Now in that very moment ¹  this pronouncement about ²  Nebuchadnezzar came true. ³  He was driven from human society, he ate grass like oxen, and his body became damp with the dew of the sky, until his hair became long like an eagle’s feathers, and his nails like a bird’s claws. ⁴ 

He said to me, “Daniel, you are of great value. ¹  Understand the words that I am about to ²  speak to you. So stand up, ³  for I have now been sent to you.” When he said this ⁴  to me, I stood up shaking.

I will destroy her vines and fig trees, about which she said, “These are my wages for prostitution ¹  that my lovers gave to me!” I will turn her cultivated vines and fig trees ²  into an uncultivated thicket, so that wild animals ³  will devour them.

The time of judgment ¹  is about to arrive! ²  The time of retribution ³  is imminent! ⁴  Let Israel know! ⁵ The prophet is considered a fool ⁶  – the inspired man ⁷  is viewed as a madman ⁸  – because of the multitude of your sins and your intense ⁹  animosity.

Even now they persist in sin! ¹  They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion ²  from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: ³  “Those who sacrifice ⁴  to the calf idol are calf kissers!” ⁵ 

The following is a record of what Amos prophesied. ¹  He ²  was one of the herdsmen from Tekoa. These prophecies about Israel were revealed to him ³  during the time of ⁴  King Uzziah of Judah and ⁵  King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake. ⁶ 

For the message is a witness to what is decreed; ¹  it gives reliable testimony about how matters will turn out. ²  Even if the message ³  is not fulfilled right away, wait patiently; ⁴  for it will certainly come to pass – it will not arrive late.

As for the stone ¹  I have set before Joshua – on the one stone there are seven eyes. ²  I am about to engrave an inscription on it,’ says the Lord who rules over all, ‘to the effect that I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. ³ 

Indeed, I am about to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not take heed to the sheep headed to slaughter, will not seek the scattered, and will not heal the injured. ¹  Moreover, he will not nourish the one that is healthy but instead will eat the meat of the fat sheep ²  and tear off their hooves.

“I am about to send my messenger, ¹  who will clear the way before me. Indeed, the Lord ²  you are seeking will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger ³  of the covenant, whom you long for, is certainly coming,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Now as for the dead being raised, ¹  have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, ²  how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the ³  God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ⁴ 

When Paul and Barnabas had a major argument and debate ¹  with them, the church ²  appointed Paul and Barnabas and some others from among them to go up to meet with ³  the apostles and elders in Jerusalem ⁴  about this point of disagreement. ⁵ 

Also some of the Epicurean ¹  and Stoic ²  philosophers were conversing ³  with him, and some were asking, ⁴  “What does this foolish babbler ⁵  want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” ⁶  (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) ⁷ 

take them and purify ¹  yourself along with them and pay their expenses, ²  so that they may have their heads shaved. ³  Then ⁴  everyone will know there is nothing in what they have been told ⁵  about you, but that you yourself live in conformity with ⁶  the law. ⁷ 

as both the high priest and the whole council of elders ¹  can testify about me. From them ²  I also received ³  letters to the brothers in Damascus, and I was on my way ⁴  to make arrests there and bring ⁵  the prisoners ⁶  to Jerusalem ⁷  to be punished.

Then Festus ¹  said, “King Agrippa, ²  and all you who are present here with us, you see this man about whom the entire Jewish populace ³  petitioned ⁴  me both in Jerusalem ⁵  and here, ⁶  shouting loudly ⁷  that he ought not to live any longer.

Therefore when I was planning to do this, I did not do so without thinking about what I was doing, did I? ¹  Or do I make my plans ²  according to mere human standards ³  so that I would be saying ⁴  both “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?

For ¹  it is right for me to think this about all of you, because I have you in my heart, ²  since both in my imprisonment ³  and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel all of you became partners in God’s grace ⁴  together with me.

Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels pass judgment on you. That person goes on at great lengths ¹  about what he has supposedly seen, but he is puffed up with empty notions by his fleshly mind. ² 

Finally then, brothers and sisters, ¹  we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us about how ²  you must live and please God (as you are in fact living) ³  that you do so more and more.