraid of me. ³ 

Because of that, ¹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ²  said to me, ³  “Because these people have spoken ⁴  like this, ⁵  I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire. And I will make this people like wood which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ⁶ 

You also have done all these things, says the Lord, and I have spoken to you over and over again. ¹  But you have not listened! You have refused to respond when I called you to repent! ² 

When they had heard it all, ¹  they expressed their alarm to one another. ²  Then they said to Baruch, “We must certainly give the king a report about everything you have read!” ³ 

“‘But you trusted in your beauty and capitalized on your fame by becoming a prostitute. You offered your sexual favors to every man who passed by so that your beauty ¹  became his.

The vision of the evenings and mornings that was told to you is correct. ¹  But you should seal up the vision, for it refers to a time many days from now.”

He struggled ¹  with an angel and prevailed; he wept and begged for his favor. He found God ²  at Bethel, ³  and there he spoke with him! ⁴ 

You should not ¹  have gloated ²  when your relatives ³  suffered calamity. ⁴  You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah when they were destroyed. ⁵  You should not have boasted ⁶  when they suffered adversity. ⁷ 

Hearing this, ¹  the men became even more afraid ²  and said to him, “What have you done?” (The men said this because they knew that he was trying to escape ³  from the Lord, ⁴  because he had previously told them. ⁵ )

Where did John’s baptism come from? From heaven or from people?” ¹  They discussed this among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’

because Herod stood in awe of ¹  John and protected him, since he knew that John ²  was a righteous and holy man. When Herod ³  heard him, he was thoroughly baffled, ⁴  and yet ⁵  he liked to listen to John. ⁶ 

When ¹  the angels left them and went back to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem ²  and see this thing that has taken place, that the Lord ³  has made known to us.”

When ¹  John’s messengers had gone, Jesus ²  began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness ³  to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁴ 

Then ¹  he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days ²  of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

Thus they were looking for Jesus, ¹  and saying to one another as they stood in the temple courts, ²  “What do you think? That he won’t come to the feast?”

On the Sabbath day we went outside the city gate to the side of the river, where we thought there would be a place of prayer, and we sat down ¹  and began to speak ²  to the women ³  who had assembled there. ⁴ 

He had been instructed in ¹  the way of the Lord, and with great enthusiasm ²  he spoke and taught accurately the facts ³  about Jesus, although he knew ⁴  only the baptism of John.