An honorable man makes honorable plans; his honorable character gives him security. ¹ 

They bind ¹  their kings in chains, and their nobles in iron shackles,

by me princes rule, as well as nobles and ¹  all righteous judges. ² 

the voices of the nobles fell silent, ¹  and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.

Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, ¹  and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna, ² 

The men of Tekoa worked on the section adjacent to them, but their town leaders ¹  would not assist ²  with the work of their master. ³ 

So I registered a complaint with the nobles of Judah, saying to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?

Then the survivors ¹  came down ²  to the mighty ones; ³  the Lord’s people came down to me ⁴  as ⁵  warriors.

who says to a king, ¹  ‘Worthless man’ ²  and to nobles, ‘Wicked men,’

Her nobles will have nothing left to call a kingdom and all her officials will disappear. ¹ 

I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “The work is demanding ¹  and extensive, and we are spread out on the wall, far removed from one another.

There at Riblah the king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. The king of Babylon also had all the nobles of Judah put to death.

It is terrible ¹  to punish ²  a righteous person, and to flog ³  honorable men is wrong. ⁴ 

A fool will no longer be called honorable; a deceiver will no longer be called principled.

The officials did not know where I had gone or what I had been doing, for up to this point I had not told any of the Jews or the priests or the nobles or the officials or the rest of the workers.

The well which the princes ¹  dug, which the leaders of the people opened with their scepters and their staffs.” And from the wilderness they traveled to Mattanah;

and the rest of nations whom the great and noble Ashurbanipal ¹  deported and settled in the cities ²  of Samaria and other places in Trans-Euphrates. ³ 

In those days the aristocrats of Judah repeatedly sent letters to Tobiah, and responses from Tobiah were repeatedly coming to them.

The leading men of the cities send their servants for water. They go to the cisterns, ¹  but they do not find any water there. They return with their containers ²  empty. Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. ³ 

He has already spoken about these things that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon did not take away when he carried Jehoiakim’s son King Jeconiah of Judah and the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem away as captives. ¹