{
  "Genesis": {
    "1": {
      "1": "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.",
      "2": "The earth was undeveloped and empty. Darkness covered the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.",
      "3": "God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.",
      "4": "God saw that the light was good. He separated the light from the darkness.",
      "5": "God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was evening and there was morning—the first day.",
      "6": "God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, and let it separate the water from the water.”",
      "7": "God made the expanse, and he separated the water that was below the expanse from the water that was above the expanse, and it was so.",
      "8": "God called the expanse “sky.” There was evening and there was morning—the second day.",
      "9": "God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear,” and it was so. ⎣The waters under the sky gathered to their own places, and the dry land appeared.⎦",
      "10": "God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathering places of the waters he called “seas.” God saw that it was good.",
      "11": "God said, “Let the earth produce plants—vegetation that produces seed, and trees that bear fruit with its seed in it—each according to its own kind on the earth,” and it was so.",
      "12": "The earth brought forth plants, vegetation that produces seed according to its own kind, and trees that bear fruit with its seed in it, each according to its own kind, and God saw that it was good.",
      "13": "There was evening and there was morning—the third day.",
      "14": "God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night, and let them serve as markers to indicate seasons, days, and years.",
      "15": "Let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to give light to the earth,” and it was so.",
      "16": "God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.",
      "17": "God set these lights in place in the expanse of the sky to provide light for the earth,",
      "18": "to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.",
      "19": "There was evening and there was morning—the fourth day.",
      "20": "God said, “Let the waters swarm with living creatures, and let birds and other winged creatures fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”",
      "21": "God created the large sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their own kind, and every winged bird according to its own kind. God saw that it was good.",
      "22": "God blessed them when he said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”",
      "23": "There was evening and there was morning—the fifth day.",
      "24": "God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their own kind, livestock, creeping things, and wild animals according to their own kind,” and it was so.",
      "25": "God made the wild animals according to their own kind, and the livestock according to their own kind, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its own kind. God saw that it was good.",
      "26": "God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that crawls on the earth.”",
      "27": "God created the man in his own image.\nIn the image of God he created him.\nMale and female he created them.",
      "28": "God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”",
      "29": "God said, “Look, I have given you every plant that produces seed on the face of the whole earth, and every tree that bears fruit that produces seed. It will be your food.",
      "30": "To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.",
      "31": "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning—the sixth day."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "The heavens and the earth were finished, along with everything in them.",
      "2": "On the seventh day God had finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had been doing.",
      "3": "God blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy, because on it he rested from all his work of creation that he had done.",
      "4": "This is the account about the development of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens:",
      "5": "No bushes that grow in the field were yet on the earth, and no plants of the field had yet sprung up, since the Lord God had not yet caused it to rain on the earth. There was not yet a man to till the soil,",
      "6": "but water came up from the earth and watered the entire surface of the ground.",
      "7": "The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.",
      "8": "The Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.",
      "9": "Out of the ground the Lord God made every kind of tree grow—trees that are pleasant to look at and good for food, including the Tree of Life in the middle of the garden and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.",
      "10": "A river went out from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided and became the headwaters of four rivers.",
      "11": "The name of the first river is Pishon. It flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold,",
      "12": "and the gold of that land is good. Incense and onyx stone are also found there.",
      "13": "The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the same river that winds through the whole land of Cush.",
      "14": "The name of the third river is Tigris. This is the one which flows along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.",
      "15": "The Lord God took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it.",
      "16": "The Lord God gave a command to the man. He said, “You may freely eat from every tree in the garden,",
      "17": "but you shall not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day that you eat from it, you will certainly die.”",
      "18": "The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is a suitable partner for him.”",
      "19": "Out of the soil the Lord God had formed every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that became its name.",
      "20": "The man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal, but for Adam no helper was found who was a suitable partner for him.",
      "21": "The Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. As the man slept, the Lord God took a rib and closed up the flesh where it had been.",
      "22": "The Lord God built a woman from the rib that he had taken from the man and brought her to the man.",
      "23": "The man said,\nNow this one is bone of my bones\nand flesh of my flesh.\nShe will be called “woman,”\nbecause she was taken out of man.",
      "24": "For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother\nand will remain united with his wife,\nand they will become one flesh.",
      "25": "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Now the serpent was more clever than any wild animal which the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”",
      "2": "The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden,",
      "3": "but not from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it. You shall not touch it, or else you will die.’”",
      "4": "The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die.",
      "5": "In fact, God knows that the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”",
      "6": "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was appealing to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She gave some also to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.",
      "7": "The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for their waists.",
      "8": "They heard the voice of the Lord God, who was walking around in the garden during the cooler part of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.",
      "9": "The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”",
      "10": "The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.”",
      "11": "God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”",
      "12": "The man said, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”",
      "13": "The Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?”\nThe woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”",
      "14": "The Lord God said to the serpent:\nBecause you have done this,\nyou are cursed more than all the livestock,\nand more than every wild animal.\nYou shall crawl on your belly,\nand you shall eat dust all the days of your life.",
      "15": "I will put hostility between you and the woman,\nand between your seed and her seed.\nHe will crush your head,\nand you will crush his heel.",
      "16": "To the woman he said:\nI will greatly increase your pain in childbearing.\nWith painful labor you will give birth to children.\nYour desire will be for your husband,\nbut he will rule over you.",
      "17": "To Adam he said:\nBecause you listened to your wife’s voice\nand ate from the tree about which I commanded you,\n“You shall not eat from it,”\nthe soil is cursed on account of you.\nYou will eat from it with painful labor all the days of your life.",
      "18": "Thorns and thistles will spring up from the ground for you,\nbut you will eat the crops of the field.",
      "19": "By the sweat of your face you will eat bread\nuntil you return to the soil,\nfor out of it you were taken.\nFor you are dust,\nand to dust you shall return.",
      "20": "The man named his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all the living.",
      "21": "The Lord God made clothing of animal skins for Adam and for his wife and clothed them.",
      "22": "The Lord God said, “Look, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, so that he does not reach out his hand and also take from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever—”",
      "23": "the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the soil from which he had been taken.",
      "24": "So he drove the man out, and in front of the Garden of Eden he stationed cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned in every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "The man was intimate with Eve, his wife. She conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said, “I have gotten a man with the Lord.”",
      "2": "She also gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel.\nAbel tended sheep, but Cain worked the ground.",
      "3": "As time passed, one day Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the soil.",
      "4": "Abel also brought some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord looked favorably on Abel and his offering,",
      "5": "but he did not look favorably on Cain and his offering. Cain was very angry, and his face showed it.",
      "6": "The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why do you have that angry look on your face?",
      "7": "If you do good, will you not be lifted up? If you do not do good, sin is crouching at the door. It has a strong desire for you, but you must rule over it.”",
      "8": "Cain said to Abel, his brother, “Let’s go into the field.” When they were in the field, Cain attacked Abel, his brother, and killed him.",
      "9": "The Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?”\nHe said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”",
      "10": "The Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the soil.",
      "11": "Now you are cursed and sent away from the soil which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.",
      "12": "When you work the soil, it will no longer give its strength to you. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”",
      "13": "Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is too great for me to bear.",
      "14": "Look, today you have driven me away from the soil. I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. And whoever finds me will kill me.”",
      "15": "The Lord said to him, “No! If anyone kills Cain, he will face sevenfold revenge.” And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that anyone who found him would not strike him down.",
      "16": "Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.",
      "17": "Cain was intimate with his wife. She conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Cain built a city and named the city after his son Enoch.",
      "18": "To Enoch, Irad was born. Irad became the father of Mehujael. Mehujael became the father of Methushael. Methushael became the father of Lamech.",
      "19": "Lamech took two wives. The name of one was Adah, and the name of the other was Zillah.",
      "20": "Adah gave birth to Jabal, who was the predecessor of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.",
      "21": "His brother’s name was Jubal, who was the predecessor of all who play the lyre and flute.",
      "22": "Zillah also gave birth to Tubal Cain, who made all kinds of tools and weapons from bronze and iron. Tubal Cain’s sister was Na’amah.",
      "23": "Lamech said to his wives:\nAdah and Zillah, hear my voice.\nYou wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.\nLook, I have killed a man for wounding me,\na young man for bruising me.",
      "24": "If Cain will be avenged seven times,\nthen Lamech will be avenged seventy-seven times.",
      "25": "Adam was intimate with his wife again. She gave birth to a son and named him Seth, because she said, “God has set another child in place of Abel for me, since Cain killed him.”",
      "26": "Later a son was born to Seth, and he named him Enosh. This is when people began to proclaim the name of the Lord."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "This is the account about the development of Adam’s family:\nIn the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.",
      "2": "He created them male and female and blessed them, and on the day they were created, he named them “mankind.”",
      "3": "Adam lived 130 years, and he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his own image, and he named him Seth.",
      "4": "The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "5": "All the days that Adam lived were 930 years. Then he died.",
      "6": "Seth lived 105 years, and he became the father of Enosh.",
      "7": "Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enosh, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "8": "All the days of Seth were 912 years. Then he died.",
      "9": "Enosh lived 90 years, and he became the father of Kenan.",
      "10": "Enosh lived 815 years after he became the father of Kenan, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "11": "All the days of Enosh were 905 years. Then he died.",
      "12": "Kenan lived 70 years, and he became the father of Mahalalel.",
      "13": "Kenan lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "14": "All the days of Kenan were 910 years. Then he died.",
      "15": "Mahalalel lived 65 years, and he became the father of Jared.",
      "16": "Mahalalel lived 830 years after he became the father of Jared, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "17": "All the days of Mahalalel were 895 years. Then he died.",
      "18": "Jared lived 162 years, and he became the father of Enoch.",
      "19": "Jared lived 800 years after he became the father of Enoch, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "20": "All the days of Jared were 962 years. Then he died.",
      "21": "Enoch lived 65 years, and he became the father of Methuselah.",
      "22": "After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "23": "All the days of Enoch were 365 years.",
      "24": "Enoch walked with God. Then, he was not there, for God took him.",
      "25": "Methuselah lived 187 years, and he became the father of Lamech.",
      "26": "After he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "27": "All the days of Methuselah were 969 years. Then he died.",
      "28": "Lamech lived 182 years and became the father of a son.",
      "29": "He named him Noah and said, “This one will bring us comfort during our work and the hard labor that we must perform with our hands because the Lord has cursed the soil.”",
      "30": "Lamech lived 595 years after he became father of Noah, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "31": "All the days of Lamech were 777 years. Then he died.",
      "32": "Noah was 500 years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "This is what happened when mankind began to multiply on the face of the earth.\nWhen daughters were born to people,",
      "2": "the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took as wives for themselves any of them they chose.",
      "3": "The Lord said, “My Spirit will not struggle with man forever, because he is only flesh. His days will be 120 years.”",
      "4": "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days. After that, the sons of God went to the daughters of men, who bore children for them. Those became the powerful, famous men of ancient times.",
      "5": "The Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth, and that all the thoughts and plans they formed in their hearts were only evil every day.",
      "6": "The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with sorrow.",
      "7": "The Lord said, “I will wipe out mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth, along with the animals, the creeping things, and the birds of the sky, because I regret that I have made them.”",
      "8": "But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "9": "This is the account about the development of Noah’s family.\nNoah was a righteous man, a man of integrity in that generation. Noah walked with God.",
      "10": "Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.",
      "11": "In the sight of God the earth was morally corrupt, and the earth was filled with violence.",
      "12": "God looked at the earth and saw that it was corrupt, for all flesh was corrupt in all their ways on the earth.",
      "13": "So God said to Noah, “I have decreed the end of all flesh, because the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.",
      "14": "“Make an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark. Seal it inside and outside with pitch.",
      "15": "This is how you are to make it: The length of the ark is to be 450 feet, its width 75 feet, and its height 45 feet.",
      "16": "Make a roof for the ark, and leave an eighteen-inch opening just under the roof. Place a door on the side of the ark. Make it with lower, second, and third decks.",
      "17": "“I myself am about to bring a flood of waters on the earth, in order to destroy all flesh under the sky that has the breath of life. Everything that is on the earth will die,",
      "18": "but I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.",
      "19": "You shall bring a pair (male and female) of every kind of living flesh into the ark with you to keep them alive.",
      "20": "Include the birds according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, every creeping thing on the ground according to their kinds. Two of every sort shall come to you, so you can keep them alive.",
      "21": "Take with you every type of food that is eaten, and store it for yourself, so it can be used as food for you and for them.”",
      "22": "So that is what Noah did. He did everything that God commanded him, just as he had been told."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "The Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and your entire household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.",
      "2": "From every clean animal take with you seven pairs, a male and his female. From the animals that are not clean, take two, a male and his female.",
      "3": "Also from the ⎣clean⎦ birds of the sky take seven and seven, male and female, ⎣and of all the unclean birds, one pair, a male and a female⎦ to keep their offspring alive on the face of the whole earth.",
      "4": "In seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. Every living thing that I have made, I will wipe off the face of the earth.”",
      "5": "Noah did everything that the Lord commanded him.",
      "6": "Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came, and water covered the earth.",
      "7": "Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, because of the waters of the flood.",
      "8": "Clean animals, animals that are not clean, birds, and everything that creeps on the ground",
      "9": "went into the ark with Noah two by two (male and female), just as God had commanded Noah.",
      "10": "After seven days, the waters of the flood came on the earth.",
      "11": "In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that very day, all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.",
      "12": "The rain came down on the earth for forty days and forty nights.",
      "13": "On that same day Noah, Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons along with them entered the ark.",
      "14": "They went in with every animal according to its kind, all the livestock according to their kinds, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and everything that flies according to its kind, flying birds of every sort.",
      "15": "Pairs of all the animals that have the breath of life in them went to Noah in the ark.",
      "16": "A male and female of each animal that breathes went in, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut Noah in.",
      "17": "The flood kept coming on the earth for forty days. The waters became deeper and lifted up the ark until it floated high above the earth.",
      "18": "The water kept increasing and overwhelmed the earth, and the ark was carried along on the surface of the water.",
      "19": "The water overwhelmed the earth. All the high mountains that were under the entire sky were covered.",
      "20": "The waters rose more than twenty feet above the mountains and covered them.",
      "21": "All living creatures that moved on the earth perished, including birds, livestock, wild animals, every creeping thing that crawls on the earth, and all mankind.",
      "22": "Everything that breathed the breath of life through its nostrils, that is, everything that was on the dry land, died.",
      "23": "Every living thing that was on the face of the earth was wiped out, including mankind, livestock, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They all were wiped off the earth. Only Noah was left, as well as those who were with him in the ark.",
      "24": "The waters overwhelmed the earth for one hundred fifty days."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "God remembered Noah, as well as all the animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. So God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.",
      "2": "The fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were also closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained.",
      "3": "The waters kept receding from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters had decreased.",
      "4": "In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.",
      "5": "The waters receded continuously until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.",
      "6": "Then at the end of forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark.",
      "7": "He sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth.",
      "8": "Then he sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground,",
      "9": "but the dove found no place to rest its foot, and it returned to him in the ark, because there was water on the surface of the whole earth. Noah reached out his hand, took the dove, and brought it back to him in the ark.",
      "10": "He waited another seven days. Then he sent the dove out of the ark again.",
      "11": "The dove came back to him at evening, and there in its mouth was an olive leaf it had just plucked. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.",
      "12": "He waited another seven days and sent the dove out again. This time it did not return to him anymore.",
      "13": "And so in the six hundred first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked out. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry.",
      "14": "In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.",
      "15": "God spoke to Noah. He said,",
      "16": "“Go out of the ark—you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you.",
      "17": "Bring out with you every living thing of every sort that is with you, all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may swarm over the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”",
      "18": "Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives along with him.",
      "19": "Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever swarms on the earth went out of the ship, species by species.",
      "20": "Noah built an altar to the Lord and took from every clean animal and every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.",
      "21": "The Lord smelled the pleasant aroma. The Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the soil anymore because of man, for the thoughts he forms in his heart are evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike every living thing, as I have done.",
      "22": "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.",
      "2": "Every animal on the earth and every bird in the sky will fear you and dread you. Everything that swarms on the ground and all the fish in the sea are handed over to you.",
      "3": "Every living, moving thing will be food for you. I have given everything to you, just as I gave you the green plants.",
      "4": "But flesh that has the blood (which is its life) still in it, you shall not eat.",
      "5": "In fact, I will hold each animal and each person responsible for your lifeblood. I will hold each man responsible for the life of his brother.",
