(2:1) ¹  Look! A herald is running ²  on the mountains! A messenger is proclaiming deliverance: ³  “Celebrate your sacred festivals, O Judah! Fulfill your sacred vows to praise God! ⁴  For never again ⁵  will the wicked ⁶  Assyrians ⁷  invade ⁸  you, they ⁹  have been completely destroyed.”

Your shepherds ¹  are sleeping, O king of Assyria! Your officers ²  are slumbering! ³  Your people are scattered like sheep ⁴  on the mountains and there is no one to regather them!

And about five o’clock that afternoon ¹  he went out and found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why are you standing here all day without work?’

Jesus ¹  answered, ²  “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. Now it was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ³ 

So he asked them the time ¹  when his condition began to improve, ²  and ³  they told him, “Yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon ⁴  the fever left him.”

Cornelius ¹  replied, ²  “Four days ago at this very hour, at three o’clock in the afternoon, ³  I was praying in my house, and suddenly ⁴  a man in shining clothing stood before me

Then ¹  he summoned ²  two of the centurions ³  and said, “Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Caesarea ⁴  along with seventy horsemen ⁵  and two hundred spearmen ⁶  by ⁷  nine o’clock tonight, ⁸ 

So God ¹  again ordains a certain day, “Today,” speaking through David ²  after so long a time, as in the words quoted before, ³  “O, that today you would listen as he speaks! ⁴  Do not harden your hearts.”

Who will not fear you, O Lord, and glorify ¹  your name, because you alone are holy? ²  All nations ³  will come and worship before you for your righteous acts ⁴  have been revealed.”

They will stand a long way off because they are afraid of her torment, and will say, “Woe, woe, O great city, Babylon the powerful city! For in a single hour your doom ¹  has come!”

They have quickly turned aside ¹  from the way that I commanded them – they have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.’”

Get up! Ritually consecrate the people and tell them this: ‘Ritually consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, because the Lord God of Israel says, “You are contaminated, ¹  O Israel! You will not be able to stand before your enemies until you remove what is contaminating you.” ² 

She made a vow saying, “O Lord of hosts, if you will look with compassion ¹  on the suffering of your female servant, ²  remembering me and not forgetting your servant, and give a male child ³  to your servant, then I will dedicate him to the Lord all the days of his life. His hair will never be cut.” ⁴ 

¹ Now as Saul watched David going out to fight the Philistine, he asked Abner, the general in command of the army, “Whose son is this young man, Abner?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, O king, I don’t know.”

But you will be able to counter the advice of Ahithophel if you go back to the city and say to Absalom, ‘I will be your servant, O king! Previously I was your father’s servant, and now I will be your servant.’

Now a wicked man ¹  named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, ²  happened to be there. He blew the trumpet ³  and said, “We have no share in David; we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse! Every man go home, ⁴  O Israel!”

Now, O Lord, God of Israel, keep the promise you made to your servant, my father David, when you said, ‘You will never fail to have a successor ruling before me on the throne of Israel, ¹  provided that your descendants watch their step and serve me as you have done.’ ² 

With the authority of the Lord ¹  he cried out against the altar, “O altar, altar! This is what the Lord says, ‘Look, a son named Josiah will be born to the Davidic dynasty. He will sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer sacrifices on you. Human bones will be burned on you.’” ² 

When it was time for the evening offering, ¹  Elijah the prophet approached the altar ²  and prayed: “O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, prove ³  today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.

while he went a day’s journey into the desert. He went and sat down under a shrub ¹  and asked the Lord to take his life: ²  “I’ve had enough! Now, O Lord, take my life. After all, I’m no better than my ancestors.” ³