For the sun rises with its heat and dries up the meadow; the petal of the flower falls off and its beauty is lost forever. ¹  So also the rich person in the midst of his pursuits will wither away.

When the king heard what the prophet ¹  cried out against the altar in Bethel, Jeroboam, standing at the altar, extended his hand ²  and ordered, ³  “Seize him!” The hand he had extended shriveled up ⁴  and he could not pull it back.

How often ¹  are they like straw before the wind, and like chaff swept away ²  by a whirlwind?

to satisfy a devastated and desolate land, and to cause it to sprout with vegetation? ¹ 

It regards iron as straw and bronze as rotten wood.

His house contains wealth and riches; his integrity endures. ¹ 

Keen insight ¹  wins ²  favor, but the conduct ³  of the unfaithful is harsh. ⁴ 

“The Lord says, ¹  ‘That is why I will scatter your people ²  like chaff that is blown away by a desert wind. ³ 

Our skin is hot as an oven due to a fever from hunger. ¹ 

“I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. ¹  I gave rain to one city, but not to another. One field ²  would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

The sluice gates ¹  are opened; the royal palace is deluged ²  and dissolves. ³ 

The seven lean, bad-looking cows that came up after them represent seven years, as do the seven empty heads of grain burned with the east wind. They represent ¹  seven years of famine.

“‘If you present a grain offering of first ripe grain to the Lord, you must present your grain offering of first ripe grain as soft kernels roasted in fire – crushed bits of fresh grain. ¹ 

and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents ¹  and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow ²  from a flint rock and

Jesse said to his son David, “Take your brothers this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread; go quickly ¹  to the camp to your brothers.

For this is what the Lord God of Israel says, ‘The jar of flour will not be empty and the jug of oil will not run out until the day the Lord makes it rain on the surface of the ground.’”

The jar of flour was never empty and the jug of oil never ran out, just as the Lord had promised ¹  through Elijah.

The dry soil will become a pool of water, the parched ground springs of water. Where jackals once lived and sprawled out, grass, reeds, and papyrus will grow.

“At that time the people of Judah and Jerusalem ¹  will be told, ‘A scorching wind will sweep down from the hilltops in the desert on ²  my dear people. ³  It will not be a gentle breeze for winnowing the grain and blowing away the chaff. ⁴ 

The leading men of the cities send their servants for water. They go to the cisterns, ¹  but they do not find any water there. They return with their containers ²  empty. Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. ³