      "6": "Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for God made man in his own image.",
      "7": "“But you, be fruitful and multiply. Increase abundantly on the earth, and multiply on it.”",
      "8": "God said to Noah and to his sons, who were with him,",
      "9": "“Listen, I will now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you",
      "10": "and with everything with you that has the breath of life: with the birds, with the livestock, and with every wild animal that is on the earth with you, with everything that went out of the ark, even with every wild animal on the earth.",
      "11": "I will establish my covenant with you: Never again will all living creatures be cut off by the waters of a flood. Neither will there ever again be a flood to destroy the earth.”",
      "12": "God also said, “This is the sign of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you that I am giving for all generations to come.",
      "13": "I have set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be the sign of a covenant between me and the earth.",
      "14": "Whenever I bring a cloud over the earth and the rainbow is seen in the cloud,",
      "15": "I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of every sort, and the waters will never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.",
      "16": "The rainbow will be in the cloud. I will look at it so that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of every kind that is on the earth.”",
      "17": "God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”",
      "18": "The sons of Noah who went out from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.)",
      "19": "These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, people spread out over the whole earth.",
      "20": "Noah began to be a man of the soil and planted a vineyard.",
      "21": "He drank some of the wine and got drunk. He lay uncovered inside his tent.",
      "22": "Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.",
      "23": "Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it over their shoulders. They went in backwards and covered the nakedness of their father. They faced backwards, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.",
      "24": "Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him.",
      "25": "He said:\nA curse on Canaan!\nHe will be the lowest of servants to his brothers.",
      "26": "Then he said:\nBlessed be the Lord, the God of Shem!\nLet Canaan be his servant.",
      "27": "May God enlarge Japheth.\nLet him dwell in the tents of Shem.\nLet Canaan be his servant.",
      "28": "Noah lived 350 years after the flood.",
      "29": "All the days of Noah were 950 years. Then he died."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Now this is the account about the development of groups of people who descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah. Sons were born to them after the flood.",
      "2": "The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek, and Tiras.",
      "3": "The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.",
      "4": "The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittim, and the Dodanim.",
      "5": "The islands and coastlands were divided into different lands among these peoples on the basis of their languages, their ethnic groups, and their nations.",
      "6": "The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.",
      "7": "The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Ra’amah, and Sabteca.\nThe sons of Ra’amah were Sheba and Dedan.",
      "8": "Cush became the father of Nimrod. He was the first to be a mighty warrior on the earth.",
      "9": "He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. That is why the saying is “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.”",
      "10": "The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Uruk, Akkad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar.",
      "11": "From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah,",
      "12": "and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, the great city.",
      "13": "Mizraim became the father of the Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim,",
      "14": "Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines descended), and the Caphtorim.",
      "15": "Canaan became the father of Sidon (his firstborn) and Heth,",
      "16": "as well as the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites,",
      "17": "the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites,",
      "18": "the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the families of the Canaanites spread out.",
      "19": "Then the borders of the Canaanites extended from Sidon, southward toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; from there it extended eastward toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.",
      "20": "These were the sons of Ham, according to their ethnic groups, their languages, their lands, and their nations.",
      "21": "Sons were also born to Shem, the older brother of Japheth, the father of all the descendants of Eber.",
      "22": "The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.",
      "23": "The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.",
      "24": "Arphaxad became the father of Shelah. Shelah became the father of Eber.",
      "25": "To Eber two sons were born. The name of one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided.\nEber’s brother’s name was Joktan.",
      "26": "Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah,",
      "27": "Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,",
      "28": "Obal, Abimael, Sheba,",
      "29": "Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan.",
      "30": "Their dwelling was from Mesha all the way to Sephar, in the hill country of the east.",
      "31": "These were the descendants of Shem according to their ethnic groups, their languages, their lands, and their nations.",
      "32": "These are the families and groups of peoples descended from the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations. From these, nations spread out over the earth after the flood."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "The whole earth had one language and a single vocabulary.",
      "2": "As people traveled in the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled there.",
      "3": "They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used mud brick instead of stone for building material, and they used tar for mortar.",
      "4": "They said, “Come, let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”",
      "5": "The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building.",
      "6": "The Lord said, “If this is the first thing they are doing as one people, who all have one language, then nothing that they intend to do will be too difficult for them.",
      "7": "Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand one another’s speech.”",
      "8": "So the Lord scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city.",
      "9": "It was named Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.",
      "10": "This is the account about the development of the family of Shem.\nShem was 100 years old and became the father of Arphaxad two years after the flood.",
      "11": "Shem lived 500 years after he became the father of Arphaxad, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "12": "Arphaxad lived 35 years and became the father of Shelah.",
      "13": "Arphaxad lived 403 years after he became the father of Shelah, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "14": "Shelah lived 30 years and became the father of Eber.",
      "15": "Shelah lived 403 years after he became the father of Eber, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "16": "Eber lived 34 years and became the father of Peleg.",
      "17": "Eber lived 430 years after he became the father of Peleg, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "18": "Peleg lived 30 years and became the father of Reu.",
      "19": "Peleg lived 209 years after he became the father of Reu, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "20": "Reu lived 32 years and became the father of Serug.",
      "21": "Reu lived 207 years after he became the father of Serug, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "22": "Serug lived 30 years and became the father of Nahor.",
      "23": "Serug lived 200 years after he became the father of Nahor, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "24": "Nahor lived 29 years and became the father of Terah.",
      "25": "Nahor lived 119 years after he became the father of Terah, and he became the father of sons and daughters.",
      "26": "Terah lived 70 years and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.",
      "27": "Now this is the account about the development of the family of Terah.\nTerah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran became the father of Lot.",
      "28": "Haran died before his father Terah. He died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.",
      "29": "Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, who was also the father of Iscah.",
      "30": "Sarai was barren. She had no child.",
      "31": "Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, who was the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, who was the wife of his son Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. They came to Haran and lived there.",
      "32": "The days of Terah were 205 years. Terah died in Haran."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Now the Lord said to Abram, “Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you.",
      "2": "I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.",
      "3": "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse anyone who dishonors you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.”",
      "4": "So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.",
      "5": "Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to travel to the land of Canaan. Eventually they arrived in the land of Canaan.",
      "6": "Abram passed through the land until he came to the Oak of Moreh at the place called Shechem. The Canaanites were in the land at that time.",
      "7": "The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.",
      "8": "He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent there, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and proclaimed the name of the Lord.",
      "9": "Abram pulled out from there and kept traveling toward the Negev.",
      "10": "There was a famine in the land. So Abram went down into Egypt to stay there for a while, because the famine was severe in the land.",
      "11": "As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman.",
      "12": "It might happen that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will keep you alive.",
      "13": "Please say that you are my sister, so that it will go well for me because of you, and that my life may be preserved on account of you.”",
      "14": "So it happened that when Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians did see that the woman was very beautiful.",
      "15": "Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.",
      "16": "He treated Abram well for her sake. Abram received sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.",
      "17": "But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with severe diseases because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.",
      "18": "Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What is this that you have done to me? Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife?",
      "19": "Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Here is your wife. Take her and go.”",
      "20": "Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him, so they sent him on his way with his wife and all that he had."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "Abram went up out of Egypt into the Negev. He went with his wife and with all that he had, and with Lot too.",
      "2": "Abram was very wealthy in livestock, in silver, and in gold.",
      "3": "He went on his journeys from the Negev to Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai.",
      "4": "He went to the site of the altar that he had made there earlier. There Abram proclaimed the name of the Lord.",
      "5": "Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents.",
      "6": "The land was not able to support them if they lived close together, because their possessions were so great that they could not live together.",
      "7": "There was conflict between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. (The Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land at that time.)",
      "8": "Abram said to Lot, “Please, because we are close relatives, let there be no conflict between me and you and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen.",
      "9": "Doesn’t the whole land lie before you? Please separate yourself from me. If you go to the left, then I will go to the right. Or if you go to the right, then I will go to the left.”",
      "10": "Lot looked up and saw the whole region around the Jordan River as you come to Zoar. (Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, it was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.)",
      "11": "So Lot chose the region around the Jordan for himself. Lot headed out toward the east, and they separated from each other.",
      "12": "Abram lived in the land of Canaan, and Lot lived among the cities of the region around the Jordan and moved his tent close to Sodom.",
      "13": "Now the men of Sodom were extremely wicked sinners against the Lord.",
      "14": "After Lot was separated from him, the Lord said to Abram, “Now, lift up your eyes, and look around from the place where you are. Look north and south, east and west,",
      "15": "because all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your descendants permanently.",
      "16": "I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could count the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be counted.",
      "17": "Get up, walk through the length and breadth of the land, because I will give it to you.”",
      "18": "Abram moved his tent and went to live by the oaks at Mamre, which are at Hebron, and built an altar there to the Lord."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "In those days Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goyim",
      "2": "made war against Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar).",
      "3": "All these joined together in the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea).",
      "4": "For twelve years they served Kedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled.",
      "5": "In the fourteenth year Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and struck the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim,",
      "6": "and the Horites in their Mount Seir, all the way to El Paran, which is by the wilderness.",
      "7": "They returned and came to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh) and struck all the territory of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who lived in Hazazon Tamar.",
      "8": "The king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out and lined up for battle in the Valley of Siddim",
      "9": "against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five.",
      "10": "Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell there. Those who survived fled to the hills.",
      "11": "The raiders took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food, and then they went on their way.",
      "12": "Because he had been living in Sodom, they took also Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, and his possessions and went on their way.",
      "13": "One person escaped and came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks that belonged to Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and Aner. They were allies of Abram.",
      "14": "When Abram heard that his relative was taken captive, he led out all his trained men who were born in his house, three hundred eighteen of them, and pursued them as far as Dan.",
      "15": "During the night he divided his servants into groups to attack them. He struck them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus.",
      "16": "He brought back all the possessions. He also brought back his relative Lot, and his possessions, and the women also, and the rest of the people.",
      "17": "After Abram’s return from the defeat of Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).",
      "18": "Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most High.",
      "19": "He blessed Abram and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth,",
      "20": "and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”\nAbram gave him a tenth of everything.",
      "21": "The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and take the goods for yourself.”",
      "22": "Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted up my hand to swear to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth,",
      "23": "that I will not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, so that you cannot say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’",
      "24": "I will take nothing except that which the young men have eaten and the share belonging to the men who went with me, namely, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. Let them take their share.”"
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "After these events the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. He said, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”",
      "2": "Abram said, “Lord God what can you give me, since I remain childless, and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”",
      "3": "Abram also said, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a servant born in my house will be my heir.”",
      "4": "Just then, the word of the Lord came to him. God said, “This man will not be your heir, but instead one who will come out of your own body will be your heir.”",
      "5": "The Lord then brought him outside and said, “Now look toward the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “This is what your descendants will be like.”",
      "6": "Abram believed in the Lord, and the Lord credited it to him as righteousness.",
      "7": "He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.”",
      "8": "He said, “Lord God, how will I know that I will possess it?”",
      "9": "The Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”",
      "10": "Abram gathered all of these, divided them in half, and laid the two halves across from each other, but he did not divide the birds in two.",
      "11": "Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.",
      "12": "When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Then terrifying, deep darkness fell on him.",
      "13": "The Lord said to Abram, “Know this! Your descendants will live as aliens in a land that is not theirs, and they will serve its people, who will afflict them for four hundred years.",
      "14": "But I will surely judge the nation that they will serve. Afterward your descendants will come out with great wealth,",
      "15": "but you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age.",
      "16": "In the fourth generation your descendants will come here again, because the guilt of the Amorites is not yet full.”",
      "17": "Then when the sun had gone down and it was dark, suddenly a smoking oven and a flaming torch passed between the pieces.",
      "18": "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram. He said, “To your descendants I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.",
      "19": "I will give you the territory of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,",
      "20": "the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaites,",
      "21": "the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”"
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore no children for him. She had a servant girl, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.",
      "2": "Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my servant girl. It may be that I can build up a family through her.” Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.",
      "3": "After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took her servant girl, Hagar the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.",
      "4": "He went to Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw that she had conceived, she looked down on her mistress.",
      "5": "Sarai said to Abram, “This wrong that I am suffering is on account of you. I gave my servant girl into your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked down on me. May the Lord judge between me and you.”",
      "6": "But Abram said to Sarai, “Look, your servant girl is in your hands. Do to her whatever seems good to you.” Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her presence.",
      "7": "The Angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a flowing spring in the wilderness, beside the spring on the way to Shur.",
      "8": "He said, “Hagar, servant girl of Sarai, where did you come from? Where are you going?”\nShe said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”",
      "9": "The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”",
      "10": "The Angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants, so that they will be too many to count.”",
      "11": "The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Listen, you are expecting a child and will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction.",
      "12": "He will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. He will dwell in hostility toward all of his brothers.”",
      "13": "She called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees,” for she said, “Here have I really seen him who sees me?”",
      "14": "Therefore the well was called Be’er Lahai Roi. It is right there between Kadesh and Bered.",
      "15": "Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram. Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.",
      "16": "Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael for him."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless.",
      "2": "I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will make your descendants very numerous.”",
      "3": "Abram fell on his face. God spoke with him. He said,",
      "4": "“As for me, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations.",
      "5": "Your name will not be Abram anymore, but your name will be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a large group of nations.",
      "6": "I will make you extremely fruitful, and I will produce nations from you. Kings will come out of you.",
      "7": "I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you as an everlasting covenant throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you.",
      "8": "I will give the land where you are living as an alien, all the land of Canaan, to you and to your descendants after you as a permanent possession. I will be their God.”",
      "9": "God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.",
      "10": "This is my covenant, which you shall keep, a covenant between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.",
      "11": "You shall be circumcised by cutting the foreskin off your flesh. It will be a sign of the covenant between me and you.",
      "12": "Every boy among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether he is born in your house or purchased with money from any foreigner who is not descended from you.",
      "13": "Every male who is born in your house or one who is purchased with your money must be circumcised. My covenant will be marked on your flesh as an everlasting covenant.",
      "14": "The uncircumcised male who is not circumcised by removing the foreskin from his flesh, that person must be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.”",
      "15": "God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai anymore, but her name will be Sarah.",
      "16": "I will bless her and even give you a son by her. Yes, I will bless her, and she will be a mother of nations. Kings of many peoples will come from her.”",
      "17": "Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to someone who is one hundred years old? Will Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth?”",
      "18": "And Abraham said to God, “Oh, let Ishmael live in your presence!”",
      "19": "But God said, “No, Sarah, your wife, will bear a son for you. You shall name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.",
      "20": "“As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Yes, I have blessed him. I will make him fruitful and will multiply him very greatly. He will become the father of twelve chiefs, and I will make him into a great nation.",
      "21": "But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear for you at this set time next year.”",
      "22": "When he finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.",
      "23": "Abraham took his son Ishmael, along with every male in Abraham’s house, all those who were born in his house, and all those who were purchased with his money, and he circumcised them by cutting off the foreskin from their flesh. He did this on that very day, just as God had said to him.",
      "24": "Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the foreskin of his flesh was circumcised.",
