Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you ¹  about our common salvation, I now feel compelled ²  instead to write to encourage ³  you to contend earnestly ⁴  for the faith ⁵  that was once for all ⁶  entrusted to the saints. ⁷ 

But the leaders of the Philistines became angry with him and said ¹  to him, “Send the man back! Let him return to the place that you assigned him! Don’t let him go down with us into the battle, for he might become ²  our adversary in the battle. What better way to please his lord than with the heads of these men? ³ 

“You know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me – how he murdered two commanders of the Israelite armies, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. ¹  During peacetime he struck them down like he would in battle; ²  when he shed their blood as if in battle, he stained his own belt and the sandals on his feet. ³ 

Necho ¹  sent messengers to him, saying, “Why are you opposing me, O king of Judah? ²  I am not attacking you today, but the kingdom with which I am at war. ³  God told me to hurry. Stop opposing God, who is with me, or else he will destroy you.” ⁴ 

In the second year after they had come to the temple of God in Jerusalem, ¹  in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak initiated the work, ²  along with the rest of their associates, ³  the priests and the Levites, and all those who were coming to Jerusalem from the exile. They appointed ⁴  the Levites who were at least twenty years old ⁵  to take charge of the work on the Lord’s temple.

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 

“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife, he may not take her back again. ¹  Doing that would utterly defile the land. ²  But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. ³  So what makes you think you can return to me?” ⁴  says the Lord.

Then ¹  I, the Lord, promise that ²  I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will slaughter them with the sword. He will not show them any mercy, compassion, or pity.’