What the Bible Says About the Israelites: A Journey Through the Scriptures

Scripture

¹ Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
⁵ Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan.
⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
⁷ Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
⁸ From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
⁹ And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

Genesis 12:1-9

Exodus 1:1-22: ¹ These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household:
² Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
³ Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
⁴ Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
⁵ All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.
⁶ Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
⁷ But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
⁸ Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
⁹ And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
¹⁰ Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.
¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.
¹³ So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves.
¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
¹⁵ Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah,
¹⁶ “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.”
¹⁷ But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.
¹⁸ But the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?”
¹⁹ Then the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
²⁰ So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong.
²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
²² Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

Leviticus 26:1-46: ¹ “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God.”
² You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.
³ “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them,”
⁴ then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
⁵ Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely.
⁶ I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land.
⁷ You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
⁸ Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
⁹ I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you.
¹⁰ You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new.
¹¹ I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.
¹² And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
¹³ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
¹⁴ “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments,
¹⁵ if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,
¹⁶ then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
¹⁷ I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.
¹⁸ And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins,
¹⁹ and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.
²⁰ Then your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
²¹ “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins.”
²² And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.
²³ “And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me,
²⁴ then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.
²⁵ And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
²⁶ When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
²⁷ “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me,”
²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins.
²⁹ You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.
³⁰ And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you.
³¹ And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas.
³² And I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it.
³³ And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
³⁴ “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths.”
³⁵ All the days that the land lies desolate, the land will enjoy its Sabbath rest, to make up for the time it did not rest during the Sabbaths you lived in it.
³⁶ And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.
³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
³⁸ And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
³⁹ And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies’ lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.
⁴⁰ “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me,
⁴¹ so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,
⁴² then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
⁴³ But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes.
⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.
⁴⁵ But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”
⁴⁶ These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.

Numbers 14:1-45: ¹ Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night.
² And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!
³ Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
⁴ And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
⁵ Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel.
⁶ And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes
⁷ and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land.
⁸ If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.
⁹ Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”
¹⁴ Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel.
¹¹ And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?
¹² I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
¹⁴ But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them,
¹⁴ And they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
¹⁵ Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say,
¹⁶ ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them, he has killed them in the wilderness.’
¹⁷ And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying,
¹⁸ ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
¹⁹ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
²¹ But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,
²¹ But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,
²² none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice,
²³ shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.
²⁴ But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.
²⁵ Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”
²⁶ And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
²⁷ “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me.”
²⁸ Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:
²⁹ In this wilderness your dead bodies shall fall, and all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me.
³⁰ not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.
³¹ But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected.
³² But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.
³³ And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.
³⁴ According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’
³⁵ I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”
³⁶ And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land—
³⁷ the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord.
³⁸ But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive, of those men who went to spy out the land.
³⁹ And Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.
¹⁴ Then they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.”
⁴¹ But Moses said, “Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed?
¹⁴ Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies.
⁴³ For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.”
⁴⁴ But they dared to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp.
⁴⁵ Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them, even to Hormah.

Deuteronomy 7:1-26: ¹ “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you,”
² and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.
³ You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,
⁴ For they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.
⁵ But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.
⁶ “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
⁷ It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,
⁸ but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
⁹ Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.
¹⁰ but repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.
¹¹ You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.
¹² And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers.
¹³ He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.
¹⁴ You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock.
¹⁵ And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.
¹⁶ And you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you. Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.
¹⁷ If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?’
¹⁸ you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt,
¹⁹ the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So will the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.
²⁰ Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed.
²¹ You shall not be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.
²² The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.
²³ But the Lord your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed.
²⁴ And he will give their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under heaven. No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.
²⁵ The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.
²⁶ And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.

Joshua 1:1-18: ¹ After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant,
² “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.”
³ Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.
⁴ From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.
⁵ No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.
⁶ Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.
⁷ Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.
⁸ This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
¹⁰ And Joshua commanded the officers of the people,
¹¹ “Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, ‘Prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’”
¹² And to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said,
¹³ “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’”
¹⁴ Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers and shall help them,
¹⁵ until the Lord gives rest to your brothers, as to you, and they also occupy the land that the Lord your God gives them beyond the Jordan. Then each of you may return to his possession which I have given you.
¹⁶ They answered Joshua, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us, we will go.
¹⁷ Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you, as he was with Moses!
¹⁸ Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.”