      "25": "Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when the foreskin of his flesh was circumcised.",
      "26": "On the same day both Abraham and Ishmael, his son, were circumcised.",
      "27": "All the men of his house, those born in the house as well as those purchased with money from a foreigner, were circumcised along with him."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he was sitting by the door to his tent during the heat of the day.",
      "2": "Abraham looked up, and he saw three men standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and he bowed down to the ground.",
      "3": "He said, “My lord, if I have now found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by.",
      "4": "Now let me get a little water so that all of you can wash your feet and rest under the tree.",
      "5": "Let me get some bread so that you can refresh yourselves. After that you may go your way. That is why you have come to your servant.”\nThey said, “Yes, do as you have said.”",
      "6": "Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quickly prepare twenty quarts of fine flour, knead it, and make some loaves of bread.”",
      "7": "Abraham ran to the herd, brought a good, tender calf, and gave it to the servant. He hurried to prepare it.",
      "8": "He took cheese curds, milk, and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them. He stood beside them under the tree while they ate.",
      "9": "They asked him, “Where is Sarah, your wife?”\nHe said, “She is over there in the tent.”",
      "10": "One of the men said, “I will certainly return to you when this season comes around next year. Then Sarah your wife will have a son.”\nSarah was listening to this from the tent door, which was behind him.",
      "11": "Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well into old age. Sarah was past the age for childbearing.",
      "12": "Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, will I have pleasure, since my lord is also old?”",
      "13": "The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really give birth to a child though I am old?’",
      "14": "Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the set time next year I will return to you, and Sarah will have a son.”",
      "15": "Then Sarah denied it and said, “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid.\nThe Lord said, “Yes, you did laugh.”",
      "16": "The men got up from there and looked down toward Sodom. Abraham went with them to see them on their way.",
      "17": "The Lord said, “Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,",
      "18": "since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him?",
      "19": "For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household who follow after him to keep the way of the Lord by carrying out righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may deliver to Abraham what he has promised him.”",
      "20": "So the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very flagrant,",
      "21": "I will go down now and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has come to me. If not, I will know.”",
      "22": "The two men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord.",
      "23": "Abraham approached him and said, “Will you really sweep away the righteous along with the wicked?",
      "24": "What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep them away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it?",
      "25": "You would never do such a thing, killing the righteous along with the wicked, treating the righteous the same as the wicked. You would never do such a thing. The Judge of all the earth should do right, shouldn’t he?”",
      "26": "The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people within the city of Sodom, then I will spare the entire place for their sake.”",
      "27": "Abraham answered, “See now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it on myself to speak to my Lord.",
      "28": "What if there are five fewer than fifty righteous? Will you destroy the entire city if the number is five short?”\nHe said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”",
      "29": "He spoke to him yet again and said, “What if only forty are found there?”\nHe said, “I will not do it for the sake of the forty.”",
      "30": "He said, “Please, do not be angry, my Lord, but I will speak again. What if thirty are found there?”\nHe said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”",
      "31": "He said, “See now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to my Lord. What if there are twenty found there?”\nHe said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”",
      "32": "He said, “Please, do not be angry, my Lord, but I will speak just once more. What if ten are found there?”\nHe said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.”",
      "33": "As soon as he had finished speaking with Abraham, the Lord went on his way, and Abraham returned to his place."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot, who was sitting in the gatehouse of Sodom, saw them and got up to meet them. He bowed down with his face to the ground,",
      "2": "and he said, “See now, my lords, please turn aside into your servant’s house and spend the night. Wash your feet, and you can get up early and go on your way.”\nThey said, “No, we will spend the night in the street.”",
      "3": "But he kept urging them, so they came with him and entered his house. He made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.",
      "4": "But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from all parts of town.",
      "5": "They called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may be intimate with them.”",
      "6": "Lot went out to them and shut the door behind him.",
      "7": "He said, “Please, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.",
      "8": "See now, I have two daughters who have not had relations with a man. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them whatever seems good to you. Only do not do anything to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof.”",
      "9": "They said, “Get out of our way!” They also said, “This fellow came to live here as an alien, and now he appoints himself as a judge. Now we will treat you worse than them!” They kept pushing Lot back and were ready to break down the door.",
      "10": "But the men inside reached out and grabbed Lot and pulled him into the house with them and shut the door.",
      "11": "They struck the men who were pressing against the door of the house, both young and old, with blindness so that they wore themselves out trying to find the door.",
      "12": "The men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, whoever you have in the city, get them out of this place,",
      "13": "for we are going to destroy this place, because the outcry against it has grown great before the Lord, so the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”",
      "14": "So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to his daughters in marriage. He said, “Get up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is going to destroy the city.” But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.",
      "15": "When the dawn came, the angels urged Lot, “Get going! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, so that you will not be swept away by the guilt of the city.”",
      "16": "But Lot was taking too much time, so the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, because of the Lord’s compassion for him. They led him out and placed him outside of the city.",
      "17": "Then when they had taken them out, one of them said, “Run for your life! Don’t look behind you, and don’t stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, so that you are not swept away!”",
      "18": "Lot said to them, “Oh no, my lord.",
      "19": "See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great mercy by saving my life. I cannot flee to the mountains, or this disaster will stick with me, and I will die.",
      "20": "Look, this city is close enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Please let me flee there—isn’t it just a little one?—so that my life will be saved.”",
      "21": "The man said to him, “Very well, I have granted your request concerning this thing, so I will not overthrow the city that you have spoken about.",
      "22": "Hurry, flee there, because I cannot do anything until you get there.” So the city was named Zoar.",
      "23": "The sun had risen over the land when Lot came to Zoar.",
      "24": "Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire out of the sky from the Lord.",
      "25": "He overthrew those cities, as well as all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and whatever grew in the soil.",
      "26": "But Lot’s wife, who was behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.",
      "27": "Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord.",
      "28": "He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain. As he looked, he saw that the smoke from the land was going up like the smoke from a kiln.",
      "29": "And so when God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham and brought Lot out through the middle of the devastation, when he overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.",
      "30": "Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the mountains, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. His two daughters were with him. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.",
      "31": "The firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the land to come to us as normally takes place everywhere on earth.",
      "32": "Come on, let’s get our father to drink wine, and we will lie down with him, that we may preserve our father’s seed.”",
      "33": "They got their father to drink wine that night, and the firstborn went and lay down with her father. He did not know it when she lay down or when she got up.",
      "34": "Then the next day the firstborn said to the younger, “Look, last night I lay down with my father. Let us get him to drink wine again tonight. You go and lie down with him, so that we may preserve our father’s seed.”",
      "35": "They got their father to drink wine that night also. Then the younger went and lay with him. He did not know it when she lay down or when she got up.",
      "36": "In this way both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.",
      "37": "The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day.",
      "38": "The younger also gave birth to a son and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the people of Ammon to this day."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Abraham traveled from there toward the Negev, and he lived between Kadesh and Shur. He lived as a resident alien in Gerar.",
      "2": "About his wife Sarah Abraham said, “She is my sister.” Abimelek king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.",
      "3": "But God came to Abimelek in a dream during the night and said to him, “Listen to me! You are a dead man because of the woman you have taken, because she has a husband.”",
      "4": "Now Abimelek had not come near her. He said, “Lord, will you kill even a righteous nation?",
      "5": "Didn’t he tell me, ‘She is my sister’? Even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ I have done this with a sincere heart and innocent hands.”",
      "6": "God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this with a sincere heart, so I also prevented you from sinning against me. That is why I did not allow you to touch her.",
      "7": "Now therefore, return the man’s wife. He is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live. If you do not return her, know for sure that you will die, you along with all who are yours.”",
      "8": "Abimelek rose early in the morning, called all his servants, and told them all these things. The men were terrified.",
      "9": "Then Abimelek summoned Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought this great sin on me and on my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done!”",
      "10": "Abimelek said to Abraham, “What did you see in us that made you do this?”",
      "11": "Abraham said, “I did it because I said to myself, ‘Surely they do not fear God in this place. They will kill me to get my wife.’",
      "12": "Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.",
      "13": "When God had me migrate from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness that you shall show to me: Everywhere that we go, say about me, “He is my brother.”’”",
      "14": "Abimelek took sheep and cattle, male servants and female servants, and he gave them to Abraham. He also returned Sarah, his wife, to him.",
      "15": "Abimelek said, “Look, my land is in front of you. Dwell wherever it pleases you.”",
      "16": "To Sarah he said, “Look, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. You see, it covers any offense in the eyes of everyone who is with you. In front of all of them you are vindicated.”",
      "17": "Abraham prayed to God. God healed Abimelek and his wife and his female servants, so that they were able to bear children.",
      "18": "For the Lord had closed up tight all the wombs of the household of Abimelek over the matter of Sarah, Abraham’s wife."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.",
      "2": "Sarah conceived and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age, at the set time which God had announced to him.",
      "3": "Abraham named the son who was born to him—the son whom Sarah had borne to him— Isaac.",
      "4": "Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.",
      "5": "Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.",
      "6": "Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.”",
      "7": "She said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne a son for him in his old age.”",
      "8": "The child grew and was weaned. Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.",
      "9": "Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, the son whom Hagar had borne to Abraham, laughing at Isaac.",
      "10": "Therefore, she said to Abraham, “Throw out this slave girl and her son! For the son of this slave will not be heir with my son Isaac.”",
      "11": "Abraham was very distressed because of his son.",
      "12": "God said to Abraham, “Do not be so distressed because of the boy and because of your maid. Listen to everything that Sarah says to you, because the family line of your descendants will be traced through Isaac.",
      "13": "I will also make the son of the maid into a nation because he too is your offspring.”",
      "14": "Abraham got up early in the morning. He took bread and a waterskin, which he gave to Hagar, putting it over her shoulder. He sent her away with her child. She set out and wandered in the wilderness near Beersheba.",
      "15": "The water in the skin was used up, and she dragged the child under one of the bushes.",
      "16": "She went and sat down by herself, across from him, at a distance, about a bow shot away, because she said, “Do not let me see the death of the child.” She sat across from him and wept loudly.",
      "17": "God heard the boy’s voice, and the Angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said to her, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy’s voice right where he is.",
      "18": "Get up. Help the boy up, and take him by the hand, because I will make him into a great nation.”",
      "19": "God opened her eyes, and she saw a well with water in it. She went, filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.",
      "20": "God was with the boy, and as he grew up, he lived in the wilderness and became an archer.",
      "21": "He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.",
      "22": "At that time Abimelek and Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham. He said, “God is with you in everything that you do.",
      "23": "Now swear to me here by God that you will not deal treacherously with me, or with my son, or with my grandson. But just as I have been kind to you, you shall do the same for me and for the land in which you have lived as an alien.”",
      "24": "Abraham said, “I will swear it.”",
      "25": "Abraham complained to Abimelek because of a well which Abimelek’s servants had seized violently.",
      "26": "Abimelek said, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, and I did not hear about it until today.”",
      "27": "Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelek. The two of them made a treaty.",
      "28": "Abraham set aside seven ewe lambs from the flock.",
      "29": "Abimelek said to Abraham, “Why have you set these seven ewe lambs by themselves?”",
      "30": "He said, “You shall accept these seven ewe lambs from my hand as legal testimony that I have dug this well.”",
      "31": "Therefore, he called that place Beersheba, because they both took an oath there.",
      "32": "So they made a treaty at Beersheba. Then Abimelek got up with Phicol, the commander of his army, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.",
      "33": "Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he proclaimed the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.",
      "34": "Abraham lived as an alien in the land of the Philistines for a long time."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "Some time later God tested Abraham. He called to him, “Abraham!”\nAbraham answered, “I am here.”",
      "2": "God said, “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains there, the one to which I direct you.”",
      "3": "Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, along with Isaac his son. Abraham split the wood for the burnt offering. Then he set out to go to the place that God had told him about.",
      "4": "On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.",
      "5": "Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go on over there. We will worship, and then we will come back to you.”",
      "6": "Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and loaded it on Isaac his son. He took the firepot and the knife in his hand. The two of them went on together.",
      "7": "Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father?”\nHe said, “I am here, my son.”\nHe said, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”",
      "8": "Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them went on together.",
      "9": "They came to the place that God had told him about. Abraham built the altar there. He arranged the wood, tied up Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.",
      "10": "Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.",
      "11": "The Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!”\nAbraham said, “I am here.”",
      "12": "He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”",
      "13": "Abraham looked around and saw that behind him there was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.",
      "14": "Abraham called the name of that place “The Lord Will Provide.” So it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”",
      "15": "The Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven",
      "16": "and said, “I have sworn by myself, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son,",
      "17": "I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your descendants greatly, like the stars of the sky and like the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the city gates of their enemies.",
      "18": "In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”",
      "19": "Then Abraham returned to his young men, and they set out and traveled together to Beersheba. Abraham lived at Beersheba.",
      "20": "Some time after these things Abraham was told, “Listen. Milcah also has borne children for your brother Nahor.",
      "21": "They are Uz his firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel the father of Aram,",
      "22": "Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.”",
      "23": "Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. These eight sons Milcah bore for Nahor, Abraham’s brother.",
      "24": "Nahor’s concubine, whose name was Reumah, also gave birth to Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Ma’akah."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "Sarah lived one hundred twenty-seven years. That was the length of Sarah’s life.",
      "2": "Sarah died in Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.",
      "3": "Then Abraham got up from beside his deceased wife. He went and spoke to the descendants of Heth. He said,",
      "4": "“I am an alien who has settled among you. Let me have a piece of property for a burial place among you where I may bury my dead in their final resting place.”",
      "5": "The descendants of Heth answered Abraham,",
      "6": "“Listen to us, my lord. You are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the best of our tombs. None of us will withhold his tomb from you. Bury your dead.”",
      "7": "Abraham stood up and bowed down to the people of the land, that is, to the descendants of Heth.",
      "8": "He said to them, “If you have agreed that I may bury my dead in their final resting place, then listen to me, and speak to Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf,",
      "9": "so that he gives me the Cave of Machpelah, which is at the end of the field that he owns. Let him give it to me for the full price so that I may own a burial site among you.”",
      "10": "Now Ephron was sitting among the descendants of Heth. Ephron the Hittite responded to Abraham in the hearing of all the Hittites who were gathered at the city gate. He said,",
      "11": "“No, my lord, listen to me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the presence of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.”",
      "12": "Abraham bowed down before the people of the land.",
      "13": "He spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land. He said, “No, but if you are willing, please listen to me. I will give the money for the field. Accept it from me, and I will bury my dead there.”",
      "14": "Ephron responded to Abraham,",
      "15": "“My lord, listen to me. The land is worth four hundred shekels of silver, but what is that between me and you? Go ahead, bury your dead.”",
      "16": "Abraham accepted Ephron’s offer, and Abraham weighed out to Ephron the price that Ephron had quoted to him in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the current standard of the merchants at that time.",
      "17": "So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, near Mamre—the field, the cave that was in it, and all the trees that were within the boundaries of the field were deeded",
      "18": "to Abraham as his property. This was done in the presence of all the Hittites, who were assembled at the gate of the city.",
      "19": "After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave in the field at Machpelah near Mamre (that is, Hebron), in the land of Canaan.",
      "20": "The field and the cave that is in it were deeded to Abraham by the descendants of Heth as his property to be used as a burial site."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "Abraham was very old, well into old age. The Lord had blessed Abraham in all things.",
      "2": "Abraham said to his servant, the senior supervisor of his house, who was in charge of everything that he had, “Please put your hand under my thigh.",
      "3": "You must swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not acquire a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living.",
      "4": "Instead, you shall go to my country and to my relatives and acquire a wife for my son Isaac.”",
      "5": "The servant said to him, “What if the woman is not willing to follow me to this land? In that case, should I take your son back to the land that you came from?”",
      "6": "Abraham said to him, “Let me make it very clear to you that you are not to take my son back there again.",
      "7": "The Lord, the God of heaven, took me away from my father’s house and from the land of my birth. He spoke to me and swore to me, saying, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’ The Lord will send his angel ahead of you, so you shall find a wife for my son from there.",
      "8": "If the woman is not willing to follow you, you will be released from this oath. But under no circumstances shall you take my son back there.”",
      "9": "The servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter.",
      "10": "The servant took ten of his master’s camels and set out. He took a variety of goods from his master with him. He set out and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor.",
      "11": "He made the camels kneel down by the well outside the city. It was evening, the time when women go out to draw water.",
      "12": "He said, “O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my master Abraham.",
      "13": "Here I am, standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water.",
      "14": "Let this be the test: The young lady to whom I say, ‘Please let down your water jar, so that I may drink,’ will say, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink.’ She will be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. This is how I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”",
      "15": "Before he had even finished speaking, out came Rebekah with her water jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel, who was the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother.",
      "16": "The young lady was very beautiful to look at, a virgin, who had never been intimate with any man. She went down to the spring, filled her water jar, and came up.",
