Now the boy Samuel continued serving the Lord under Eli’s supervision. ¹  Word from the Lord was rare in those days; revelatory visions were infrequent.

Abner advised ¹  the elders of Israel, “Previously you were wanting David to be your king. ² 

The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a prophet and that the Lord really does speak through you.” ¹ 

As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a fiery chariot ¹  pulled by fiery horses appeared. ²  They went between Elijah and Elisha, ³  and Elijah went up to heaven in a windstorm.

“You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You provided them with just judgments, true laws, and good statutes and commandments.

Mordecai the Jew was second only to King Ahasuerus. He was the highest-ranking ¹  Jew, and he was admired by his numerous relatives. ²  He worked enthusiastically ³  for the good of his people and was an advocate for the welfare of ⁴  all his descendants. ⁵ 

Remove falsehood and lies ¹  far from me; do not give me poverty or riches, feed me with my allotted portion ²  of bread, ³ 

Then you will call out, and the Lord will respond; you will cry out, and he will reply, ‘Here I am.’ You must ¹  remove the burdensome yoke from among you and stop pointing fingers and speaking sinfully.

No one is concerned about justice; ¹  no one sets forth his case truthfully. They depend on false words ²  and tell lies; they conceive of oppression ³  and give birth to sin.

I will send famine and wild beasts against you and they will take your children from you. ¹  Plague and bloodshed will overwhelm you, ²  and I will bring a sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

The sword is outside; pestilence and famine are inside the house. Whoever is in the open field will die by the sword, and famine and pestilence will consume everyone in the city.

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, ¹  the way a person speaks ²  to a friend. Then Moses ³  would return to the camp, but his servant, Joshua son of Nun, a young man, did not leave the tent. ⁴ 

But when Moses went in ¹  before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. ²  Then he would come out and tell the Israelites what he had been commanded. ³ 

The one who committed manslaughter ¹  should escape to one of these cities, stand at the entrance of the city gate, and present his case to the leaders of that city. ²  They should then bring him into the city, give him a place to stay, and let him live there. ³ 

So the five men journeyed on ¹  and arrived in Laish. They noticed that the people there ²  were living securely, like the Sidonians do, ³  undisturbed and unsuspecting. No conqueror was troubling them in any way. ⁴  They lived far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone. ⁵ 

No one came to the rescue because the city ¹  was far from Sidon ²  and they had no dealings with anyone. ³  The city ⁴  was in a valley near Beth Rehob. The Danites ⁵  rebuilt the city and occupied it.

Some time later, in the third year of the famine, the Lord told Elijah, ¹  “Go, make an appearance before Ahab, so I may send rain on the surface of the ground.”

But the Lord’s angelic messenger told Elijah the Tishbite, “Get up, go to meet the messengers from the king of Samaria. Say this to them: ‘You must think there is no God in Israel! That explains why you are on your way to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub the god of Ekron. ¹ 

Jeriah had 2,700 relatives who were respected family leaders. ¹  King David placed them in charge of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh; they took care of all matters pertaining to God and the king. ² 

‘If disaster comes on us in the form of military attack, ¹  judgment, plague, or famine, we will stand in front of this temple before you, for you are present in this temple. ²  We will cry out to you for help in our distress, so that you will ³  hear and deliver us.’