Judges 2:6-23: ⁶ And when Joshua had dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land.
⁷ And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.
⁸ And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years.
⁹ And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.
¹⁰ And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
¹¹ And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.
¹² and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt.
¹³ They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.
¹⁴ So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.
¹⁵ Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.
¹⁶ Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
¹⁷ Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so.
¹⁸ Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge.
¹⁹ But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.
²⁰ So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, “Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice,
²¹ I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died,
²² in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did, or not.”
²³ So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

1 Samuel 8:1-22: ³ Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
² The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba.
³ Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
⁴ Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah
⁵ and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
⁶ But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord.
⁷ And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
⁸ According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.
⁹ Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”
¹⁰ So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him.
¹¹ He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots.
¹² He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
¹³ He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
¹⁴ He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.
¹⁵ He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.
¹⁶ He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
¹⁷ He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
¹⁸ And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
¹⁹ But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us,
²⁰ that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
²¹ And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the ears of the Lord.
²² And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”

2 Samuel 7:1-29: ¹ Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies,
² that the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.”
³ And Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.”
⁴ But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan,
⁵ “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in?
⁶ I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling.
⁷ In all the places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”
⁸ Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel.
⁹ And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
¹⁰ And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly,
¹¹ from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
¹² When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
¹³ He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
¹⁴ I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,
¹⁵ but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
¹⁶ And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.
¹⁷ In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.
¹⁸ Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?
¹⁹ And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God!
²⁰ And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God!
²¹ Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it.
²² Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
²³ And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods?
²⁴ For you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O Lord, became their God.
²⁵ And now, O Lord God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and do as you have spoken.
²⁶ And your name will be magnified forever, saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel,’ and the house of your servant David will be established before you.
²⁷ For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house.’ Therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.
²⁸ And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant.
²⁹ Now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever.”

1 Kings 8:1-66: ¹ Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers’ houses of the people of Israel, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion.
² And all the men of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month.
³ And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark.
⁴ And they brought up the ark of the Lord, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up.
⁵ And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.
⁶ Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the Most Holy Place, underneath the wings of the cherubim.
⁷ For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles.
⁸ And the poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the Holy Place before the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside. And they are there to this day.
⁹ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.
¹⁰ And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord,
¹¹ so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
¹² Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
¹³ I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever.”
¹⁴ Then the king turned around and blessed all the assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel stood.
¹⁵ And he said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hand has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to David my father, saying,
¹⁶ Since the day that I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel in which to build a house, that my name might be there. But I chose David to be over my people Israel.
¹⁷ Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.
¹⁸ “But the Lord said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart.’”
¹⁹ Nevertheless, you shall not build the house, but your son who shall be born to you shall build the house for my name.’
²⁰ Now the Lord has fulfilled his promise that he made. I have risen in the place of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and I have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.
²¹ And there I have provided a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
²² Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven,
²³ and said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart,
²⁴ who have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day.
²⁵ Now therefore, O Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father what you promised him, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’
²⁶ Now therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you have spoken to your servant David my father.
²⁷ “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”
²⁸ Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day,
²⁹ that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.
³⁰ And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.
³¹ “If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath and comes and swears his oath before your altar in this house,”
³² then hear in heaven and act and judge your servants, condemning the guilty by bringing his conduct on his own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness.
³³ “When your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against you, and if they turn again to you and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house,”
³⁴ then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them again to the land that you gave to their fathers.
³⁵ “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them,”
³⁶ then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.
³⁷ “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemy besieges them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is,”
³⁸ whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house,
³⁹ then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind),
⁴⁰ that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers.
⁴¹ “Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake
⁴² (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house,
⁴³ “hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.”
⁴⁴ “If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the Lord toward the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name,”
⁴⁵ then hear in heaven their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause.
⁴⁶ “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near,”
⁴⁷ yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’
⁴⁸ if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name,
⁴⁹ then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause,
⁵⁰ and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them.
⁵¹ (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace).
⁵² Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call to you.
⁵³ for you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth to be your heritage, as you declared through Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.”
⁵⁴ Now as Solomon finished offering all this prayer and plea to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven.
⁵⁵ And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying:
⁵⁶ “Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant.”
⁵⁷ be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us,
⁵⁸ that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers.
⁵⁹ Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires,
⁶⁰ that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other.
⁶¹ Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”
⁶² Then the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord.
⁶³ Solomon offered as peace offerings to the Lord 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord.
⁶⁴ The same day the king consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord, for there he offered the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat pieces of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to receive the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat pieces of the peace offerings.
⁶⁵ So Solomon held the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly, from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt, before the Lord our God, seven days.
⁶⁶ On the eighth day he sent the people away, and they blessed the king and went to their homes joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had shown to David his servant and to Israel his people.