      "17": "The servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a drink, a little water from your water jar.”",
      "18": "She said, “Drink, my lord.” She quickly let down her water jar into her hands and gave him a drink.",
      "19": "When she was done giving him a drink, she said, “I will also draw water for your camels, until they have finished drinking.”",
      "20": "She hurried and emptied her water jar into the trough, ran to the well again to draw more water, and drew water for all his camels.",
      "21": "The man remained silent and watched her carefully to find out whether the Lord had made his journey successful or not.",
      "22": "Then, when the camels were finished drinking, the man took a gold nose ring that weighed half a shekel and two gold bracelets that weighed ten shekels for her wrists.",
      "23": "Then he asked, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me. Is there room for us to stay in your father’s house?”",
      "24": "She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.”",
      "25": "She also said to him, “We have both straw and enough feed and enough room for you to spend the night.”",
      "26": "The man bowed his head and worshipped the Lord.",
      "27": "He said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his mercy and faithfulness toward my master. Indeed, the Lord has guided me to the house of my master’s relatives.”",
      "28": "The young lady ran and told her mother’s household about these things.",
      "29": "Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban. Laban ran out to the spring to meet the man.",
      "30": "When he saw the nose ring and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and after he heard the words from Rebekah his sister, who said, “This is what the man said to me,” he went to find the man. And there he was, standing next to the camels by the spring.",
      "31": "Laban said, “Come with me, you who are blessed by the Lord. Why are you standing outside when I have prepared the house and a place for the camels?”",
      "32": "The man came to the house and unloaded the camels. Laban gave him straw and feed for the camels and water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him.",
      "33": "Food was set before him to eat, but he said, “I will not eat until I have delivered my message.”\nLaban said, “Tell us.”",
      "34": "He said, “I am Abraham’s servant.",
      "35": "The Lord has blessed my master greatly. He has become great. The Lord has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male servants and female servants, camels and donkeys.",
      "36": "Sarah, my master’s wife, bore a son for my master when she was old. My master has given him everything that he owns.",
      "37": "My master made me take an oath. He said, ‘You must not acquire a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I am living.",
      "38": "Instead, you shall go to my father’s house and to my relatives and acquire a wife for my son.’",
      "39": "I asked my master, ‘What if the woman will not follow me?’",
      "40": "He said to me, ‘The Lord, in whose presence I walk, will send his angel with you and give your journey success, and you will acquire a wife for my son from my relatives and from my father’s house.",
      "41": "But you will be released from my oath, if, when you have come to my relatives, they do not give her to you—then you will be released from my oath.’",
      "42": "Today I came to the spring and said, ‘O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if you now will bless my journey with success,",
      "43": "(here I am, standing by this spring of water) let this be the test: If the virgin who comes out to draw water (the one to whom I say, “Please give me a little water to drink from your water jar”)",
      "44": "tells me, “Drink, and I will also draw water for your camels,” she will be the woman whom the Lord has chosen for my master’s son.’",
      "45": "Before I had finished saying this to myself, out came Rebekah with her water jar on her shoulder. She went down to the spring and drew water. I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’",
      "46": "She hurried and lowered her water jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink.’ So I drank, and she also gave the camels a drink.",
      "47": "I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore for him.’ I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her wrists.",
      "48": "I bowed my head and worshipped the Lord and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me in the right way to find the daughter of my master’s brother as a wife for his son.",
      "49": "Now if you will show mercy and faithfulness to my master here, tell me. If not, tell me, so that I may know whether to turn to the right or to the left.”",
      "50": "Then Laban and Bethuel answered, “This matter has been determined by the Lord. We cannot say anything to you either bad or good.",
      "51": "Look, Rebekah is right here in front of you. Take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has spoken.”",
      "52": "So, when Abraham’s servant heard their words, he bowed down to the ground before the Lord.",
      "53": "The servant brought out silver and gold jewelry and clothing and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave valuable gifts to her brother and her mother.",
      "54": "He and the men who were with him ate and drank, and they spent the night there. They got up in the morning, and he said, “Send me on my way to my master.”",
      "55": "Her brother and her mother said, “Let the young lady stay with us a few days, at least ten. After that she can go.”",
      "56": "He said to them, “Do not hold me back, since the Lord has granted my journey success. Send me on my way so that I can go to my master.”",
      "57": "They said, “We will call the young lady and ask her.”",
      "58": "They called Rebekah and asked her, “Do you want to go with this man?”\nShe said, “I do.”",
      "59": "So they sent all of them on their way—their sister Rebekah with her nurse, Abraham’s servant, and his men.",
      "60": "They blessed Rebekah and said to her, “May you, our sister, be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your offspring take possession of the gates of those who hate them.”",
      "61": "Rebekah set out with her female attendants. They rode on the camels and followed the man. Abraham’s servant took Rebekah and set out on his journey.",
      "62": "Isaac had come from the direction of Be’er Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev.",
      "63": "In the evening Isaac had gone out into the field to meditate. He looked up and saw that there were camels coming.",
      "64": "Rebekah also looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she jumped down from the camel.",
      "65": "She said to the servant, “Who is that man who is walking through the field to meet us?”\nThe servant said, “It is my master.”\nShe took her veil and covered herself.",
      "66": "The servant told Isaac everything that he had done.",
      "67": "Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took her as his wife. He loved her, and Isaac stopped mourning his mother’s death."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "Abraham had taken another wife. Her name was Keturah.",
      "2": "She bore Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah for him.",
      "3": "Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. The descendants of Dedan were the Ashshurites, Letushites, and Leummites.",
      "4": "The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Elda’ah. All these were the descendants of Keturah.",
      "5": "Abraham left all that he had to Isaac.",
      "6": "To the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and during his lifetime he sent them away from Isaac his son to the territory that lay to the east.",
      "7": "The total days and years of Abraham’s life were one hundred seventy-five years.",
      "8": "Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man who lived a full life, and he was gathered to his people.",
      "9": "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the Cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is near Mamre.",
      "10": "This was the field that Abraham had purchased from the descendants of Heth. Abraham was buried there with Sarah, his wife.",
      "11": "After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac, his son. Isaac lived near Be’er Lahai Roi.",
      "12": "Now this is the account about the development of the family line of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maid, had borne to Abraham.",
      "13": "The following are the names of the sons of Ishmael and the tribes that came from them, arranged in the order of their birth:\nThe firstborn of Ishmael was Nebaioth. Then came Kedar, Adbe’el, Mibsam,",
      "14": "Mishma, Dumah, Massa,",
      "15": "Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah.",
      "16": "These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, arranged by their settlements and by their camps. They were twelve chiefs, each with his own tribe.",
      "17": "The total years of the life of Ishmael were one hundred thirty-seven years. When he breathed his last and died, he was gathered to his people.",
      "18": "His people lived between Havilah and Shur, east of Egypt, as you go toward Ashshur. He lived in hostility toward all his relatives.",
      "19": "This is the account about the development of the family of Isaac, Abraham’s son.\nAbraham became the father of Isaac.",
      "20": "Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, who was the daughter of Bethuel, an Aramean from Paddan Aram, and the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife.",
      "21": "Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. The Lord answered his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived.",
      "22": "The children fought with each other inside her. She said, “What is this? Why is this happening to me?” She went to inquire of the Lord.",
      "23": "The Lord said to her:\nTwo nations are in your womb.\nTwo peoples will be separated from your body.\nThe one people will be stronger than the other people.\nThe elder will serve the younger.",
      "24": "When it was time for her to give birth, it was true: There were twins in her womb.",
      "25": "The first came out red all over, like a hairy garment. They named him Esau.",
      "26": "After that, his brother came out, with his hand grabbing Esau’s heel. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.",
      "27": "The boys grew up. Esau was a skillful hunter, an outdoorsman. Jacob was a quiet man, who stayed home among the tents.",
      "28": "Now Isaac loved Esau more, because he ate Esau’s wild game. Rebekah loved Jacob.",
      "29": "Once Jacob was cooking stew, and Esau came in from the field, and he was starving.",
      "30": "Esau said to Jacob, “Come on, let me eat some of that red stew, that red stew there, because I am starving.” (That is why Esau was also called Edom.)",
      "31": "Jacob said, “First, sell me your right as the firstborn.”",
      "32": "Esau said, “Look, I am about to die. What good is the birthright to me?”",
      "33": "Jacob said, “Swear to me first.”\nSo he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.",
      "34": "Jacob gave Esau bread and a stew made of lentils. Esau ate and drank, got up, and went on his way. So Esau treated his birthright as if it was worthless."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that had occurred during the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelek king of the Philistines at Gerar.",
      "2": "The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down into Egypt. Live in the land where I tell you to live.",
      "3": "Live in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.",
      "4": "I will multiply your descendants like the stars of the sky and will give all these lands to your descendants. In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed,",
      "5": "because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my requirements, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”",
      "6": "Isaac lived in Gerar.",
      "7": "When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister.” He was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” because he thought, “The men of this place might kill me for Rebekah, since she is beautiful.”",
      "8": "When he had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines happened to look out a window, and there was Isaac caressing Rebekah, his wife.",
      "9": "Abimelek called Isaac and said, “It is obvious that she is your wife. So why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?”\nIsaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘If I do not, I will die because of her.’”",
      "10": "Abimelek said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!”",
      "11": "Abimelek gave this command to all the people: “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”",
      "12": "Isaac planted grain in that land, and in the same year he reaped one hundred times as much as he had sown, because the Lord blessed him.",
      "13": "The man kept growing wealthier and wealthier until he became very great.",
      "14": "He possessed flocks and herds and a large household, so the Philistines were envious of him.",
      "15": "Now the Philistines had blocked all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they had filled them with earth.",
      "16": "Abimelek said to Isaac, “Move away from us, for you are much more powerful than we are.”",
      "17": "So Isaac departed from there, camped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there.",
      "18": "Isaac dug again the wells that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, because the Philistines had blocked them after the death of Abraham. He gave them the same names that his father had given them.",
      "19": "Isaac’s servants dug in the valley along the stream bed and found a well there that provided a steady flow of water.",
      "20": "But the herdsmen of Gerar started a dispute with Isaac’s herdsmen. They said, “The water belongs to us.” He named the well Esek, because they argued with him.",
      "21": "They dug another well, but they started a dispute over that one also. He named it Sitnah.",
      "22": "He left that place and dug another well. They did not start a dispute over that one, so he called it Rehoboth. He said, “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”",
      "23": "He traveled from there to Beersheba.",
      "24": "The Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Do not be afraid, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”",
      "25": "He built an altar there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. He pitched his tent there. Isaac’s servants dug a well there.",
      "26": "Then Abimelek came from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his advisor and Phicol the commander of his army.",
      "27": "Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?”",
      "28": "They said, “We saw clearly that the Lord was with you. So we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, yes, between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you,",
      "29": "that you will do us no harm, since we have not touched you, and since we have done nothing but good for you, and we have sent you away in peace.’ Now you are blessed by the Lord.”",
      "30": "He made a feast for them, and they ate and drank.",
      "31": "They got up the next morning and exchanged their oaths. Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him peacefully.",
      "32": "It so happened that on the same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about a well that they had dug. They said to him, “We have found water.”",
      "33": "He called it Shibah. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.",
      "34": "When Esau was forty years old, he took two wives: Judith, the daughter of Be’eri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite.",
      "35": "They were a source of bitterness for Isaac and Rebekah."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "When Isaac was old and his eyes were so dim that he could hardly see, he called Esau his older son and said to him, “My son?”\nHe said to him, “I am here.”",
      "2": "Isaac said, “Look, I am very old, and I do not know when I am going to die.",
      "3": "So please take your gear, your quiver, and your bow, and go out to the open country, and get some wild game for me.",
      "4": "Make me tasty food, the kind I love, and bring it to me, so that I may eat and I may bless you with all my soul before I die.”",
      "5": "Rebekah had been listening when Isaac spoke to Esau his son. After Esau went to the open country to hunt for game and to bring it back,",
      "6": "Rebekah spoke to Jacob her son and said, “Listen, I heard your father speak to Esau your brother and tell him,",
      "7": "‘Bring me some wild game and make tasty food for me, that I may eat and give you a blessing from the Lord before my death.’",
      "8": "Therefore, my son, obey my voice and do what I am commanding you.",
      "9": "Go now to the flock, and get me two of the best young goats. I will make them into tasty food for your father, the kind he loves.",
      "10": "You will bring it to your father, so that he can eat it and bless you before his death.”",
      "11": "Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “But Esau my brother is a hairy man, and my skin is smooth.",
      "12": "What if my father touches me? I will be exposed to him as a deceiver, and I will bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.”",
      "13": "His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son. Just obey my voice, and go get them for me.”",
      "14": "He went and got them and brought them to his mother. His mother made tasty food, the kind his father loved.",
      "15": "Rebekah took the good clothing of Esau, her older son, which was with her in the house, and put it on Jacob, her younger son.",
      "16": "She put the skins of the young goats on his hands and forearms and on the smooth part of his neck.",
      "17": "She put the tasty food and the bread that she had prepared into the hand of her son Jacob.",
      "18": "He came to his father and said, “My father?”\nHe said, “I am here. Who are you, my son?”",
      "19": "Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done what you asked me to do. Please get up, and sit here and eat some of my wild game, so that you may bless me with all your soul.”",
      "20": "Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?”\nHe said, “Because the Lord your God gave me success.”",
      "21": "Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come near, so that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.”",
      "22": "Jacob went close to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”",
      "23": "He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy, like his brother Esau’s hands. That was why he blessed him.",
      "24": "But he asked again, “Are you really my son Esau?”\nHe said, “I am.”",
      "25": "He said, “Bring it to me, and I will eat some of my son’s wild game, so that I may bless you.”\nJacob brought it to him, and he ate. He brought him wine, and he drank.",
      "26": "His father Isaac said to him, “Come near now, and kiss me, my son.”",
      "27": "He came near and kissed him. He smelled his clothing, so he blessed him and said:\nYes, the smell of my son is the smell of the open field\nthat the Lord has blessed.",
      "28": "May God give you the dew from the sky,\nthe richness of the earth,\nand plenty of grain and new wine.",
      "29": "Let peoples serve you,\nand nations bow down to you.\nBe lord over your brothers.\nLet your mother’s sons bow down to you.\nCursed be everyone who curses you.\nBlessed be everyone who blesses you.",
      "30": "As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had just gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, Esau his brother came in from his hunting.",
      "31": "He also prepared tasty food and brought it to his father. He said to his father, “Let my father get up and eat his son’s wild game, so that you may bless me with all your soul.”",
      "32": "Isaac his father said to him, “Who are you?”\nHe said, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.”",
      "33": "Isaac trembled violently and said, “Then who was it that hunted wild game and brought it to me? I ate all of it before you came, and I have blessed him. And, yes, he will be blessed.”",
      "34": "When Esau heard the words of his father, he let out a very loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father.”",
      "35": "He said, “Your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing.”",
      "36": "Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? For he has tripped me up these two times. He took away my birthright. And look, now he has taken away my blessing.” He also asked, “Haven’t you reserved a blessing for me?”",
      "37": "Isaac answered Esau, “You see, I have made him your lord, and I have given all his brothers to him as servants. I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I do for you, my son?”",
      "38": "Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, my father? Bless me—me too, my father.” And Esau wept loudly.",
      "39": "Isaac his father answered him,\nKnow this:\nYour dwelling will be away from the richness of the earth\nand away from the dew from the sky above.",
      "40": "By your sword you will live, but you will serve your brother.\nThen when you break loose, you will shake his yoke off your neck.",
      "41": "Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then I will kill my brother Jacob.”",
      "42": "The words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebekah. She sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, “Listen, your brother Esau is consoling himself in regard to you by planning to kill you.",
      "43": "Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice. Get up. Flee to Laban, my brother, in Haran.",
      "44": "Stay with him a few days, until your brother’s fury turns away,",
      "45": "until your brother’s anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and get you from there. Why should I be deprived of both of you in one day?”",
      "46": "Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, these daughters of the land, what good will my life do me?”"
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "So Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, and commanded him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.",
      "2": "Get up. Go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father. Take a wife from there from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.",
      "3": "May God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, so that you may become a community of peoples.",
      "4": "May he give you and your descendants along with you the blessing he gave to Abraham, so that you may inherit the land where you have been living as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham.”",
      "5": "So Isaac sent Jacob away. He went to Paddan Aram to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean. Laban was the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.",
      "6": "Esau observed that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him, he had commanded him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.”",
      "7": "When he saw that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan Aram,",
      "8": "Esau realized that the daughters of Canaan did not please Isaac, his father.",
      "9": "So Esau went to Ishmael, and he took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife, in addition to the wives that he already had.",
      "10": "Jacob set out from Beersheba and traveled toward Haran.",
      "11": "He came to a certain place and decided to spend the night there, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones from that place, put it under his head, and lay down to sleep in that place.",
      "12": "He had a dream in which he saw a stairway set up on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. There were angels of God ascending and descending on it.",
      "13": "There at the top stood the Lord, who said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you are lying, I give to you and to your descendants.",
      "14": "Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. In you and in your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed.",
      "15": "Now, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back again into this land. Indeed, I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised to you.”",
      "16": "Jacob woke up from his sleep, and he said, “Certainly the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”",
      "17": "He was afraid and he said, “How awe- inspiring is this place! This is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate to heaven.”",
      "18": "Jacob got up early in the morning. He took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a sacred memorial stone and poured oil on top of it.",
      "19": "He named that place Bethel. (Before this, the name of the city had been Luz.)",
      "20": "Jacob took a vow, “If God will be with me to keep me safe on this journey I am making, and if he gives me food to eat and clothing to put on,",
      "21": "and I come back to my father’s house in safety, the Lord will be my God,",
      "22": "and this stone that I have set up as a memorial stone will be God’s house, and I will certainly give you a tenth of everything that you give me.”"
