O Lord, you make us secure, ¹  for even all we have accomplished, you have done for us. ² 

O Lord, our God, masters other than you have ruled us, but we praise your name alone.

Lord, be merciful to us! We wait for you. Give us strength each morning! ¹  Deliver us when distress comes. ² 

To whom can you compare and liken me? Tell me whom you think I resemble, so we can be compared!

Who would have believed ¹  what we ²  just heard? ³  When ⁴  was the Lord’s power ⁵  revealed through him?

We existed from ancient times, ¹  but you did not rule over them, they were not your subjects. ² 

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

“You must not disobey the Lord your God by saying, ‘We will not stay in this land.’

Because of this, our hearts are sick; ¹  because of these things, we can hardly see ²  through our tears. ³ 

They again replied, “Let the king inform us ¹  of the dream; then we will disclose its ²  interpretation.”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to King Nebuchadnezzar, ¹  “We do not need to give you a reply ²  concerning this.

You are happy because you conquered Lo-Debar. ¹  You say, “Did we not conquer Karnaim ²  by our own power?”

Many nations have now assembled against you. They say, “Jerusalem must be desecrated, ¹  so we can gloat over Zion!” ² 

They said to one other, ¹  “Surely we’re being punished ²  because of our brother, because we saw how distressed he was ³  when he cried to us for mercy, but we refused to listen. That is why this distress ⁴  has come on us!”

The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died ¹  by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by ²  the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full, ³  for you have brought us out into this desert to kill ⁴  this whole assembly with hunger!”

The men said to her, “If you ¹  die, may we die too! ²  If you do not report what we’ve been up to, ³  then, when the Lord hands the land over to us, we will show unswerving allegiance ⁴  to you.” ⁵ 

They said to Joshua, “It was carefully reported to your subjects ¹  how the Lord your God commanded Moses his servant to assign you the whole land and to destroy all who live in the land from before you. Because of you we were terrified ²  we would lose our lives, so we did this thing.

Then they cried out to the Lord and admitted, ¹  ‘We have sinned, for we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the images of Ashtoreth. ²  Now deliver us from the hand of our enemies so that we may serve you.’ ³ 

And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ¹  and our children are just like their children, ²  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ³  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ⁴  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ⁵ 

They replied, “We will return these things, ¹  and we will no longer demand anything from them. We will do just as you say.” Then I called the priests and made the wealthy and the officials ²  swear to do what had been promised. ³