2 Kings 17:1-41: ¹ In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years.
² And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
³ Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.
⁴ And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.
⁵ Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it.
⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
⁷ And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods.
⁸ and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.
⁹ And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.
¹⁰ They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,
¹¹ and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger,
¹² they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.”
¹³ Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”
¹⁴ But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
¹⁵ They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them.
¹⁶ And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.
¹⁷ And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
¹⁸ Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.
¹⁹ Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.
²⁰ And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
²¹ When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit great sin.
²² For the people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them,
²³ until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.
²⁴ And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.
²⁵ And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
²⁶ So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.”
²⁷ Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land.”
²⁸ So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord.
²⁹ But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived.
³⁰ The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima,
³¹ the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
³² They also feared the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places.
³³ They feared the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.
³⁴ To this day they do according to their former manner. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.
³⁵ The Lord made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them,
³⁶ but you shall fear the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice.
³⁷ And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods.
³⁸ And the covenant that I have made with you, you shall not forget, and you shall not fear other gods.
³⁹ but you shall fear the Lord your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.
⁴⁰ but they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
⁴¹ So these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children’s children—as their fathers did, so they do to this day.

1 Chronicles 17:1-27: ¹ Now when David lived in his house, David said to Nathan the prophet, “Behold, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent.”
² Nathan said to David, “Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you.”
³ But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan,
⁴ “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in.’”
⁵ For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up Israel to this day, but I have gone from tent to tent and from dwelling to dwelling.
⁶ In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”
⁷ Now, therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be prince over my people Israel.
⁸ and I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
⁹ And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall waste them no more, as formerly,
¹⁰ from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will subdue all your enemies. Moreover, I declare to you that the Lord will build you a house.
¹¹ When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom.
¹² He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever.
¹³ I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you,
¹⁴ but I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.”
¹⁵ According to all these words and according to all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.
¹⁶ Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?
¹⁷ And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and have shown me future generations, O Lord God!
¹⁸ What more can David say to you for honoring your servant? For you know your servant.
¹⁹ For your servant’s sake, O Lord, and according to your own heart, you have done all this greatness, in making known all these great things.
²⁰ O Lord, there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
²¹ And what one nation on earth is like your people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his people, making for yourself a name for great and awesome things, in driving out nations before your people whom you redeemed from Egypt?
²² For you have made your people Israel your very own people forever, and you, O Lord, have become their God.
²³ And now, O Lord, let the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house be established forever, and do as you have spoken.
²⁴ Let your name be established and magnified forever, saying, ‘The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, is Israel’s God,’ and the house of your servant David will be established before you.
²⁵ For you, O my God, have revealed to your servant that you will build a house for him.
²⁶ And now, O Lord, you are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant.
²⁷ Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you. For you, O Lord, have blessed, and it is blessed forever.”

2 Chronicles 7:11-22: ¹¹ Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished.
¹² Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.
²² And they shall answer, “Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.”
¹⁴ if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
¹⁵ Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.
¹⁶ For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.
¹⁷ And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules,
¹⁸ then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’
¹⁹ But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them,
²⁰ then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
²¹ And as for this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’
²² And they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’

Ezra 1:1-11: ¹ In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:
² “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.”
³ Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.
⁴ And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.”
⁵ Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem.
⁶ And all who were about them aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, and with costly wares, besides all that was freely offered.
⁷ Cyrus the king also brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.
⁸ Cyrus the king also brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.
⁹ And this was the inventory: 30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers,
¹⁰ thirty basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers,
¹¹ All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand four hundred. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.

Nehemiah 9:1-38: Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads.
² And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
³ And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.
⁴ On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God.
⁵ Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
⁶ “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”
⁷ You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.
⁸ You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
⁹ And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea.
¹⁰ and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day.
¹¹ And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters.
¹² By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go.
¹³ You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments.
¹⁴ and made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant.
¹⁵ You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.
¹⁶ “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments.”
¹⁷ They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.
¹⁸ Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies,
¹⁹ you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness.
²⁰ You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst.
²¹ Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
²² “You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan.”
²³ You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess.
²⁴ So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would.
²⁵ And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness.
²⁶ “Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.”
²⁷ Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies.
²⁸ But after they had rest, they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies.
²⁹ And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules, which if a person does them, he shall live by them, and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey.
³⁰ Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
³¹ Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.
³² Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.
³³ Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly.
³⁴ Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them.
³⁵ Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works.
³⁶ Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves.
³⁷ And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.
³⁸ “Because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.”