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east.",
      "2": "He looked around and noticed a well in the field, and he saw three flocks of sheep lying there beside it. (That well was used to water the flocks. There was a large stone over the mouth of the well.",
      "3": "All the flocks would gather there. Then the shepherds would roll the stone away from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well.)",
      "4": "Jacob said to the men waiting there, “My brothers, where are you from?”\nThey said, “We are from Haran.”",
      "5": "He said to them, “Do you know Laban, the grandson of Nahor?”\nThey said, “We know him.”",
      "6": "He said to them, “Is he doing well?”\nThey said, “He is. Look, there is his daughter Rachel, coming with the sheep.”",
      "7": "He said, “Look, it is still the middle of the day. It is not time to gather the livestock together. Water the sheep and go pasture them.”",
      "8": "They said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered together, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep.”",
      "9": "While he was still speaking with them, Rachel arrived with her father’s sheep because she took care of them.",
      "10": "When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother’s brother, Jacob went up, rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of Laban, his mother’s brother.",
      "11": "Jacob kissed Rachel and wept loudly.",
      "12": "Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s relative and that he was Rebekah’s son. She ran and told her father.",
      "13": "When Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet Jacob. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Jacob repeated all these things to Laban.",
      "14": "Laban said to him, “Certainly you are my own flesh and blood.”\nJacob lived with him for a month.",
      "15": "Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, is that any reason you should serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?”",
      "16": "Laban had two daughters. The name of the older one was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.",
      "17": "Leah had attractive eyes, but Rachel had a beautiful face and figure.",
      "18": "Jacob loved Rachel. He said, “I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.”",
      "19": "Laban said, “It is better for me to give her to you than to give her to another man. Stay with me.”",
      "20": "Jacob served seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him like a few days, because of the love he had for her.",
      "21": "Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time of service is finished, so that I may go to her.”",
      "22": "Laban gathered together all the local people and made a feast.",
      "23": "When evening had arrived, he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob went to her.",
      "24": "(Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid.)",
      "25": "When morning came, Jacob realized it was Leah. So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Didn’t I serve you for Rachel? Why have you deceived me?”",
      "26": "Laban said, “That is not the way we do it here. We do not give the younger before the firstborn.",
      "27": "Fulfill the marriage week for this one, and we will give you the other one too—for seven more years of service.”",
      "28": "So that is what Jacob did. When he fulfilled the marriage week, Laban gave him Rachel his daughter as his wife.",
      "29": "(Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her maid.)",
      "30": "Jacob also went to Rachel, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. He served Laban seven more years.",
      "31": "The Lord saw that Leah was not loved, and he allowed her to conceive, but Rachel had no children.",
      "32": "Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and she named him Reuben, because she had said, “The Lord has looked at my misery. So now my husband will love me.”",
      "33": "She conceived again and gave birth to a son and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.” So she named him Simeon.",
      "34": "She conceived again and gave birth to a son. She said, “Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have given birth to three sons for him.” That is why he was named Levi.",
      "35": "She conceived again and gave birth to a son. She said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "When Rachel saw that she was bearing no children for Jacob, Rachel was jealous of her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I will die.”",
      "2": "Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you fruit from your womb?”",
      "3": "She said, “Here is my maid Bilhah. Go to her, so that she may bear a child for me, and my family will be built up through her.”",
      "4": "So she gave her servant girl Bilhah to Jacob as a wife, and he went to her.",
      "5": "Bilhah conceived and gave birth to a son for Jacob.",
      "6": "Rachel said, “God has judged in my favor. He has heard my voice and has given me a son.” Therefore she named him Dan.",
      "7": "Bilhah, Rachel’s servant girl, conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.",
      "8": "Rachel said, “I have had a desperate struggle with my sister, and I have won.” So she named him Naphtali.",
      "9": "When Leah saw that she was no longer bearing sons, she took her servant girl Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.",
      "10": "Zilpah, Leah’s servant girl, bore Jacob a son.",
      "11": "Leah said, “How fortunate!” So she named him Gad.",
      "12": "Zilpah, Leah’s servant girl, bore a second son for Jacob.",
      "13": "Leah said, “I am blessed, for women will call me blessed.” She named him Asher.",
      "14": "At the time of the wheat harvest Reuben went out and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”",
      "15": "She said to her, “Isn’t it bad enough that you have taken away my husband? Do you want to take away my son’s mandrakes as well?”\nRachel said, “He will sleep with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.”",
      "16": "When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must come to me, because I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.”\nSo he slept with her that night.",
      "17": "God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.",
      "18": "Leah said, “God has given me the wages I deserve, because I gave my servant girl to my husband.” So she named him Issachar.",
      "19": "Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob.",
      "20": "Leah said, “God has given me a great reward. Now my husband will treat me with honor, because I have borne six sons for him.” So she named him Zebulun.",
      "21": "Afterward, she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.",
      "22": "God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.",
      "23": "She conceived, bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.”",
      "24": "She named him Joseph and said, “May the Lord add another son to me.”",
      "25": "After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go home to my own place in my own country.",
      "26": "Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go, because you know how much I have served you.”",
      "27": "Laban said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, stay here, for I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.”",
      "28": "So he said, “Set your wages for me, and I will pay them.”",
      "29": "Jacob said to him, “You know how well I have served you, and how your livestock have fared under my care.",
      "30": "For before I came, you had very little, and it has been multiplied many times over. The Lord has blessed you wherever I set foot. Now isn’t it time for me to provide for my own household as well?”",
      "31": "Laban asked, “What shall I give you?”\nJacob said, “You do not have to give me anything. But if you will do this thing for me, I will continue to take your flock to pasture and watch over it:",
      "32": "I will pass through all your flocks today and take all the speckled and spotted sheep, every dark brown sheep among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled goats. These will be my wages.",
      "33": "This is how I will be able to prove my honesty whenever you demand an accounting of my wages: Any goats that are not spotted or speckled, and any lambs that are not dark brown that are found with me will be treated as stolen.”",
      "34": "Laban said, “Very well. We will do what you have said.”",
      "35": "But that day Laban removed all the male goats that were streaked and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had any white on it, and all the dark brown sheep, and handed them over to his sons.",
      "36": "Then he separated himself from Jacob by a three days’ journey, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flocks.",
      "37": "Jacob took fresh branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees. He peeled stripes on them so that the white inside the branches was visible.",
      "38": "He put the branches that he had peeled into the gutters of the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, so the flocks would see them. They conceived when they came to drink.",
      "39": "The flocks conceived in front of the branches, and the flocks produced streaked, speckled, and spotted animals.",
      "40": "Jacob separated the lambs, and he made the flocks face toward the streaked animals and all the black animals in the flock of Laban, and he kept his own herds separate and did not put them into Laban’s flock.",
      "41": "And whenever the stronger animals in the flock were in heat, Jacob laid the branches in the gutters where the flocks could see them, so that they would conceive while looking at the branches.",
      "42": "But when the weak animals in the flock were in heat, he did not put the branches in. So the weaker animals were Laban’s, and the stronger were Jacob’s.",
      "43": "The man became much wealthier and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were saying, “Jacob has taken everything from our father. He has acquired all his wealth from things that belonged to our father.”",
      "2": "From the look on Laban’s face Jacob realized that his attitude toward him was not what it had been before.",
      "3": "The Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”",
      "4": "Jacob sent for Rachel and Leah and told them to come to the field where his flock was.",
      "5": "He said to them, “I see the look on your father’s face, and it is not favorable toward me as it was before, but the God of my father has been with me.",
      "6": "You know that I have served your father with all of my strength.",
      "7": "Your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me.",
      "8": "If he said, ‘The speckled animals will be your wages,’ then all the flock gave birth to speckled young. If he said, ‘The streaked animals will be your wages,’ then all the flock gave birth to streaked young.",
      "9": "In this way God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me.",
      "10": "Once during mating season, in a dream I watched and saw male goats that were streaked, speckled, and spotted mating with the flock.",
      "11": "The Angel of God called out to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I answered, ‘I am here.’",
      "12": "He said, ‘Look! All the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled, and spotted, because I have seen everything that Laban has been doing to you.",
      "13": "I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a memorial stone, and where you made a vow to me. Now get going, get out of this land, and return to the land where you were born.’”",
      "14": "Rachel and Leah answered him, “Do we still have any share of the inheritance in our father’s house?",
      "15": "Isn’t he treating us like foreigners? First he sold us. Now he has used up almost all the money he received for us.",
      "16": "All the riches that God has taken away from our father belong to us and our children. Now do whatever God has told you to do.”",
      "17": "Then Jacob got ready to go. He placed his sons and his wives on camels.",
      "18": "He took with him all his livestock and all his possessions that he had accumulated, including the livestock that he had acquired in Paddan Aram. He set out to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.",
      "19": "Now when Laban had gone off to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household gods.",
      "20": "Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was running away.",
      "21": "So he fled with all that he had. He set out, crossed over the Euphrates River, and headed toward the hill country of Gilead.",
      "22": "On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.",
      "23": "He took his relatives with him and pursued him for seven days. He overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.",
      "24": "But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream during the night and said to him, “Be careful that you do not say anything to Jacob either good or bad.”",
      "25": "Laban caught up with Jacob. Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban along with his relatives also set up camp in the hill country of Gilead.",
      "26": "Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? Why have you deceived me and carried away my daughters like prisoners of war?",
      "27": "Why did you flee secretly and steal from me? Why didn’t you tell me, so that I could have sent you away with a celebration and with songs, with drums and with lyres?",
      "28": "Why didn’t you allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? By doing this you have acted foolishly.",
      "29": "I have it in my power to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night and said, ‘Be careful that you do not say anything to Jacob either good or bad.’",
      "30": "But even if you were so eager to leave because of your strong desire to return to your father’s house, why have you stolen my gods?”",
      "31": "Jacob answered Laban, “I was afraid, because I thought that you might take your daughters away from me by force.",
      "32": "But anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, identify anything I have that belongs to you, and take it.” (Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the household gods.)",
      "33": "So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find the gods. After he had left Leah’s tent, he entered Rachel’s tent.",
      "34": "Rachel had taken the household gods and put them into her camel’s saddle, and she was sitting on them. Laban felt all around the tent, but he did not find them.",
      "35": "Rachel said to her father, “Do not be angry, my lord, because I cannot stand up in your presence. I’m having my period.” He searched, but he did not find the gods.",
      "36": "Jacob became angry and argued with Laban. Jacob responded to Laban, “What is my crime? What is my sin that set you off in hot pursuit after me?",
      "37": "Now that you have rummaged through all my belongings, what have you found there that came from your house? Set it out here in front of my relatives and your relatives, so that they can settle the case between the two of us.",
      "38": "These twenty years that I have been with you, your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried their young, and I have not eaten rams from your flocks.",
      "39": "I did not bring to you those that were torn up by wild animals. I bore the loss myself. You made me pay for all the losses, whether they were stolen by day or stolen by night.",
      "40": "I was the one out there, consumed by the scorching heat of the day and by the frost at night, and sleep fled from my eyes.",
      "41": "These twenty years I put up with this in your house: I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for a share of your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.",
      "42": "Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the God revered by Isaac, had been with me, you certainly would have now sent me away empty-handed. But God saw the oppression I suffered and the labor of my hands, and he rebuked you last night.”",
      "43": "Laban answered Jacob, “These daughters are my daughters. These children are my children. These flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine, but what can I do today about these daughters of mine or about the children to whom they have given birth?",
      "44": "Now come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it stand as a witness between me and you.”",
      "45": "So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a memorial stone.",
      "46": "Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather stones.” They collected stones and piled them up. They ate there beside the pile of stones.",
      "47": "Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.",
      "48": "Laban said, “This pile of stones is a witness between me and you this day.” So it was named Galeed",
      "49": "and Mizpah, for he also said, “May the Lord watch between me and you, when we are absent one from another.",
      "50": "If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take any wives in addition to my daughters, even if no one else sees it, understand that God is a witness between me and you.”",
      "51": "Laban said to Jacob, “See this pile of stones and see the memorial stone that I have set between me and you.",
      "52": "May this pile be a witness, and may the memorial stone be a witness that I will not cross over beyond this pile to you, and that you will not cross over beyond this pile and this memorial stone to harm me.",
      "53": "May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.”\nThen Jacob swore by the God revered by his father Isaac.",
      "54": "Jacob offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to eat bread with him. They ate bread and stayed all night in the hill country.",
      "55": "Early in the morning Laban got up, kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them. Laban departed and returned to his place."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.",
      "2": "When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s army.” He named that place Mahanaim.",
      "3": "Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to Esau, his brother, to the land of Seir, the region of Edom.",
      "4": "He gave them a command. “Tell my lord, Esau, ‘This is what your servant Jacob says: I have lived as an alien with Laban until very recently.",
      "5": "I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent this message to inform my lord, so that I may find favor in your sight.’”",
      "6": "The messengers returned to Jacob and reported, “We came to your brother Esau. Now he is coming to meet you, and he has four hundred men with him.”",
      "7": "So Jacob was terrified and very distressed. He divided the people who were with him, as well as the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, into two camps.",
      "8": "He said, “If Esau comes to one camp and strikes it, then the other camp will escape.”",
      "9": "Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will do good for you,’",
      "10": "I am not worthy of even a bit of all the mercy and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for I crossed over this Jordan with just my staff, and now I have grown into two camps.",
      "11": "Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid that he will come and strike me and the mothers, as well as the children.",
      "12": "You said, ‘I will surely do good for you and make your descendants like the grains of sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because there are so many.’”",
      "13": "Jacob spent that night there and selected a gift for Esau his brother from the possessions he had with him:",
      "14": "two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,",
      "15": "thirty milk camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys with ten foals.",
      "16": "He handed them over to his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Cross over in front of me, and keep some space between each herd and the next one.”",
      "17": "He commanded the one in front, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks, ‘Whose people are you? Where are you going? Whose herds are these in front of you?’",
      "18": "then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. It is a gift sent to you, my lord Esau. Look, he is right behind us.’”",
      "19": "He commanded the second group, and the third, and all those who followed the herds, “This is how you shall speak to Esau when you meet him.",
      "20": "You shall say, ‘What’s more, look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” Jacob said, “I will win his favor with the gift that I have sent ahead of me, and after that I will see his face, and perhaps he will accept me.”",
      "21": "So the gift was sent over ahead of him, but he himself spent that night in the camp.",
      "22": "He got up that night and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok.",
      "23": "He took them and sent them across the stream, and he also sent his possessions across.",
      "24": "Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with a man there until daybreak.",
      "25": "When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he touched the socket of his thigh, and the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated as he wrestled.",
      "26": "The man said, “Let me go. It’s daybreak.”\nJacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”",
      "27": "Then he said to him, “What is your name?”\nHe said, “Jacob.”",
      "28": "Then he said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men, and you have won.”",
      "29": "Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”\nHe said, “Why do you ask what my name is?” Then he blessed him there.",
      "30": "Jacob named the place Peniel, because he said, “I have seen God face-to-face, and my life has been spared.”",
      "31": "The sun rose as he crossed over at Peniel, and he was limping because of his thigh.",
      "32": "For that reason, to this day the people of Israel do not eat the tendon of the hip that is on the socket of the thigh, because God touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh on the tendon of the hip."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "Jacob looked up, and there was Esau coming with four hundred men. Jacob divided the children into groups with Leah and Rachel and with the two maids.",
      "2": "He put the maids and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph at the end.",
      "3": "He himself crossed over the stream ahead of the others and bowed to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.",
      "4": "Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, hugged him around the neck, and kissed him. They both wept.",
      "5": "Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children and asked, “Who are these people with you?”\nJacob said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.”",
      "6": "Then the maids came forward with their children, and they bowed low.",
      "7": "Leah and her children also came forward and bowed low. After them, Joseph came forward with Rachel, and they bowed low.",
      "8": "Esau said, “What did you mean by this whole camp that I met?”\nJacob said, “To gain favor in the sight of my lord.”",
      "9": "Esau said, “I have enough, my brother. Keep what is yours.”",
      "10": "Jacob said, “No, if I have now found favor in your sight, then please accept the gift from my hand, because when I saw your face, it was like seeing the face of God, now that you have accepted me.",
      "11": "Please accept the gift that I brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have everything I need.” He urged him, and he accepted it.",
      "12": "Esau said, “Let us get going on our journey, and I will lead the way for you.”",
      "13": "Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are still young, and that my flocks and herds are nursing their young, and if the herdsmen drive them too hard for even one day, all the flocks will die.",
      "14": "Please let my lord go ahead of his servant, and I will follow slowly, at the right pace for the livestock and the right pace for the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”",
      "15": "Esau said, “Please let me leave some of my people with you.”\nBut he said, “Why? Just let me find favor in the sight of my lord.”",
      "16": "So Esau set out that day on his way back to Seir.",
      "17": "Jacob traveled to Succoth, built a house for himself, and made shelters for his livestock. That is why that place is called Succoth.",
      "18": "When he returned from Paddan Aram, Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, and he camped in front of the city.",
      "19": "He bought the piece of land where he pitched his tent from the descendants of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of silver.",
      "20": "He erected an altar there and called it El Elohe Israel."
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "Dinah, Jacob’s daughter by Leah, went out to see the young women of the land.",
      "2": "Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the chief of that part of the land, saw her and took her, lay down with her, and humiliated her.",
      "3": "He had a strong desire for Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he was in love with the young woman and spoke tenderly to her.",
      "4": "Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, “Get me this young woman as a wife.”",
      "5": "When Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his daughter Dinah, his sons were out in the field with his livestock, so Jacob kept quiet about it until they came back.",
      "6": "Hamor the father of Shechem came to talk with Jacob.",
      "7": "The sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard about it. The men were shocked by the outrage, and they were very angry, because he had disgraced Israel by lying down with Jacob’s daughter, a thing that should not be done.",
      "8": "Hamor spoke with them. He said, “My son Shechem has a deep longing for your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife.",
      "9": "Intermarry with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.",
      "10": "You may live among us, and the land will be open to you. Live in it, conduct trade, and acquire property in it.”",
      "11": "Shechem said to her father and to her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you ask from me I will give.",
      "12": "No matter how great a bride price and gift you demand, I will give it. Just give me the young woman as a wife.”",
      "13": "The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because Shechem had defiled their sister Dinah.",
      "14": "They said to them, “We cannot do this—giving our sister to a man who is uncircumcised. That would be a disgrace to us.",
      "15": "Only on this condition will we consent to your offer: If all your males become circumcised as we are,",
      "16": "then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters for ourselves, and we will live with you, and we will become one people.",
      "17": "But if you do not accept our terms and undergo circumcision, then we will take our sister, and we will be gone.”",
      "18": "Their offer pleased Hamor and Hamor’s son Shechem.",
      "19": "The young man did not delay acting on it, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter, and he was the most important of all the household of his father.",
      "20": "Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and discussed this with the men of their city. They said,",
      "21": "“These men want peace with us. So let them live in the land and trade in it. Look, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as wives for ourselves, and let us give them our daughters.",
      "22": "Only on this condition will the men agree to live with us and to become one people with us: if every male among us is circumcised, as they are circumcised.",
      "23": "Won’t all their livestock, all their possessions, and all their animals become ours? So let’s accept their offer, so that they will settle among us.”",
      "24": "Everyone who assembled at the gate of his city listened to Hamor and to Shechem his son. So all the males who assembled at the gate of the city were circumcised.",
      "25": "Then on the third day, when they were still sore, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword, attacked the unsuspecting city, and killed all the males.",
      "26": "They killed Hamor and Shechem, his son, with the edge of the sword. They took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and left.",
      "27": "Jacob’s sons then came to the dead bodies and looted the city, because their sister had been defiled.",
      "28": "They took their flocks, their herds, their donkeys, everything that was in the city, everything that was in the countryside,",
      "29": "and all their wealth. They took all their little ones and their wives as captives. They looted everything that was in the houses.",
      "30": "Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have ruined me. You have made me stink to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number. They will gather themselves together against me and attack me, and I will be destroyed, I and my household.”",
      "31": "But they said, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”"
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "God said to Jacob, “Get up and go to Bethel, and live there. Make an altar there for God, who appeared to you when you fled from the presence of Esau your brother.”",
      "2": "Then Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Throw away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your clothing.",
      "3": "Let’s get up and go to Bethel. I will make an altar there for God, who answered me in the day when I was in trouble and who has been with me wherever I have traveled.”",
      "4": "They gave Jacob all the foreign gods that were in their possession and the rings that were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.",
      "5": "They set out, and terror from God fell on the cities that were around them, so they did not pursue Jacob’s sons.",
      "6": "So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him.",
      "7": "He built an altar there and named the place El Beth El, because God had been revealed to him there, when he fled from the presence of his brother.",
      "8": "Deborah, who was Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried under the oak below Bethel. So the place was named Allon Bacuth.",
      "9": "God appeared to Jacob again after he had come from Paddan Aram, and he blessed him.",
      "10": "God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but your name will not be Jacob anymore. Your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel.",
      "11": "God said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a community of nations will descend from you, and kings will come from your body.",
      "12": "The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give also to you, and I will give the land to your descendants after you.”",
      "13": "God left him in the place where he had spoken with him,",
      "14": "and Jacob set up a memorial in the place where God had spoken with him. It was a memorial stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it.",
      "15": "Jacob named the place where God spoke with him Bethel.",
      "16": "Then they traveled from Bethel. As they were coming close to Ephrath, Rachel went into labor. She was experiencing hard labor,",
      "17": "and when she was in hard labor, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for now you will have another son.”",
      "18": "Then as her life was slipping away (for she was dying), she named her son Benoni, but his father named him Benjamin.",
      "19": "So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).",
      "20": "Jacob set up a memorial stone on her grave. It is the marker for Rachel’s tomb to this day.",
      "21": "Israel traveled on and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder.",
      "22": "While Israel lived in that region, Reuben went and lay down with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Israel heard about it.\nJacob had twelve sons.",
      "23": "The sons of Leah were Reuben (Jacob’s firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun.",
      "24": "The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin.",
      "25": "The sons of Bilhah (Rachel’s maid) were Dan and Naphtali.",
      "26": "The sons of Zilpah (Leah’s maid) were Gad and Asher.\nThese are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan Aram.",
      "27": "Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre near Kiriath Arba (which is Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had resided as aliens.",
      "28": "The days of Isaac’s life were one hundred eighty years.",
      "29": "Isaac breathed his last and died. He was gathered to his people. He had lived a long, full life. Esau and Jacob, his sons, buried him."
