In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city ¹  was struck down, on this very day, ²  the hand ³  of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there. ⁴ 

“The Lord who rules over all says, ‘The fast of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth ¹  months will become joyful and happy, pleasant feasts for the house of Judah, so love truth and peace.’

Don’t you say, ¹  ‘There are four more months and then comes the harvest?’ I tell you, look up ²  and see that the fields are already white ³  for harvest!

flowing down the middle of the city’s ¹  main street. ²  On each side ³  of the river is the tree of life producing twelve kinds ⁴  of fruit, yielding its fruit every month of the year. ⁵  Its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Elijah was a human being ¹  like us, and he prayed earnestly ²  that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months!

So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside ¹  it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign. ² 

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside it. ¹  They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah. ² 

The king’s scribes were quickly ¹  summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. ²  They wrote out ³  everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia ⁴  – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.

When ¹  the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, ²  then you will keep ³  this ceremony ⁴  in this month.

“‘On ¹  the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather in the produce of the land, you must celebrate a pilgrim festival of the Lord for seven days. On the first day is a complete rest and on the eighth day is complete rest.

and they assembled ¹  the entire community together on the first day of the second month. ²  Then the people recorded their ancestry ³  by their clans and families, and the men who were twenty years old or older were listed ⁴  by name individually,

After two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She died a virgin. ¹  Her tragic death gave rise to a custom in Israel. ² 

But in the seventh month ¹  Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, ²  came with ten of his men and murdered Gedaliah, ³  as well as the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah.

On the twenty-third day of the seventh month, Solomon ¹  sent the people home. They left ²  happy and contented ³  because of the good the Lord had done for David, Solomon, and his people Israel.

On the twelfth day of the first month we began traveling from the Ahava Canal to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from our enemy and from bandits ¹  along the way.

So the exiles proceeded accordingly. Ezra the priest separated out ¹  by name men who were leaders in their family groups. ²  They sat down to consider this matter on the first day of the tenth month,

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 

as the time when the Jews gave themselves rest from their enemies – the month when their trouble was turned to happiness and their mourning to a holiday. These were to be days of banqueting, happiness, sending gifts to one another, and providing for the poor.

You are tired out from listening to so much advice. ¹  Let them take their stand – the ones who see omens in the sky, who gaze at the stars, who make monthly predictions – let them rescue you from the disaster that is about to overtake you! ² 

The Lord also spoke to him when Jehoiakim son of Josiah ruled over Judah, and he continued to speak to him until the fifth month of the eleventh year ¹  that Zedekiah son of Josiah ruled over Judah. That was when the people of Jerusalem ²  were taken into exile. ³