Esther 3:1-15: ¹ After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him.
² And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage.
³ Then the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you transgress the king’s command?”
⁴ Then the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you transgress the king’s command?”
⁵ And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury.
⁶ But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So, as they had made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.
⁷ In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur (that is, they cast lots) before Haman day after day; and they cast it month after month till the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
⁸ Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not to the king’s profit to tolerate them.
⁹ If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king’s business, that they may put it into the king’s treasuries.”
¹⁰ So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews.
¹¹ Then the king’s scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict, according to all that Haman commanded, was written to the king’s satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script and every people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet ring.
¹² Then the king’s scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict, according to all that Haman commanded, was written to the king’s satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script and every people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet ring.
¹³ Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.
¹⁴ A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation to all the peoples to be ready for that day.
¹⁵ The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in Susa the citadel. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion.

Isaiah 1:1-31: ¹ The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
² Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.
³ The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master’s crib,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.”
⁴ Ah, sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers,
children who deal corruptly!
They have forsaken the Lord,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel,
they are utterly estranged.
⁵ Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
⁶ From the sole of the foot even to the head,
there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores
and raw wounds;
they are not pressed out or bound up
or softened with oil.
⁷ Your country lies desolate;
your cities are burned with fire;
in your very presence
foreigners devour your land;
it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.
⁸ And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.
⁹ If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors,
we should have been like Sodom,
and become like Gomorrah.
¹⁰ Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
¹¹ “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.”
¹² “When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this trampling of my courts?
¹³ Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me.
¹⁴ Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
¹⁵ When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
¹⁶ Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,
¹⁷ learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
¹⁸ “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
²⁰ but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
²¹ How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.
²² Your silver has become dross,
your best wine mixed with water.
²³ Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow’s cause does not come to them.
²⁴ Therefore the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: “Ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes.
²⁵ I will turn my hand against you
and will smelt away your dross as with lye
and remove all your alloy.
²⁶ And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.”
²⁷ Zion shall be redeemed by justice,
and those in her who repent, by righteousness.
²⁸ But rebels and sinners shall be broken together,
and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.
²⁹ For they shall be ashamed of the oaks that you desired; and you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen.
³⁰ For you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers,
and like a garden without water.
³¹ The strong shall become tinder, and his work a spark, and both of them shall burn together, with none to quench them.

Jeremiah 31:31-40: ³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.
³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.
³⁵ Thus says the Lord,
who gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
the Lord of hosts is his name:
³⁶ “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.”
³⁷ Thus says the Lord: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord.”
³⁸ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the city shall be rebuilt for the Lord from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.”
³⁹ The measuring line shall go out farther straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah.
⁴⁰ The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the Lord. It shall not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever.”

Ezekiel 37:1-28: ¹ The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.
² And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.
³ And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”
⁵ Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
⁶ And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.
⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
⁸ And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them.
⁹ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”
¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
¹¹ Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’
¹² Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel.
¹³ And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.
¹³ And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.
³⁷ The word of the Lord came to me:
¹⁶ “And you, son of man, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the people of Israel associated with him’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him.’”
¹⁷ And join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand.
¹⁸ And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not tell us what you mean by these?’
¹⁹ say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him.
²⁰ The sticks on which you write shall be in your hand before their eyes.
²¹ then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land.
²² And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms.
²³ They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions.
²⁴ “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.”
²⁵ They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever.
²⁶ I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
²⁷ My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
²⁸ Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.

Hosea 11:1-11: ¹ When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
² The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.
³ Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them.
⁴ I led them with cords of kindness,
with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them.
⁵ They shall not return to the land of Egypt,
but Assyria shall be their king,
because they have refused to return to me.
⁶ The sword shall rage against their cities,
consume the bars of their gates,
and devour them because of their own counsels.
⁷ My people are bent on turning away from me,
and though they call out to the Most High,
he shall not raise them up at all.
⁸ How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
⁹ I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.
¹⁰ They shall go after the Lord; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west;
¹¹ They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria,
and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.

Amos 9:11-15: ¹¹ “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old,”
¹² that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name,”
declares the Lord who does this.
¹³ “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.”
¹⁴ I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵ I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

Micah 5:1-15: ¹ Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.
² But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
³ Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.
⁴ And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
⁵ And he shall be their peace.
⁶ They shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword,
and the land of Nimrod at its entrances;
and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian
when he comes into our land
and treads within our border.
⁷ Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man nor wait for the children of man.
⁸ And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, which, when it goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.
⁹ Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries,
and all your enemies shall be cut off.
¹⁰ And in that day, declares the Lord,
I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots.
¹¹ And I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds.
¹² And I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes;
¹³ Your carved images I will also cut off,
and your pillars from among you;
and you shall bow down no more
to the work of your hands.
¹⁴ And I will root out your Asherah images from among you and destroy your cities.
¹⁵ And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury on the nations that did not obey.