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "Now this is the account about the descendants of Esau (that is, Edom):",
      "2": "Esau took Canaanite women as his wives. They were Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah the daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite.",
      "3": "He also married Basemath, Ishmael’s daughter, the sister of Nebaioth.",
      "4": "Adah gave birth to Eliphaz for Esau.\nBasemath gave birth to Reuel.",
      "5": "Oholibamah gave birth to Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.\nThese are the sons of Esau, who were born to him in the land of Canaan.",
      "6": "Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, along with his livestock, all his animals, and all the possessions that he had accumulated in the land of Canaan, and he went into another land, away from his brother Jacob.",
      "7": "Their herds were too large for them to stay together, and the land where they had settled could not support both of them because of their livestock.",
      "8": "So Esau lived in the hill country of Seir. (Esau is another name for Edom.)",
      "9": "This is the account about the descendants of Esau, who was the founding father of Edom in the hill country of Seir:",
      "10": "The following are the names of Esau’s sons: Eliphaz the son of Esau’s wife Adah, and Reuel the son of Esau’s wife Basemath.",
      "11": "The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz.",
      "12": "Timna was the concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz, and she gave birth to Amalek for Eliphaz. These are the grandsons of Esau’s wife Adah.",
      "13": "The following are the sons of Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. These were the grandsons of Esau’s wife Basemath.",
      "14": "The following were the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the granddaughter of Zibeon. She gave birth to Jeush, Jalam, and Korah for Esau.",
      "15": "The following are the chiefs of the clans of the descendants of Esau:\nFrom the descendants of Eliphaz the firstborn of Esau they were Chief Teman, Chief Omar, Chief Zepho, Chief Kenaz,",
      "16": "Chief Korah, Chief Gatam, and Chief Amalek. These are the chiefs who descended from Eliphaz in the land of Edom. These are the descendants of Adah.",
      "17": "The following are the descendants of Esau’s son Reuel: Chief Nahath, Chief Zerah, Chief Shammah, and Chief Mizzah. These are the chiefs who descended from Reuel in the land of Edom. These are the descendants of Esau’s wife Basemath.",
      "18": "The following are the descendants of Esau’s wife Oholibamah: Chief Jeush, Chief Jalam, and Chief Korah. These are the chiefs who came from Esau’s wife Oholibamah daughter of Anah.",
      "19": "These are the descendants of Esau (that is, Edom), and these are their chiefs.",
      "20": "The following are the sons of Seir the Horite, who lived in the land: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah,",
      "21": "Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. These are the chiefs who descended from the Horites, the descendants of Seir in the land of Edom.",
      "22": "The sons of Lotan were Hori and Heman. Lotan’s sister was Timna.",
      "23": "The following are the sons of Shobal: Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho, and Onam.",
      "24": "The following are the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who discovered the hot springs in the wilderness as he was feeding the donkeys of Zibeon his father.",
      "25": "The following are the descendants of Anah: Dishon and Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah.",
      "26": "The following are the sons of Dishon: Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Cheran.",
      "27": "The following are the sons of Ezer: Bilhan, Za’avan, and Akan.",
      "28": "The following are the sons of Dishan: Uz and Aran.",
      "29": "The following are the chiefs who descended from the Horites: Chief Lotan, Chief Shobal, Chief Zibeon, Chief Anah,",
      "30": "Chief Dishon, Chief Ezer, and Chief Dishan. These are the chiefs who came from the Horites, according to their chiefdoms in the land of Seir.",
      "31": "The following are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the people of Israel:",
      "32": "Bela son of Beor reigned in Edom. The name of his city was Dinhabah.",
      "33": "Bela died, and Jobab son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his place.",
      "34": "Jobab died, and Husham of the land of the Temanites reigned in his place.",
      "35": "Husham died, and Hadad son of Bedad, who struck Midian in the territory of Moab, reigned in his place. The name of his city was Avith.",
      "36": "Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah reigned in his place.",
      "37": "Samlah died, and Shaul of Rehoboth by the river reigned in his place.",
      "38": "Shaul died, and Baal Hanan son of Achbor reigned in his place.",
      "39": "Baal Hanan son of Achbor died, and Hadad reigned in his place. The name of his city was Pau. His wife’s name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Mezahab.",
      "40": "The following are the names of the chiefs who came from Esau, listed according to their clans, their territory, and their names: Chief Timna, Chief Alvah, Chief Jetheth,",
      "41": "Chief Oholibamah, Chief Elah, Chief Pinon,",
      "42": "Chief Kenaz, Chief Teman, Chief Mibzar,",
      "43": "Chief Magdiel, and Chief Iram. These are the chiefs of Edom, according to the territory they inhabited in the land they possessed. (Edom is another name for Esau, the father of the Edomites.)"
    },
    "37": {
      "1": "Jacob lived in the land where his father had resided as an alien, that is, in the land of Canaan.",
      "2": "This is the account about the development of the family of Jacob:\nWhen Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flock with his brothers. He was just a boy compared to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph brought a bad report about them to their father.",
      "3": "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his other sons, because he was the son born in his old age, and he made him a special robe.",
      "4": "His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, so they hated him and could not speak to him in a friendly way.",
      "5": "Once Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, so they hated him all the more.",
      "6": "He said to them, “Please listen to this dream that I have dreamed:",
      "7": "There we were, binding sheaves in the field, and suddenly my sheaf rose up and stood upright. Then your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.”",
      "8": "His brothers said to him, “So will you really reign over us? Will you really have dominion over us?” They hated him all the more because of his dreams and what he said.",
      "9": "Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers. He said, “Listen, I had another dream. This is what I saw: The sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.”",
      "10": "He told it to his father and to his brothers. His father rebuked him and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers really come and bow down to the ground in front of you?”",
      "11": "His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept what he had said in mind.",
      "12": "His brothers went to pasture their father’s flock in Shechem.",
      "13": "Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers pasturing the flock in Shechem? Go, I will send you to them.”\nJoseph said to him, “Yes, I will do it.”",
      "14": "Israel said to him, “Please go and see whether everything is going well with your brothers and with the flock. Then bring me word again.” So he sent him off from the valley at Hebron, and he arrived at Shechem.",
      "15": "A man met him as he was wandering in the countryside. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?”",
      "16": "He said, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.”",
      "17": "The man said, “They have left here. I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’”\nJoseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.",
      "18": "They saw him in the distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.",
      "19": "They said to each other, “Look, here comes this master of dreams.",
      "20": "Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns, and we will say, ‘A wild animal has devoured him.’ Then we will see what will become of his dreams.”",
      "21": "Reuben heard this and rescued him out of their hands. He said, “Let’s not take his life.”",
      "22": "Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood. Throw him into this cistern that is in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him.” He said this so that he could rescue him out of their hands and restore him to his father.",
      "23": "And so when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the special robe he was wearing.",
      "24": "Then they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.",
      "25": "They sat down to eat bread, and they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, which they were going to deliver to Egypt.",
      "26": "Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there in killing our brother and concealing his blood?",
      "27": "Come on, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him, since he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers listened to him.",
      "28": "As the Midianites, who were merchants, were passing by, the brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. They brought Joseph to Egypt.",
      "29": "When Reuben returned to the cistern, he saw that Joseph was not in the cistern, so he tore his clothing.",
      "30": "He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is no longer here, and as for me, where will I go now?”",
      "31": "Then they took Joseph’s robe, killed a male goat, and dipped the robe in the goat’s blood.",
      "32": "They took the special robe, and they brought it to their father and said, “We have found this. Examine it now, and see whether it is your son’s robe or not.”",
      "33": "He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe. A wild animal has devoured him. Without a doubt Joseph has been torn to pieces.”",
      "34": "Jacob tore his clothing, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son for many days.",
      "35": "All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “No, I will mourn for my son until I go down to the grave.” So his father wept for him.",
      "36": "In Egypt the Midianites sold him to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, who was the captain of the guard."
    },
    "38": {
      "1": "About that time Judah went down from his brothers and visited a man from Adullam named Hirah.",
      "2": "There Judah saw a daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He took her as a wife and went to her.",
      "3": "She conceived and gave birth to a son, and he named him Er.",
      "4": "She conceived again and gave birth to another son, and she named him Onan.",
      "5": "She gave birth to yet another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to Shelah.",
      "6": "Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn. Her name was Tamar.",
      "7": "It turned out that Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord killed him.",
      "8": "Then Judah said to Onan, “Go to your brother’s wife. Perform your duty for her as the brother of her deceased husband and provide offspring for your brother.”",
      "9": "Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he went to his brother’s wife, he wasted his semen on the ground, so that he would not provide offspring for his brother.",
      "10": "But the thing that he did was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord killed him also.",
      "11": "Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah is grown up.” Actually he had said to himself, “I do not want him to die like his brothers.” So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.",
      "12": "After some time Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.",
      "13": "Tamar was told, “Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.”",
      "14": "She took off the garments that identified her as a widow, covered herself with her veil, disguised herself, and sat in the gate of Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah, because she saw that Shelah had grown up, but she was not going to be given to him as a wife.",
      "15": "When Judah saw her, he thought that she was a prostitute, because she had covered her face.",
      "16": "He turned to her by the roadside and said, “Please, let me come to you,” because he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.\nShe said, “What will you give me, so that you may come to me?”",
      "17": "He said, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.”\nShe said, “Will you give me something as a security deposit until you send the goat?”",
      "18": "He said, “What should I give you as a deposit?”\nShe said, “Your stamp seal on its cord and your staff that is in your hand.”\nHe gave them to her and went to her, and she conceived by him.",
      "19": "Then she got up and left. Later she took off her veil and put her widow’s garments back on.",
      "20": "Judah sent the young goat with his friend, the Adullamite, to get back the deposit from the woman’s possession, but he could not find her.",
      "21": "So he asked the men from that place, “Where is the sacred prostitute who was by the road at Enaim?”\nThey said, “There hasn’t been any sacred prostitute here.”",
      "22": "So he returned to Judah and said, “I could not find her, and the men of the place said, ‘There hasn’t been any sacred prostitute here.’”",
      "23": "Judah said, “Let her keep it, so that we are not disgraced. Look, I did send this young goat, but you were unable to find her.”",
      "24": "About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has prostituted herself, and even worse, she is pregnant by prostitution.”\nJudah said, “Bring her out and burn her.”",
      "25": "When she was brought, she sent this message to her father-in-law: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these things belong.” She also said, “Please help me identify whose these are—this stamp seal on its cord and the staff.”",
      "26": "Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah, my son.” But he was not intimate with her again.",
      "27": "When the time came for her to go into labor, it turned out that there were twins in her womb.",
      "28": "When she was in labor, one of the twins put out a hand, and the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.”",
      "29": "But then after he had pulled back his hand, his brother came out first, so she said, “What a breakthrough you made for yourself!” That is why he was named Perez.",
      "30": "Afterward his brother who had the scarlet thread on his hand came out, so he was named Zerah."
    },
    "39": {
      "1": "When Joseph was brought down to Egypt, Potiphar the Egyptian, who was an officer of Pharaoh and the captain of the guard, bought Joseph from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down to Egypt.",
      "2": "The Lord was with Joseph, and he became successful. He served in the house of his master the Egyptian.",
      "3": "His master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made everything that he touched a success.",
      "4": "Joseph found favor in his sight. Joseph served him, and he made Joseph manager of his household. He put Joseph in charge of everything.",
      "5": "From the time that Potiphar made him manager of his household, in charge of everything that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s household for Joseph’s sake, and the blessing of the Lord rested on everything that he had, both in the house and in the fields.",
      "6": "So he left Joseph in charge of everything that he had. He did not concern himself with anything except the food that he ate.\nJoseph was well built and handsome.",
      "7": "Sometime after all this, his master’s wife had her eye on Joseph, and she said, “Come, lie down with me.”",
      "8": "But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master does not concern himself with anything that has been entrusted to me in the house. He has put me in charge of everything that he has.",
      "9": "He has no one in this house greater than I am, and he has not withheld anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a great evil and sin against God?”",
      "10": "She kept speaking to Joseph day after day, but he would not listen to her. He would not lie down beside her or even be with her.",
      "11": "But one day when he went into the house to do his work, none of the men of the household were there inside the house.",
      "12": "She caught him by his garment and said, “Come, lie down with me!” He left behind his garment in her hand and ran outside.",
      "13": "When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had run outside,",
      "14": "she called to the men of her household and said to them, “Look, my husband has brought a Hebrew man in to put us to shame. He came in to lie down with me, but I screamed loudly.",
      "15": "When he heard me scream, he left behind his garment with me and ran outside.”",
      "16": "She kept his garment beside her until his master came home.",
      "17": "This is what she told him: “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought to us, came to me to put me to shame and said to me, ‘Let me lie down with you.’",
      "18": "And look, when I screamed and cried out, he left behind his garment with me and ran outside.”",
      "19": "As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, saying, “This is what your servant did to me,” he became very angry.",
      "20": "Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were confined, so Joseph was kept in prison there.",
      "21": "But the Lord was with Joseph. He showed mercy to him and gave him favor in the sight of the warden of the prison.",
      "22": "The warden of the prison made Joseph responsible for all the prisoners who were in the prison. Joseph was responsible for whatever they did there.",
      "23": "The warden of the prison did not pay attention to anything that was under his authority, because the Lord was with Joseph, and the Lord made everything that he did succeed."
    },
    "40": {
      "1": "Sometime after this, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt committed an offense against their lord, the king of Egypt.",
      "2": "Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker.",
      "3": "He put them under custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined.",
      "4": "The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he was responsible for them. They stayed in prison for some time.",
      "5": "While they were confined in the prison, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt each had a dream. Each man had his own dream during the same night. Each man’s dream had its own meaning.",
      "6": "Joseph came to them in the morning, looked at them, and saw that they were troubled.",
      "7": "He asked Pharaoh’s officers who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so troubled today?”",
      "8": "They said to him, “We each had a dream, but there is no one who can interpret it.”\nJoseph said to them, “Interpretations belong to God, don’t they? Please tell me the dreams.”",
      "9": "The chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. “In my dream, there was a vine in front of me,",
      "10": "and the vine had three branches. As I watched, it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters produced ripe grapes.",
      "11": "I had Pharaoh’s cup in my hand. I took the grapes, pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and handed the cup to Pharaoh.”",
      "12": "Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: The three branches are three days.",
      "13": "Within three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office. You will place Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, the way you used to do when you were his cupbearer.",
      "14": "But remember me when everything is going well for you. Please show kindness to me, and mention me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this jail,",
      "15": "because I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and I also have done nothing here to deserve to be put into the dungeon.”",
      "16": "When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream. I saw three baskets of white bread on my head.",
      "17": "In the top basket there were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds ate them out of the basket on my head.”",
      "18": "Joseph answered, “This is its interpretation: The three baskets are three days.",
      "19": "Within three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head from upon you and will hang you on a tree, and the birds will eat your flesh off of you.”",
      "20": "And so it was that on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, Pharaoh had a feast prepared for all his officials, and he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his officials.",
      "21": "He restored the chief cupbearer to his position again, and he again placed the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.",
      "22": "But he hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had explained to them.",
      "23": "Nevertheless, the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him."
