Her profits and earnings will be set apart for the Lord. They will not be stored up or accumulated, for her profits will be given to those who live in the Lord’s presence and will be used to purchase large quantities of food and beautiful clothes. ¹ 

We were pregnant, we strained, we gave birth, as it were, to wind. ¹  We cannot produce deliverance on the earth; people to populate the world are not born. ² 

Grain is crushed, though one certainly does not thresh it forever. The wheel of one’s wagon rolls over it, but his horses do not crush it.

Who handed Jacob over to the robber? Who handed Israel over to the looters? ¹  Was it not the Lord, against whom we sinned? They refused to follow his commands; they disobeyed his law. ² 

You did not buy me aromatic reeds; ¹  you did not present to me ²  the fat of your sacrifices. Yet you burdened me with your sins; you made me weary with your evil deeds. ³ 

It is me – I stir him up and commission him; ¹  I will make all his ways level. He will rebuild my city; he will send my exiled people home, but not for a price or a bribe,” says the Lord who commands armies.

They put it on their shoulder and carry it; they put it in its place and it just stands there; it does not ¹  move from its place. Even when someone cries out to it, it does not reply; it does not deliver him from his distress.

He sprouted up like a twig before God, ¹  like a root out of parched soil; ²  he had no stately form or majesty that might catch our attention, ³  no special appearance that we should want to follow him. ⁴ 

No foreigner who becomes a follower of ¹  the Lord should say, ‘The Lord will certainly ²  exclude me from his people.’ The eunuch should not say, ‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”

Are they ashamed because they have done such shameful things? No, they are not at all ashamed. They do not even know how to blush! So they will die, just like others have died. ¹  They will be brought to ruin when I punish them,” says the Lord.

Hear this, you peoples of the earth: ¹  ‘Take note! ²  I am about to bring disaster on these people. It will come as punishment for their scheming. ³  For they have paid no attention to what I have said, ⁴  and they have rejected my law.

Are they ashamed because they have done such disgusting things? No, they are not at all ashamed! They do not even know how to blush! So they will die just like others have died. ¹  They will be brought to ruin when I punish them, says the Lord.

Do not give her archers time to string their bows or to put on their coats of armor. ¹  Do not spare any of her young men. Completely destroy ²  her whole army.

Have you not copied their behavior ¹  and practiced their abominable deeds? In a short time ²  you became even more depraved in all your conduct than they were!

Your turbans will be on your heads and your sandals on your feet; you will not mourn or weep, but you will rot ¹  for your iniquities ²  and groan among yourselves.

But Daniel made up his mind ¹  that he would not defile ²  himself with the royal delicacies or the royal wine. ³  He therefore asked the overseer of the court officials for permission not to defile himself.

Due to the noise ¹  caused by the king and his nobles, the queen mother ²  then entered the banquet room. She ³  said, “O king, live forever! Don’t be alarmed! Don’t be shaken!

My God sent his angel and closed the lions’ mouths so that they have not harmed me, because I was found to be innocent before him. Nor have I done any harm to you, O king.”

I saw that the ram was butting westward, northward, and southward. No animal ¹  was able to stand before it, and there was none who could deliver from its power. ²  It did as it pleased and acted arrogantly. ³ 

Therefore the Lord says this: “Look, I am devising disaster for this nation! ¹  It will be like a yoke from which you cannot free your neck. ²  You will no longer ³  walk proudly, for it will be a time of catastrophe.