Why should we die before your very eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we, with our land, will become ¹  Pharaoh’s slaves. ²  Give us seed that we may live ³  and not die. Then the land will not become desolate.” ⁴ 

His advisers ¹  said to him, “Look, we have heard that the kings of the Israelite dynasty are kind. ²  Allow us to put sackcloth around our waists and ropes on our heads ³  and surrender ⁴  to the king of Israel. Maybe he will spare our lives.”

Although we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our servitude. He has extended kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, in that he has revived us ¹  to restore the temple of our God and to raise ²  up its ruins and to give us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem. ³ 

Let our leaders take steps ¹  on behalf of all the assembly. Let all those in our towns who have married foreign women come at an appointed time, and with them the elders of each town and its judges, until the hot anger of our God is turned away from us in this matter.”

“We – the priests, the Levites, and the people – have cast lots concerning the wood offerings, to bring them to the temple of our God according to our families ¹  at the designated times year by year to burn on the altar of the LORD our God, as is written in the law.

But our tents have been destroyed. The ropes that held them in place have been ripped apart. ¹  Our children are gone and are not coming back. ²  There is no survivor to put our tents back up, no one left to hang their tent curtains in place.

O Lord, according to all your justice, ¹  please turn your raging anger ²  away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain. For due to our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people are mocked by all our neighbors.

They will rule ¹  the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod ²  with a drawn sword. ³  Our king ⁴  will rescue us from the Assyrians should they attempt to invade our land and try to set foot in our territory.

Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. ¹  We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven ²  just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles. ³ 

They blessed Rebekah with these words: ¹  “Our sister, may you become the mother ²  of thousands of ten thousands! May your descendants possess the strongholds ³  of their enemies.”

Then Rachel and Leah replied to him, “Do we still have any portion or inheritance ¹  in our father’s house?

They said to them, “We cannot give ¹  our sister to a man who is not circumcised, for it would be a disgrace ²  to us.

Then Joseph remembered ¹  the dreams he had dreamed about them, and he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see if our land is vulnerable!” ² 

We have brought additional money with us to buy food. We do not know who put the money in our sacks!”

Pharaoh said to Joseph’s ¹  brothers, “What is your occupation?” They said to Pharaoh, “Your servants take care of flocks, just as our ancestors did.” ² 

He said, “Tomorrow.” And Moses said, ¹  “It will be ²  as you say, ³  so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God.

We must go ¹  on a three-day journey ²  into the desert and sacrifice ³  to the Lord our God, just as he is telling us.” ⁴ 

But Moses said, “Will you also ¹  provide us ²  with sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may present them ³  to the Lord our God?

Moses ¹  said, “Do not leave us, ²  because you know places for us to camp in the wilderness, and you could be our guide. ³ 

Why ¹  have you brought up the Lord’s community into this wilderness? So that ²  we and our cattle should die here?