    },
    "41": {
      "1": "At the end of two full years Pharaoh also had a dream. In the dream he was standing beside the river.",
      "2": "There, right in front of him, seven beautiful, fat cows came up out of the river and were grazing in the marsh grass.",
      "3": "Just then seven ugly, thin cows came up out of the river behind them, and they stood beside the other cows on the bank of the river.",
      "4": "The ugly, thin cows ate up the seven beautiful, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.",
      "5": "Pharaoh fell asleep again and dreamed a second time. He saw seven healthy, good heads of grain come up on one stalk.",
      "6": "Right after that, seven thin heads of grain, blasted by the east wind, sprang up after them.",
      "7": "The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven healthy, full heads. Pharaoh woke up and realized that it was a dream.",
      "8": "The next morning he was very troubled, so he sent for all of Egypt’s magicians and wise men. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was no one who could interpret them for Pharaoh.",
      "9": "Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “Today I remember my faults.",
      "10": "Pharaoh was angry with his servants and put me in custody in the house of the captain of the guard—me and the chief baker.",
      "11": "We each had a dream during the same night—he and I. Each of us dreamed a dream that had its own interpretation.",
      "12": "There was a young man with us, a Hebrew, a servant to the captain of the guard, and we told him our dreams, and he interpreted our dreams for us. To each man he gave the interpretation of his dream.",
      "13": "It turned out exactly as he interpreted them for us. Pharaoh restored me to my office but hanged the chief baker.”",
      "14": "Then Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and they brought him quickly out of the dungeon. Joseph shaved, changed his clothing, and went to Pharaoh.",
      "15": "Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. I have heard it said about you, that when you hear a dream, you can interpret it.”",
      "16": "Joseph answered Pharaoh, “It is not in my power. God will give Pharaoh an answer to give him peace of mind.”",
      "17": "Pharaoh spoke to Joseph: “In my dream, there I was, standing on the bank of the river.",
      "18": "Suddenly seven fat, beautiful cows came up out of the river and were grazing in the marsh grass.",
      "19": "Just then seven poor cattle, very ugly and thin, came up after them. They were uglier than any I had ever seen in the whole land of Egypt.",
      "20": "The thin, ugly cattle ate up the first seven cattle, the fat ones,",
      "21": "and when they had eaten them up, you could not even tell that they had eaten them, because they were still as ugly as they were at the beginning. Then I woke up.",
      "22": "“Later I had another dream, in which I saw seven heads of grain grow on one stalk. They were full and good.",
      "23": "Then I saw seven heads of grain spring up after them. They were withered, thin, and blasted by the east wind.",
      "24": "The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven good heads of grain. I told the dream to the magicians, but there was no one who could explain it to me.”",
      "25": "Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dream of Pharaoh is one. God has declared to Pharaoh what he is about to do.",
      "26": "The seven good cattle are seven years, and the seven good heads of grain are seven years. It is one dream.",
      "27": "The seven thin, ugly cattle that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty heads of grain blasted by the east wind. They will be seven years of famine.",
      "28": "This is the very thing that I told Pharaoh: God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do.",
      "29": "Look, seven years of great abundance are coming throughout the whole land of Egypt.",
      "30": "Seven years of famine will come up after them, and all the abundance in the land of Egypt will be forgotten. The famine will consume the land,",
      "31": "and the abundance will not be remembered in the land because of the famine that follows, for it will be very severe.",
      "32": "The double dream was shown to Pharaoh, because this matter is established by God, and God will bring it to pass very soon.”",
      "33": "“Let Pharaoh, therefore, look for a man who is wise and discerning, and set him over the land of Egypt.",
      "34": "When Pharaoh does this, let him appoint overseers over the land to collect one fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven years of abundance.",
      "35": "Let them collect all this food from these good years that are coming. Accumulate grain under the authority of Pharaoh to provide food for the cities, and let them store it.",
      "36": "The food will be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine that will take place in the land of Egypt so that the land does not perish because of the famine.”",
      "37": "The plan seemed good to Pharaoh and to all his officials.",
      "38": "Pharaoh said to his officials, “Can we find anyone else like this man, a man who has the spirit of God?”",
      "39": "Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Because God has shown you all of this, there is no one as discerning and wise as you are.",
      "40": "You shall be in charge of my house, and all my people will submit to your word. Only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you.”",
      "41": "Pharaoh also said to Joseph, “Look, I have appointed you over the whole land of Egypt.”",
      "42": "Pharaoh took his signet ring off of his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand. He dressed Joseph in robes made from the best linen and put a gold chain around his neck.",
      "43": "He had him ride in the second best chariot that he had. Men went ahead of him crying out, “Kneel down!” Pharaoh appointed him over the whole land of Egypt.",
      "44": "Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, but in the whole land of Egypt no one will lift up his hand or his foot without your permission.”",
      "45": "Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath Paneah, and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as a wife. Joseph went out and began to rule over the land of Egypt.",
      "46": "Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and traveled throughout the whole land of Egypt.",
      "47": "During the seven years of abundance the earth produced plentiful harvests.",
      "48": "He collected all the food during the seven good years in the land of Egypt, and he stored up the food in the cities. In every city he stored the food from the fields that were around the city.",
      "49": "Joseph stored up a huge amount of grain, like the sand of the sea. Finally he stopped keeping track, because it was too much to measure.",
      "50": "Two sons were born to Joseph before the first year of famine arrived. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, gave birth to them.",
      "51": "Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, because he said, “God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s house.”",
      "52": "He named the second son Ephraim. He said, “Yes, God has made me fruitful in the land where I was afflicted.”",
      "53": "So the seven years of abundance in the land of Egypt came to an end.",
      "54": "The seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in every land, but in the whole land of Egypt there was bread.",
      "55": "When the whole land of Egypt was starving, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph. Do whatever he tells you.”",
      "56": "The famine spread over the face of the whole earth. Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians. The famine was severe in the land of Egypt.",
      "57": "The whole world came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, because the famine was severe all over the whole world."
    },
    "42": {
      "1": "When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you standing here looking at each other?”",
      "2": "He also said, “Listen, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us there, so that we may live and not die.”",
      "3": "So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt.",
      "4": "But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin along with his other brothers, because he said, “Something bad might happen to him.”",
      "5": "The sons of Israel were among those who came to buy grain because of the famine in the land of Canaan.",
      "6": "Joseph was the governor over the land. He was the one who sold grain to all the people of the land. Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.",
      "7": "Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he acted like a stranger toward them and spoke harshly to them. He asked them, “Where did you come from?”\nThey said, “From the land of Canaan to buy food.”",
      "8": "Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.",
      "9": "Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed about them and said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see where the land is exposed.”",
      "10": "They said to him, “No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food.",
      "11": "We are all one man’s sons. We are honest men. Your servants are not spies.”",
      "12": "He said to them, “No, you have come to see where the land is exposed!”",
      "13": "They said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. Listen, at the present time the youngest remains with our father, and one is no more.”",
      "14": "Joseph said to them, “It is just as I said. You are spies!",
      "15": "This is how you will be tested: By the life of Pharaoh, you shall never get out of here, unless your youngest brother comes here.",
      "16": "Send one of you to get your brother. The rest of you will be kept under arrest, so that your words may be tested, whether you are telling the truth. Otherwise, by the life of Pharaoh, you are spies.”",
      "17": "He kept them all together, confined in the jail for three days.",
      "18": "On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do what I tell you and you will live, because I fear God.",
      "19": "If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in the jail, but the rest of you go and deliver grain to your houses to relieve the famine.",
      "20": "Bring your youngest brother to me so that your words may be verified, and you will not die.” So they did as he said.",
      "21": "They said to one another, “We are certainly guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the misery of his soul when he begged us, but we would not listen. That is why this misery has come upon us.”",
      "22": "Reuben answered them, “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Do not sin against the boy’? But you would not listen. So now payment for his blood is being required from us.”",
      "23": "They did not know that Joseph understood them, because an interpreter was being used between them.",
      "24": "Joseph turned away from them and wept. After he returned and spoke to them, he seized Simeon from among them and tied him up before their very eyes.",
      "25": "Then Joseph gave a command to fill their containers with grain, to return each man’s money into his sack, and to give them food for the journey. So all this was done for them.",
      "26": "They loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed from there.",
      "27": "When one of them opened his sack at the lodging place to give his donkey food, he saw his money. It was right there in the mouth of his bag.",
      "28": "He said to his brothers, “My money has been returned! Look, there it is, in my bag!” Their hearts sank, and they turned to one another trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”",
      "29": "They came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan and told him everything that had happened to them. They said,",
      "30": "“The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly to us and accused us of being spies against the country.",
      "31": "We said to him, ‘We are honest men. We are not spies.",
      "32": "We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One brother is no more, and at the present time the youngest is with our father in the land of Canaan.’",
      "33": "That man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘This is how I will know that you are honest men: Leave one of your brothers with me. Take grain to relieve the famine at your houses, and go on your way.",
      "34": "Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I will know that you are not spies, but that you are honest men. Then I will release your brother to you, and you will be allowed to conduct business in the land.’”",
      "35": "Then as they emptied their sacks, they were surprised to see that each man’s pouch of money was in his sack. When they and their father saw their pouch of money, they were afraid.",
      "36": "Jacob, their father, said to them, “You have deprived me of my children! Joseph is no more. Simeon is no more. And now you want to take Benjamin away. All these things are against me.”",
      "37": "Reuben spoke to his father, “You may put my two sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back to you again.”",
      "38": "Jacob said, “My son shall not go down with you, since his brother is dead, and he alone is left. If he has a mishap on the journey that you are taking, you will bring my gray hairs down to the grave with sorrow.”"
    },
    "43": {
      "1": "The famine in the land was severe,",
      "2": "so when they had eaten all the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy a little more food for us.”",
      "3": "Judah said to him, “The man sternly warned us, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’",
      "4": "If you send our brother with us, we will go down and buy food for you,",
      "5": "but if you do not send him, we will not go down, because the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’”",
      "6": "Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly by telling the man that you had another brother?”",
      "7": "They said, “The man interrogated us about ourselves and about our relatives. He asked, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ We just answered his questions. Is there any way we could have known that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down here’?”",
      "8": "Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and we will get up and go, so that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones.",
      "9": "I will serve as a guarantee for him. You can hold me accountable for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him in front of you, then let me bear the blame forever.",
      "10": "Look, if we had not delayed, we certainly could have returned for a second time by now.”",
      "11": "Their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then this is what you should do: Put some of the best products of the land into your containers and take a gift for the man: a little balm, a little honey, spices and myrrh, pistachios and almonds.",
      "12": "Also take double the amount of silver with you. Take back the silver that was returned into the mouths of your bags. Perhaps it was an oversight.",
      "13": "Also take your brother. Get going and return to the man.",
      "14": "May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, so that he will release your other brother and Benjamin to you. But if I am deprived of my children, I am deprived.”",
      "15": "The men took that present, and they took double the amount of silver with them. They also took Benjamin. They got up, went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.",
      "16": "When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the manager of his house, “Bring the men into the house. Butcher an animal and prepare it, for the men will dine with me at noon.”",
      "17": "The manager did as Joseph commanded and brought the men to Joseph’s house.",
      "18": "The brothers were afraid, because they were brought to Joseph’s house. They said, “Because of the money that was returned into our bags the first time, we are being brought in, so that he may find a pretext against us, pounce on us, seize us as slaves, and take our donkeys.”",
      "19": "They approached the manager of Joseph’s house and spoke to him at the door of the house.",
      "20": "They said, “Please, my lord, we really did come down the first time to buy food.",
      "21": "When we came to the lodging place, we opened our bags, and to our surprise each man’s silver was in the mouth of his bag, the full amount of our money. We have brought it back with us.",
      "22": "We have also brought down with us additional money to buy food. We do not know who put our money into our bags.”",
      "23": "He said, “There is no problem. Do not be afraid. Your God, the God of your father, has given you treasure in your bags. I received your money.” He brought Simeon out to them.",
      "24": "The man brought the men into Joseph’s house and gave them water, so they could wash their feet. He gave their donkeys fodder.",
      "25": "They prepared the gift for Joseph, who was coming at noon, because they heard that they would be eating bread there.",
      "26": "When Joseph came home, they presented him with the gift that they had brought to the house, and they bowed down to the ground in front of him.",
      "27": "He asked them about their welfare: “Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?”",
      "28": "They said, “Your servant, our father, is well. He is still alive.” They bowed down and prostrated themselves.",
      "29": "Joseph looked up and saw Benjamin, his brother, his mother’s son, and he asked, “Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about?” He said, “God be gracious to you, my son.”",
      "30": "Joseph hurried out, because he was overcome by his emotions over his brother, and he looked for a place to weep. He went into his room and wept there.",
      "31": "Then he washed his face and came out. After he regained control of himself, he said, “Serve the meal.”",
      "32": "They served Joseph by himself, the brothers by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians do not eat with Hebrews, for that is repulsive to the Egyptians.",
      "33": "The brothers were seated in front of him. They were lined up in order, starting with the firstborn based on his birthright down to the youngest based on his youth, and the men expressed their amazement to each other.",
      "34": "He sent servings to them from his table, but Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs. They were drinking and they were feeling the effects."
    },
    "44": {
      "1": "Joseph commanded the manager of his house, “Fill the men’s bags with food, as much as they can carry. Put each man’s money into the mouth of his bag.",
      "2": "Put my cup, the silver cup, into the mouth of the bag of the youngest, along with his money for the grain.” The manager did exactly what Joseph told him to do.",
      "3": "As soon as it became light in the morning, the men were sent on their way, with their donkeys.",
      "4": "When they had left the city and still were not very far away, Joseph said to his manager, “Get up. Pursue those men. When you overtake them, ask them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good?",
      "5": "Isn’t this the cup that my lord drinks from and that he uses for divination? By doing this you have done evil.’”",
      "6": "The steward caught up to them and spoke those words to them.",
      "7": "They replied to him, “Why does my lord say such things? Your servants would never do such a thing!",
      "8": "That money, which we found in the mouths of our bags—we brought it back to you from the land of Canaan. Why then would we steal silver or gold out of your lord’s house?",
      "9": "If your cup is found with any of your servants, let him die, and we also will be my lord’s slaves.”",
      "10": "He said, “Fine, it will be just as you have said. If it is found with anyone, he will be my slave, and the rest of you will be blameless.”",
      "11": "Then each man quickly lowered his bag to the ground, and each man opened his bag.",
      "12": "The manager searched, beginning with the oldest and finishing with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin’s bag.",
      "13": "Then they tore their clothing, and each man loaded his donkey and returned to the city.",
      "14": "When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, he was still there. They fell to the ground before him.",
      "15": "Joseph said to them, “What did you think you were doing? Didn’t you know that a man like me can discover things by divination?”",
      "16": "Judah said, “What can we tell my lord? What can we say? How can we clear ourselves? God has exposed the guilt of your servants. Here we are. We are my lord’s slaves, both we and the one in whose hand the cup was found.”",
      "17": "Joseph said, “I would never do that. The man in whose hand the cup was found will be my slave, but as for the rest of you, go up in peace to your father.”",
      "18": "Then Judah approached him and said, “O my lord, please let your servant speak to my lord directly. Do not let your anger burn against your servant, because you are just like Pharaoh.",
      "19": "My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’",
      "20": "We said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a child from his old age, a young one. His brother is dead, and he alone is left from his mother, and his father loves him.’",
      "21": "You said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, so that I may see him with my own eyes.’",
      "22": "We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he were to leave his father, his father would die.’",
      "23": "You said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will never see my face again.’",
      "24": "And so it was that when we came to your servant, my father, we told him about the words of my lord.",
      "25": "Our father said, ‘Go again. Buy us a little food.’",
      "26": "We said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, we will go down, because we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’",
      "27": "Your servant, my father, said to us, ‘You know that my wife gave birth to two sons for me.",
      "28": "The one has departed from me and I said, “I am sure he is torn to pieces,” and I have not seen him since.",
      "29": "If you take this one away from me as well, and mishap comes upon him, you will bring my gray hairs down to the grave with sorrow.’",
      "30": "So now when I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, since my father’s life is bound up in the boy’s life,",
      "31": "when he sees that the boy is no more, he will die. Your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, to the grave with sorrow.",
      "32": "For your servant became a guarantee for the boy to my father. I said, ‘If I do not bring him to you, then I will bear the blame before my father forever.’",
      "33": "So please let your servant stay as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go up with his brothers.",
      "34": "For how can I go up to my father if the boy is not with me? How could I stand to see the evil that will come on my father?”"