Zechariah 8:1-23: ¹ And the word of the Lord of hosts came, saying:
² “Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath.”
³ Thus says the Lord: I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain.
⁴ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age.
⁵ And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.
⁶ Thus says the Lord of hosts: If it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my sight, declares the Lord of hosts?
⁷ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country.
⁸ and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.
⁹ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets who were present on the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built.
¹⁰ For before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in, for I set every man against his neighbor.
¹¹ But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the Lord of hosts.
¹² For there shall be a sowing of peace. The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.
¹³ And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.”
¹⁴ For thus says the Lord of hosts: “As I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts,
¹⁵ so again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not.
¹⁶ These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace;
¹⁷ do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.”
¹⁸ And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying:
¹⁹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.”
²⁰ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities.
²¹ The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts; I myself am going.’
²² Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord.
²³ Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

Malachi 3:1-18: ¹ “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”
² But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.
³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.
⁴ Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
⁵ “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”
⁶ “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
⁷ From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’
⁸ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.
⁹ You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.
¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
¹¹ I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts.
¹² Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.
¹³ “Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’”
³ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?
¹⁵ And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.
¹⁶ Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.
¹⁷ “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.”
¹⁸ Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

Matthew 2:13-23: ¹³ Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
¹⁴ And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt.
¹⁵ and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
¹⁶ Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.
¹⁷ Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
¹⁸ “A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
¹⁹ But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,
²⁰ saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.”
²¹ And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.
²² But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee.
²³ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Acts 7:1-53: ¹ And the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
² And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
³ and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’
⁴ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.
⁵ Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.
⁶ And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.
⁷ And I will judge the nation that they serve, said God, and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.
⁸ And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.
⁹ “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him”
¹⁰ and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.
¹¹ Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food.
¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit.
¹³ And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.
¹⁴ And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all.
¹⁵ And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers,
¹⁶ And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
¹⁷ “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt”
¹⁸ until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph.
¹⁹ He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive.
²⁰ At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house.
²¹ and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.
²² And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
²³ “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.”
²⁴ And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.
²⁵ He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.
²⁶ And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’
²⁷ But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
²⁸ ‘Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’
²⁹ At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
³⁰ “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.”
³¹ When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord:
³² ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look.
³³ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
³⁴ I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’”
³⁵ “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
³⁶ This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.
³⁷ This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’
³⁸ This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.
³⁹ Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt,
⁴⁰ saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’
⁴¹ And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.
⁴² But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: “Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices, during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
⁴³ You took up the tent of Moloch
and the star of your god Rephan,
the images that you made to worship;
and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’
⁴⁴ “Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen.”
⁴⁵ Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David,
⁴⁶ who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
⁴⁷ But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
⁴⁸ Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,
⁴⁹ “‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
or what is the place of my rest?
⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.”
⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.”
Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered,
You who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.

Romans 9:1-33: ¹ I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit.
² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
⁴ They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
⁵ To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
⁶ But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,
⁷ and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”
⁸ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
⁹ For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”
¹⁰ And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
¹¹ though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—
¹² she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
¹³ As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
¹⁴ What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!
¹⁵ For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
¹⁶ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
¹⁸ So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
¹⁹ You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”
²⁰ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
²¹ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
²² What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
²³ in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—
²⁴ even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
²⁵ As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
²⁶ “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
²⁷ And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
²⁸ for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
²⁹ And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”
³⁰ What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith;
³¹ but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
³² Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
³³ as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Hebrews 11:1-40: ¹ Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
² For by it the people of old received their commendation.
³ By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
⁴ By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.
⁶ And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
⁷ By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
⁹ By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
¹¹ By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
¹² Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
¹³ These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
¹⁴ For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
¹⁵ If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
¹⁶ But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son,
¹⁸ of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”
¹⁹ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
²⁰ By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau.
By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff.
²² By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.
²³ By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
²⁴ By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,
²⁵ choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
²⁶ He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
²⁷ By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.
²⁹ By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.
³⁰ By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.
³¹ By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
³² And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—
³³ who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
³⁴ quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.
³⁵ Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.
³⁶ Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated.
³⁸ of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
³⁹ And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,
⁴⁰ since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Revelation 7:1-17: ¹ After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree.
² Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea,
³ saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
⁴ And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
⁵ 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed,
¹²,000 from the tribe of Reuben,
¹²,000 from the tribe of Gad,
⁶ from the tribe of Asher 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000 were sealed,
⁷ The tribe of Simeon 12,000
⁸ the tribe of Zebulun 12,000, the tribe of Joseph 12,000, the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.
⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
¹¹ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
¹² saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”
¹⁴ I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
¹⁵ “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.”
¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.