Kings reign by means of me, and potentates ¹  decree ²  righteousness;

My heart went out ¹  to Israel’s leaders, to the people who answered the call to war. Praise the Lord!

Those who enact unjust policies are as good as dead, ¹  those who are always instituting unfair regulations, ² 

Look, I have inscribed your name ¹  on my palms; your walls are constantly before me.

The well which the princes ¹  dug, which the leaders of the people opened with their scepters and their staffs.” And from the wilderness they traveled to Mattanah;

“O that ¹  my words were written down, O that they were written on a scroll, ² 

Gilead belongs to me, as does Manasseh! ¹  Ephraim is my helmet, ²  Judah my royal scepter. ³ 

Gilead belongs to me, as does Manasseh! ¹  Ephraim is my helmet, ²  Judah my royal scepter. ³ 

When he established the heavens, I was there; when he marked out the horizon ¹  over the face of the deep,

when he gave the sea his decree that the waters should not pass over his command, ¹  when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

lest they drink and forget what is decreed, and remove ¹  from all the poor ²  their legal rights. ³ 

For the Lord, our ruler, the Lord, our commander, the Lord, our king – he will deliver us.

But she increased her prostitution. She saw men carved on the wall, images of the Chaldeans carved in bright red, ¹ 

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, ¹  until he comes to whom it belongs; ²  the nations will obey him. ³ 

He has selected the best part for himself, for the portion of the ruler ¹  is set aside ²  there; he came with the leaders ³  of the people, he obeyed the righteous laws of the Lord and his ordinances with Israel.

They came from Ephraim, who uprooted Amalek, ¹  they follow ²  after you, Benjamin, with your soldiers. From Makir leaders came down, from Zebulun came ³  the ones who march carrying ⁴  an officer’s staff.

‘What right do you have to be here? What relatives do you have buried here? ¹  Why ²  do you chisel out a tomb for yourself here? He chisels out his burial site in an elevated place, he carves out his tomb on a cliff.

Now go, write it ¹  down on a tablet in their presence, ²  inscribe it on a scroll, so that it might be preserved for a future time as an enduring witness. ³ 

“And you, son of man, take a brick ¹  and set it in front of you. Inscribe ²  a city on it – Jerusalem.