“Choose some people ¹  from among the exiles, namely, Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, all of whom have come from Babylon, and when you have done so go to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah. ² 

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ, ¹  fourteen generations.

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh ¹  day of the twelfth month, ²  King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him ⁴  from prison.

The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. ¹ 

The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  says, “I will restore the people of Judah to their land and to their towns. When I do, they will again say ²  of Jerusalem, ³  ‘May the Lord bless you, you holy mountain, the place where righteousness dwells.’ ⁴ 

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth ¹  day of the twelfth month, ²  Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.

“Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets ¹  and your sons and daughters will die violently. ²  Your land will be given to others ³  and you will die in a foreign ⁴  land. Israel will certainly be carried into exile ⁵  away from its land.’”

He makes nations great, ¹  and destroys them; he extends the boundaries of nations and disperses ²  them. ³ 

By the rivers of Babylon we sit down and weep ²  when we remember Zion.

The wicked ¹  will be captured by his ²  own iniquities, ³  and he will be held ⁴  by the cords of his own sin. ⁵ 

So ¹  the sovereign master ²  will afflict the foreheads of Zion’s women ³  with skin diseases, ⁴  the Lord will make the front of their heads bald.” ⁵ 

They howl in the streets because of what happened to the wine; ¹  all joy turns to sorrow; ²  celebrations disappear from the earth. ³ 

“Zion said, ‘The Lord has abandoned me, the sovereign master ¹  has forgotten me.’

“Israel is not a slave, is he? He was not born into slavery, was he? ¹  If not, why then is he being carried off?

“I looked at the land and saw ¹  that it was an empty wasteland. ²  I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.

He drove me into captivity ¹  and made me walk ²  in darkness and not light.

In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, ¹  the word of the Lord came to me:

A whirlwind has wrapped them in its wings; they will be brought to shame because of their idolatrous worship. ¹ 

who gave himself as a ransom for all, revealing God’s purpose at his appointed time. ¹ 

I am appealing ¹  to you concerning my child, whose spiritual father I have become ²  during my imprisonment, ³  that is, Onesimus,