But Asahel ¹  refused to turn aside. So Abner struck him in the abdomen with the back end of his ²  spear. The spear came out his back; Asahel ³  collapsed on the spot and died there right before Abner. ⁴  Everyone who now comes to the place where Asahel fell dead pauses in respect. ⁵ 

Then the king said to Zadok, “Take the ark of God back to the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s sight he will bring me back and enable me to see both it and his dwelling place again.

I said to them, “To the extent possible we have bought back our fellow Jews ¹  who had been sold to the Gentiles. But now you yourselves want to sell your own countrymen, ²  so that we can then buy them back!” They were utterly silent, and could find nothing to say.

“Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ¹  If you do, ²  I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

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.

Then I will reply, ¹  ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north. I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth. Blind and lame people will come with them, so will pregnant women and women about to give birth. A vast throng of people will come back here.

They will come back shedding tears of contrition. I will bring them back praying prayers of repentance. ¹  I will lead them besides streams of water, along smooth paths where they will never stumble. ²  I will do this because I am Israel’s father; Ephraim ³  is my firstborn son.’”

I will make many stumble. ¹  They will fall over one another in their hurry to flee. ²  They will say, ‘Get up! Let’s go back to our own people. Let’s go back to our homelands because the enemy is coming to destroy us.’ ³ 

Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but prefer that the wicked change his behavior ¹  and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil deeds! ²  Why should you die, O house of Israel?’

Now the young woman was very beautiful. She was a virgin; no man had ever had sexual relations with her. ¹  She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came back up.

Isaac reopened ¹  the wells that had been dug ²  back in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up ³  after Abraham died. Isaac ⁴  gave these wells ⁵  the same names his father had given them. ⁶ 

Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. ¹  When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back, ² 

I am with you! ¹  I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!”

Then this stone ¹  that I have set up as a sacred stone will be the house of God, and I will surely ²  give you back a tenth of everything you give me.” ³ 

When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds ¹  would roll the stone off the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place over the well’s mouth.

Then Judah had his friend Hirah ¹  the Adullamite take a young goat to get back from the woman the items he had given in pledge, ²  but Hirah ³  could not find her.

But then he drew back his hand, and his brother came out before him. ¹  She said, “How you have broken out of the womb!” ²  So he was named Perez. ³ 

I myself pledge security ¹  for him; you may hold me liable. If I do not bring him back to you and place him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life. ² 

Look, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. Why then would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house?

But Joseph said, “Far be it from me to do this! The man in whose hand the cup was found will become my slave, but the rest of ¹  you may go back ²  to your father in peace.”