Please, ¹  O Lord, listen attentively ²  to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who take pleasure in showing respect ³  to your name. Grant your servant success today and show compassion to me ⁴  in the presence of this man.” Now ⁵  I was cupbearer for the king.

Then in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought to me, ¹  I took the wine and gave it to the king. Previously ²  I had not been depressed ³  in the king’s presence. ⁴ 

and in the presence of his colleagues ¹  and the army of Samaria ²  he said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they be left to themselves? ³  Will they again offer sacrifice? Will they finish this in a day? Can they bring these burnt stones to life again from piles of dust?”

If the king is so inclined, ¹  let a royal edict go forth from him, and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media that cannot be repealed, ²  that Vashti ³  may not come into the presence of King Ahasuerus, and let the king convey her royalty to another ⁴  who is more deserving than she. ⁵ 

For the music director, Jeduthun; a psalm of David. I decided, ²  “I will watch what I say and make sure I do not sin with my tongue. ³  I will put a muzzle over my mouth while in the presence of an evil man.” ⁴ 

Her profits and earnings will be set apart for the Lord. They will not be stored up or accumulated, for her profits will be given to those who live in the Lord’s presence and will be used to purchase large quantities of food and beautiful clothes. ¹ 

The following events occurred in that same year, early in the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah. To be more precise, it was the fifth month of the fourth year of his reign. ¹  The prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, spoke to Jeremiah ²  in the Lord’s temple in the presence of the priests and all the people. ³ 

Then he spoke up in the presence of all the people. “The Lord says, ‘In the same way I will break the yoke of servitude of all the nations to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon ¹  before two years are over.’” After he heard this, the prophet Jeremiah departed and went on his way. ² 

I took both copies of the deed of purchase ¹  and gave them to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah. I gave them to him in the presence ²  of my cousin ³  Hanamel, the witnesses who had signed the deed of purchase, and all the Judeans who were housed in the courtyard of the guardhouse.

Recently, however, you yourselves ¹  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ² 

I will punish those people who have violated their covenant with me. I will make them like the calf they cut in two and passed between its pieces. ¹  I will do so because they did not keep the terms of the covenant they made in my presence. ² 

The fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the wild beasts, all the things that creep on the ground, and all people who live on the face of the earth will shake ¹  at my presence. The mountains will topple, the cliffs ²  will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground.

But when you are invited, go and take the least important place, so that when your host ¹  approaches he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up here to a better place.’ ²  Then you will be honored in the presence of all who share the meal with you.

(as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”). ¹  He is our father ²  in the presence of God whom he believed – the God who ³  makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do. ⁴ 

But ¹  the woman was given the two wings of a giant eagle so that she could fly out into the wilderness, ²  to the place God ³  prepared for her, where she is taken care of – away from the presence of the serpent – for a time, times, and half a time. ⁴