And you solemnly admonished them in order to return them to your law, but they behaved presumptuously and did not obey your commandments. They sinned against your ordinances – those by which an individual, if he obeys them, ¹  will live. They boldly turned from you; ²  they rebelled ³  and did not obey.

In the first month (that is, the month of Nisan), in the twelfth year ¹  of King Ahasuerus’ reign, pur ²  (that is, the lot) was cast before Haman in order to determine a day and a month. ³  It turned out to be the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar). 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.

They say to a wooden idol, ¹  ‘You are my father.’ They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ²  Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ³  Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

All the women who are left in the royal palace of Judah will be led out to the officers of the king of Babylon. They will taunt you saying, ¹  ‘Your trusted friends misled you; they have gotten the best of you. Now that your feet are stuck in the mud, they have turned their backs on you.’ ² 

Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize ¹  how I was crushed by their unfaithful ²  heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves ³  because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices.

By the multitude of your iniquities, through the sinfulness of your trade, you desecrated your sanctuaries. So I drew fire out from within you; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth before the eyes of all who saw you.

Then ¹  they came to Jerusalem. ²  Jesus ³  entered the temple area ⁴  and began to drive out those who were selling and buying in the temple courts. ⁵  He turned over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves,

But God turned away from them and gave them over ¹  to worship the host ²  of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices ³  forty years in the wilderness, was it, ⁴  house of Israel?

She continued to do this for many days. But Paul became greatly annoyed, ¹  and turned ²  and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ ³  to come out of her!” And it came out of her at once. ⁴ 

And you see and hear that this Paul has persuaded ¹  and turned away ²  a large crowd, ³  not only in Ephesus ⁴  but in practically all of the province of Asia, ⁵  by saying ⁶  that gods made by hands are not gods at all. ⁷ 

For certain men ¹  have secretly slipped in among you ²  – men who long ago ³  were marked out ⁴  for the condemnation I am about to describe ⁵  – ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil ⁶  and who deny our only Master ⁷  and Lord, ⁸  Jesus Christ.