King Solomon made a sedan chair ¹  for himself of wood imported from Lebanon. ² 

“They cry, ¹  ‘Harvest time has come and gone, and the summer is over, ²  and still we have not been delivered.’

He told them, “It was because of your little faith. I tell you the truth, ¹  if you have faith the size of ²  a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; nothing ³  will be impossible for you.” ⁴ 

For in this instance the saying is true, ¹  ‘One sows and another reaps.’

The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven good heads of grain. So I told all this ¹  to the diviner-priests, but no one could tell me its meaning.” ² 

When they were emptying their sacks, there was each man’s bag of money in his sack! When they and their father saw the bags of money, they were afraid.

“Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. ¹  You must give me the firstborn of your sons.

“‘You must count for yourselves seven weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day you bring the wave offering sheaf; they must be complete weeks. ¹ 

You must offer up a cake of the first of your finely ground flour ¹  as a raised offering; as you offer the raised offering of the threshing floor, so you must offer it up.

“Therefore you will say to them, ¹  ‘When you offer up ²  the best of it, then it will be credited to the Levites as the product of the threshing floor and as the product of the winepress.

butter from the herd and milk from the flock, along with the fat of lambs, rams and goats of Bashan, along with the best of the kernels of wheat; and from the juice of grapes you drank wine.

Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people from the east covered the valley like a swarm of locusts. ¹  Their camels could not be counted; they were as innumerable as the sand on the seashore.

Gideon said, “Since you will not help, ¹  after the Lord hands Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will thresh ²  your skin ³  with ⁴  desert thorns and briers.”

The Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him in bronze chains. He became a grinder in the prison.

Ruth the Moabite replied, “He even ¹  told me, ‘You may go along beside my servants ²  until they have finished gathering all my harvest!’” ³ 

O mountains of Gilboa, may there be no dew or rain on you, nor fields of grain offerings! ¹  For it was there that the shield of warriors was defiled; ²  the shield of Saul lies neglected without oil. ³ 

Then the people went out and looted the Syrian camp. A seah ¹  of finely milled flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, just as the Lord had said they would. ² 

The prophet told the king, “Two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel, and a seah of finely milled flour for a shekel; this will happen about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria.”

O my downtrodden people, crushed like stalks on the threshing floor, ¹  what I have heard from the Lord who commands armies, the God of Israel, I have reported to you.

The oxen and donkeys used in plowing ¹  will eat seasoned feed winnowed with a shovel and pitchfork. ²