I will turn the land into a desolate ruin; her confident pride will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will be so desolate no one will pass through them.

They will designate men to scout continually ¹  through the land, burying those who remain on the surface of the ground, ²  in order to cleanse it. They will search for seven full months.

This is what you must do on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins inadvertently or through ignorance; so you will make atonement for the temple.

Then he brought me through the entrance, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy chambers for the priests which faced north. There I saw ¹  a place at the extreme western end.

When the man went out toward the east with a measuring line in his hand, he measured 1,750 feet, ¹  and then he led me through water, which was ankle deep.

“Then there will arise in his place a despicable person ¹  to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred. He will come on the scene in a time of prosperity and will seize the kingdom through deceit.

Therefore they will disappear like ¹  the morning mist, ²  like early morning dew that evaporates, ³  like chaff that is blown away ⁴  from a threshing floor, like smoke that disappears through an open window.

You will be convinced ¹  that I the Lord am your God, dwelling on Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem ²  will be holy – conquering armies ³  will no longer pass through it.

This is what the Lord says: “Because Damascus has committed three crimes ¹  – make that four! ²  – I will not revoke my decree of judgment. ³  They ripped through Gilead like threshing sledges with iron teeth. ⁴ 

Be certain of this, ¹  the time is ²  coming,” says the sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a shortage of food or water but an end to divine revelation! ³ 

The chariots ¹  race madly ²  through the streets, they rush back and forth ³  in the broad plazas; they look ⁴  like lightning bolts, ⁵  they dash here and there ⁶  like flashes of lightning. ⁷ 

At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin, ¹  those who think to themselves, ²  ‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’ ³ 

On the first day of the sixth month ¹  of King Darius’ ²  second year, the Lord spoke this message through the prophet Haggai ³  to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak: ⁴ 

“Speak to all the people and priests of the land as follows: ‘When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh ¹  months through all these seventy years, did you truly fast for me – for me, indeed?

Should you not have obeyed the words that the Lord cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem ¹  was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah ²  were also populated?

Then the leaders of Judah will say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem are a means of strength to us through their God, the Lord who rules over all.’

So in the morning the older daughter ¹  said to the younger, “Since I had sexual relations with my father last night, let’s make him drunk again tonight. ²  Then you go and have sexual relations with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” ³ 

Early in the morning Abraham took ¹  some food ²  and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He put them on her shoulders, gave her the child, ³  and sent her away. So she went wandering ⁴  aimlessly through the wilderness ⁵  of Beer Sheba.

So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for their horses, the livestock of their flocks and herds, and their donkeys. ¹  He got them through that year by giving them food in exchange for livestock.

I will pass through ¹  the land of Egypt in the same ²  night, and I will attack ³  all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, ⁴  and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. ⁵  I am the Lord.