The Lord ¹  took him outside and said, “Gaze into the sky and count the stars – if you are able to count them!” Then he said to him, “So will your descendants be.”

When ¹  Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he was almost blind, ²  he called his older ³  son Esau and said to him, “My son!” “Here I am!” Esau ⁴  replied.

He also prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Esau ¹  said to him, “My father, get up ²  and eat some of your son’s wild game. Then you can bless me.” ³ 

Indeed, ¹  you had little before I arrived, ²  but now your possessions have increased many times over. ³  The Lord has blessed you wherever I worked. ⁴  But now, how long must it be before I do something for my own family too?” ⁵ 

Their father Jacob said to them, “You are making me childless! Joseph is gone. ¹  Simeon is gone. ²  And now you want to take ³  Benjamin! Everything is against me.”

Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me and we will go immediately. ¹  Then we will live ²  and not die – we and you and our little ones.

One who eats from its carcass must wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening, and whoever carries its carcass must wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening.

And the people stayed up ¹  all that day, all that night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail. The one who gathered the least gathered ten homers, ²  and they spread them out ³  for themselves all around the camp.

Is it a small thing ¹  that you have brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey, ²  to kill us in the wilderness? Now do you want to make yourself a prince ³  over us?

The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer must wash his clothes and be ceremonially unclean until evening. This will be a permanent ordinance both for the Israelites and the resident foreigner who lives among them.

And the second lamb you must offer in the late afternoon; just as you offered the grain offering and drink offering in the morning, ¹  you must offer it as an offering made by fire, as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

In addition, the officers are to say to the troops, “Who among you is afraid and fainthearted? He may go home so that he will not make his fellow soldier’s ¹  heart as fearful ²  as his own.”

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 

The Lord handed it and its king over to Israel, and Israel ¹  put the sword to all who lived there; they ²  left no survivors. They ³  did to its king what they ⁴  had done to the king of Jericho. ⁵ 

The descendants of Joseph said, “The whole hill country ¹  is inadequate for us, and the Canaanites living down in the valley in Beth Shean and its surrounding towns and in the Valley of Jezreel have chariots with iron-rimmed wheels.” ² 

The whole hill country ¹  will be yours; though it is a forest, you can clear it and it will be entirely yours. ²  You can conquer the Canaanites, though they have chariots with iron-rimmed wheels and are strong.”

“El, God, the Lord! ¹  El, God, the Lord! He knows the truth! ²  Israel must also know! If we have rebelled or disobeyed the Lord, ³  don’t spare us ⁴  today!

The men of Judah said to their relatives, the men of Simeon, ¹  “Invade our allotted land with us and help us attack the Canaanites. ²  Then we ³  will go with you into your allotted land.” So the men of Simeon went with them.

The men of Naphtali did not conquer the people living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath. ¹  They live among the Canaanites residing in the land. The Canaanites ²  living in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath were forced to do hard labor for them.

So Ruth ¹  worked beside ²  Boaz’s female servants, gathering grain until the end of the barley harvest as well as the wheat harvest. ³  After that she stayed home with her mother-in-law. ⁴