    },
    "45": {
      "1": "Joseph was unable to control himself in front of all his attendants, so he called out, “Send everyone out from my presence!” When no one else was left with him, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers.",
      "2": "He wept out loud. The Egyptians heard him, and the house of Pharaoh heard about it.",
      "3": "Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?”\nHis brothers could not answer him, because they were terrified by his presence.",
      "4": "Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me, please.”\nThey came closer. He said, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.",
      "5": "Now do not be upset or angry with yourselves for selling me to this place, since God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.",
      "6": "For two years now the famine has been in the land, and there are still five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.",
      "7": "God sent me ahead of you to preserve you as survivors on the earth, and to keep you alive by a great act of deliverance.",
      "8": "So it was not you who sent me here, but God, and he has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord over his entire household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.",
      "9": "Hurry, go up to my father and tell him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: “God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me. Do not delay.",
      "10": "You shall live in the land of Goshen, where you will be close to me—you, your children, your grandchildren, your flocks, your herds, and all that you have.",
      "11": "I will take care of you here, for there are still five years of famine. Otherwise you will come to ruin, you, and your household, and all that you have.”’",
      "12": "Pay attention. Your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my mouth that speaks to you.",
      "13": "You shall tell my father all about my position of honor in Egypt and about everything that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.”",
      "14": "He threw his arms around his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his shoulder.",
      "15": "He kissed all his brothers and wept over them. After that his brothers talked with him.",
      "16": "This report was heard in Pharaoh’s house: “Joseph’s brothers have come.” This pleased Pharaoh and his officials.",
      "17": "Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Tell your brothers, ‘Load your animals. Travel quickly to the land of Canaan.",
      "18": "Get your father and your households, and return to me, and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the rich food of the land.",
      "19": "Now I command you to do this: Take carts from the land of Egypt for your little ones and your wives, and bring your father here.",
      "20": "Also, do not worry about your belongings, for the best of the whole land of Egypt is yours.’”",
      "21": "So that is what the sons of Israel did. Joseph gave them carts as Pharaoh had commanded, and he gave them supplies for the journey.",
      "22": "He gave each one of them a change of clothing, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five changes of clothing.",
      "23": "He sent the following to his father: ten donkeys loaded with the best things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and supplies for his father on the journey.",
      "24": "So he dismissed his brothers, and they departed. He said to them, “See to it that you do not quarrel on the way.”",
      "25": "They went up from Egypt and came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan.",
      "26": "They told him, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” He was stunned because he did not believe them.",
      "27": "They told Jacob every word that Joseph had said to them. When he saw the carts that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived.",
      "28": "Israel said, “It is enough. Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”"
    },
    "46": {
      "1": "Israel traveled with all that he had until he came to Beersheba, where he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.",
      "2": "God called to Israel in a vision at night, “Jacob, Jacob!”\nJacob said, “I am here.”",
      "3": "He said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation.",
      "4": "I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will certainly bring you back again. And Joseph’s hand will close your eyes.”",
      "5": "Jacob set out from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel transported Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives in the carts that Pharaoh had sent to transport him.",
      "6": "They took their livestock and their property that they had acquired in the land of Canaan and came into Egypt—Jacob, and all his offspring with him,",
      "7": "his sons and his grandsons, his daughters and his granddaughters. So he brought all his offspring with him into Egypt.",
      "8": "These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt, that is, Jacob and his sons:\nReuben was Jacob’s firstborn.",
      "9": "The sons of Reuben were Hanoch,\nPallu, Hezron, and Carmi.",
      "10": "The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and\nShaul, the son of a Canaanite woman.",
      "11": "The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.",
      "12": "The sons of Judah were Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah, but Er\nand Onan had died in the land of Canaan. The sons of Perez were\nHezron and Hamul.",
      "13": "The sons of Issachar were Tola, Puvah, Iob, and Shimron.",
      "14": "The sons of Zebulun were Sered, Elon, and Jahle’el.",
      "15": "Those are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan\nAram, along with his daughter Dinah. The total number of souls of\nhis sons and his daughters was thirty-three.",
      "16": "The sons of Gad were Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi,\nand Areli.",
      "17": "The sons of Asher were Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and Serah\ntheir sister. The sons of Beriah were Heber and Malchiel.",
      "18": "Those are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah, his\ndaughter, and Zilpah bore these to Jacob, a total of sixteen souls.",
      "19": "The sons of Rachel, Jacob’s wife, were Joseph and Benjamin.",
      "20": "Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph in the land of Egypt.\nAsenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, gave birth to them.",
      "21": "The sons of Benjamin were Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Na’aman,\nEhi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard.",
      "22": "These are the sons of\nRachel, who were born to Jacob. The total was fourteen souls.",
      "23": "The son of Dan was Hushim.",
      "24": "The sons of Naphtali were Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem.",
      "25": "These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel,\nhis daughter, and these she bore to Jacob. The total was seven souls.",
      "26": "The total number of souls who came with Jacob into Egypt, who were his direct descendants, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, was sixty-six.",
      "27": "The sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls.\nThe total number of the souls in the house of Jacob who came into Egypt was seventy.",
      "28": "Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to lead the way to Goshen. And so they arrived in the land of Goshen.",
      "29": "Joseph prepared his chariot and went to meet Israel his father in Goshen. He approached him, hugged him, and wept on his shoulder for a long time.",
      "30": "Israel said to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen you face-to-face and you are still alive.”",
      "31": "Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s family, “I will go up and speak with Pharaoh. I will tell him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me.",
      "32": "These men are shepherds. They make their living taking care of livestock, and they have brought with them their flocks and their herds, and all that they have.’",
      "33": "This is what you should say when Pharaoh summons you and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’",
      "34": "You shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers.’ Ask for the right to live in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is repulsive to the Egyptians.”"
    },
    "47": {
      "1": "Then Joseph went and told Pharaoh, “My father and my brothers have come from the land of Canaan with their flocks, their herds, and all that they own, and now they are in the land of Goshen.”",
      "2": "He took five of his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh.",
      "3": "Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?”\nThey answered Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, both we and our fathers.”",
      "4": "They said to Pharaoh, “We have come to reside as aliens in the land, for your servants have no pasture for their flocks, because the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.”",
      "5": "Pharaoh responded to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you.",
      "6": "The land of Egypt is open to you. Arrange for your father and your brothers to dwell in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen. If you know any capable men among them, then put them in charge of my livestock.”",
      "7": "Joseph brought Jacob his father and presented him to Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.",
      "8": "Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days and the years of your life?”",
      "9": "Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days and the years of my wandering are one hundred thirty years. The days and the years of my life have been few and full of trouble, and they have not been as many as the days and the years of the lives of my fathers during the days of their wandering.”",
      "10": "Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from the presence of Pharaoh.",
      "11": "Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them property in the land of Egypt, in the best part of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.",
      "12": "Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all of his father’s household with food, based on the number in their families.",
      "13": "There was no food in all the land because the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan grew weak because of the famine.",
      "14": "Joseph collected all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan as payment for the grain that they purchased, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s palace.",
      "15": "When all the money in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan had been spent, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us bread, for why should we die right in front of your eyes? Look, our money is running out.”",
      "16": "So Joseph said, “Give me your livestock, and I will give you food for your livestock if your money is gone.”",
      "17": "They brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the donkeys. He supplied them with food for that year in exchange for all their livestock.",
      "18": "When that year was ended, they came to him during the second year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord the fact that our money is all spent, and the herds of livestock belong to my lord. My lord can see that we have nothing left but our bodies and our lands.",
      "19": "Why should we die right in front of your eyes, both we and our land? Purchase us and our land in exchange for bread, and we along with our land will serve Pharaoh. Give us seed, so that we may live and not die, so that the land will not be desolate.”",
      "20": "So Joseph purchased all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh, because every man among the Egyptians sold his field, because the famine had them in its grip, and the land became Pharaoh’s.",
      "21": "As for the people, he made them all servants from one end of the territory of Egypt all the way to the other end of it.",
      "22": "The land that belonged to the priests was the only land that he did not purchase, because the priests had a regular allotment from Pharaoh and ate from the allotment that Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.",
      "23": "Then Joseph said to the people, “Since I have purchased you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you to sow the land.",
      "24": "This is what you shall do at the harvests: Give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths will be your own share, which you can use as seed to sow the field and as food for yourselves, for everyone in your household, and for your little ones.”",
      "25": "They said, “You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants.”",
      "26": "Joseph made it a regulation concerning the farmland in Egypt to this day, that Pharaoh should receive a fifth of the produce. Only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh’s.",
      "27": "Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and they acquired possessions for themselves there. They were fruitful and multiplied greatly.",
      "28": "Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were one hundred forty-seven years.",
      "29": "The time drew near that Israel must die, so he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, please put your hand under my thigh and deal kindly and truthfully with me. Please do not bury me in Egypt,",
      "30": "but when I rest with my fathers, you are to carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.”\nHe said, “I will do as you have said.”",
      "31": "He said, “Swear to me,” and he swore to him. Israel bowed himself on the head post of the bed."
    },
    "48": {
      "1": "Sometime after these things Joseph was told, “Come right away. Your father is sick.” So he took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with him.",
      "2": "Jacob was told, “Look, your son Joseph is coming to you,” so Israel gathered his strength and sat up on the bed.",
      "3": "Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me.",
      "4": "He said to me, ‘I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make you into a community of peoples, and I will give this land to your descendants after you as a permanent possession.’",
      "5": "Now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, will be counted as mine. Ephraim and Manasseh will count as my sons the same as Reuben and Simeon.",
      "6": "Your sons that you father after them will count as your own. For receiving their inheritance they will be registered under the name of their brothers.",
      "7": "As for me, when I came back from Paddan, to my loss Rachel died on the journey in the land of Canaan when we were still some distance from Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).”",
      "8": "Israel saw Joseph’s sons and asked, “Who are these boys?”",
      "9": "Joseph said to his father, “They are my sons, whom God has given me here.”\nIsrael said, “Please bring them to me, and I will bless them.”",
      "10": "Now the eyes of Israel were failing because of his age, and he could not see. Joseph brought the boys close to Jacob, and he kissed them and embraced them.",
      "11": "Israel said to Joseph, “I did not think I would see your face, but now God has let me see your offspring also.”",
      "12": "Joseph moved them from Jacob’s lap, and he bowed down with his face to the ground.",
      "13": "Joseph led them both. He led Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them close to him.",
      "14": "But Israel, crossing his hands, stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, though Manasseh was the firstborn.",
      "15": "He blessed Joseph and said,\nMay the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,\nthe God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,",
      "16": "the Angel who has redeemed me from all evil,\nbless these lads,\nand let my name be placed on them,\nand the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac.\nLet them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.",
      "17": "When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, he was displeased. He held up his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head.",
      "18": "Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.”",
      "19": "His father refused and said, “I know, my son. I know. He also will become a people, and he also will be great. However, his younger brother will be greater than he, and his descendants will become a multitude of nations.”",
      "20": "He blessed them that day with these words: “Israel will pronounce a blessing using your name, saying, ‘May God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh.’” So he placed Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.",
      "21": "Israel said to Joseph, “You see that I am dying, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers.",
      "22": "In addition, I have given to you one share more than your brothers: the ridge of Shechem that I took out of the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.”"
    },
    "49": {
      "1": "Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather together, so that I can declare to you what will happen to you in the days to come.”",
      "2": "Assemble together, and listen to this, you sons of Jacob.\nListen to Israel, your father.",
      "3": "Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might,\nand the beginning of my vigor,\nexcelling in dignity and excelling in power.",
      "4": "Boiling over like water, you shall not excel,\nbecause you went up to your father’s bed,\nand you defiled it.\nHe went up to my couch!",
      "5": "Simeon and Levi are brothers.\nTheir daggers are weapons of violence.",
      "6": "My soul, do not enter their council.\nMy glory, do not join in their assembly.\nYes, in their anger they killed men.\nIn their spitefulness they hamstrung oxen.",
      "7": "Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce.\nCursed be their wrath, for it was cruel.\nI will divide them in Jacob.\nI will scatter them in Israel.",
      "8": "Judah, your brothers will praise you.\nYour hand will be on the throat of your enemies.\nYour father’s sons will bow down to you.",
      "9": "Judah is a lion’s cub.\nYou have gone up from the prey, my son.\nHe stooped down. He crouched like a lion.\nHe is like a lioness. Who will provoke him?",
      "10": "The scepter will not depart from Judah,\nnor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,\nuntil the one to whom it belongs comes.\nHe will receive the obedience of the peoples.",
      "11": "He will tie his foal to the vine,\nhis donkey’s colt to the choice vine.\nHe has washed his clothing in wine,\nhis garments in the blood of grapes.",
      "12": "His eyes will be darker than wine,\nhis teeth whiter than milk.",
      "13": "Zebulun will dwell at the seashore.\nHe will provide a landing place for ships.\nHis border will extend toward Sidon.",
      "14": "Issachar is a strong-boned donkey,\nlying down between the saddlebags.",
      "15": "He saw a resting place that was good.\nHe saw land that was pleasant.\nHe bows his shoulder under the burden\nand becomes a slave doing forced labor.",
      "16": "Dan will judge his people\nas one of the tribes of Israel.",
      "17": "Dan will be a snake in the way,\na viper in the path.\nIt bites the horse’s heels,\nso that its rider falls backward.",
      "18": "I have waited for your salvation, O Lord.",
      "19": "Raiders will attack Gad,\nbut he will attack their heels.",
      "20": "Asher’s food will be rich.\nHe will produce delicacies fit for a king.",
      "21": "Naphtali is a doe set free,\nthat bears beautiful fawns.",
      "22": "Joseph is a fruitful vine,\na fruitful vine by a spring.\nHis branches run over the wall.",
      "23": "The archers have fiercely attacked him.\nThey shot at him and harassed him,",
      "24": "but his bow remained steady.\nHis arms and hands were made strong\nby the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,\nby the name of the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel,",
      "25": "by the God of your father, who will help you,\nby the Almighty, who will bless you\nwith blessings from heaven above,\nblessings from the deep that lies below,\nblessings from the breasts and from the womb.",
      "26": "The blessings of your father are greater than the blessings of\n    my parents,\ngreater than the treasures of the ancient hills.\nThey will rest on the head of Joseph,\non the forehead of him who is elevated above his brothers.",
      "27": "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf.\nIn the morning he will devour the prey.\nAt evening he will divide the spoils.",
      "28": "All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them when he blessed them. He blessed each one with the appropriate blessing.",
      "29": "He instructed them and said to them, “I am going to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,",
      "30": "in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah, which is near Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham purchased along with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a burial place.",
      "31": "There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah.",
      "32": "The field and the cave that is in it was purchased from the descendants of Heth.”",
      "33": "When Jacob finished instructing his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, breathed his last breath, and was gathered to his people."
    },
    "50": {
      "1": "Joseph put his face against his father’s face, wept over him, and kissed him.",
      "2": "Joseph commanded the physicians who served him to embalm his father, so the physicians embalmed Israel.",
      "3": "Forty days were set aside for him, for that is how many days it takes to embalm. The Egyptians mourned for him for seventy days.",
      "4": "When the days of mourning for Jacob were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh. He said, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak directly to Pharaoh for me and say",
      "5": "that my father made me take an oath. He said to me, ‘Look, I am dying. Bury me in my tomb that I have dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will return here again.”",
      "6": "Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, just as he made you swear to do.”",
      "7": "Joseph went up to bury his father, and all the officials of Pharaoh went up with him: the senior officials of Pharaoh’s household, all the elders of the land of Egypt,",
      "8": "all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen.",
      "9": "Both chariots and horsemen went up with him. It was a very great entourage.",
      "10": "They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is on the other side of the Jordan, and there they mourned with a very loud and bitter lament. Joseph mourned for his father seven days.",
      "11": "When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, witnessed the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a very solemn mourning by the Egyptians.” That is why they named the place Abel Mizraim. It is beyond the Jordan.",
      "12": "His sons did for him just what he commanded them to do:",
      "13": "They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field at Machpelah, which Abraham had purchased along with the field. He purchased it from Ephron the Hittite, as a piece of property for a burial site near Mamre.",
      "14": "After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt—he and his brothers, and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.",
      "15": "When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and will pay us back in full for all of the evil that we did to him.”",
      "16": "They sent the following message to Joseph: “Before he died your father commanded us,",
      "17": "‘You are to tell Joseph, “Please forgive the offense of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ Now, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father.”\nJoseph wept when they spoke to him.",
      "18": "His brothers also came and fell down in front of him, and they said, “See now, we are your servants.”",
      "19": "Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?",
      "20": "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring this to pass and to keep many people alive, as it is this day.",
      "21": "Now therefore, do not be afraid. I will nourish you and your little ones.” He comforted them and spoke to them in a kind way.",
      "22": "Joseph lived in Egypt, he and his father’s household. Joseph lived one hundred ten years.",
      "23": "He saw Ephraim’s children to the third generation. The children also of Makir, the son of Manasseh, were placed on Joseph’s knees when they were born.",
      "24": "Joseph said to his brothers, “I am dying, but God will surely visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”",
      "25": "Joseph made the descendants of Israel swear an oath. He said, “God will surely visit you. Then you shall carry my bones up from here.”",
      "26": "So Joseph died when he was one hundred ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt."
    }
  },
  "Exodus": {
    "1": {
      "1": "These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt. Each man and his household went with Jacob:",
      "2": "Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,",
      "3": "Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,",
      "4": "Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.",
      "5": "The total number of Jacob’s descendants was seventy people. (Joseph was already in Egypt.)",
      "6": "Then Joseph died, as did all his brothers and that entire generation.",
      "7": "However, the Israelites were fruitful, multiplied quickly, increased in number, and became very numerous. So the land was filled with them.",
      "8": "Then a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.",
      "9": "He said to his people, “Look, the Israelites are more numerous and more powerful than we are.",
      "10": "Let’s come up with a wise plan to prevent them from increasing in number. Otherwise, if war breaks out, they would join with our enemies and fight against us. Then they would leave the land.”",
      "11": "So the Egyptians placed taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. The Israelites built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.",
      "12": "But the more the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites, the more they increased in number, and the more they spread out. The Egyptians were filled with dread because of them.",
      "13": "So the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites by forcing them to work very hard.",
      "14": "The Egyptians made the Israelites’ lives bitter with hard work, with brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. The Egyptians were merciless in the way they imposed work on the Israelites.",
      "15": "The king of Egypt also spoke to the Hebrew midwives. One of them was named Shiphrah and the other Puah.",
      "16": "He said, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, while they are still on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a son, you are to kill him, but if you see that it is a daughter, let her live.”",
      "17": "The midwives, however, feared God, so they did not do what the king of Egypt told them to do, but they let the boys live.",
      "18": "The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why did you do this and let the boys live?”",
      "19": "The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are vigorous, so they give birth before the midwife comes to them.”",
      "20": "So God treated the midwives well. The people also increased in number and became very numerous.",
      "21": "Because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.",
      "22": "Pharaoh, however, commanded all his people, “Every son who is born you shall throw into the Nile, but every daughter you shall let live.”"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Now a man from the house of Levi went and took a Levite woman as a wife.",
      "2": "The woman became pregnant and bore a son. When she saw that he was a special child, she hid him for three months.",
      "3": "When she was no longer able to hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it in the reeds along the bank of the Nile.",
      "4": "His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.",
      "5": "Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the bank of the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant girl to get it.",
      "6": "She opened it and saw the child. It was a boy, and he was crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”",
      "7": "Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a wet nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”",
      "8": "Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes, go.”\nSo the young woman went and called the child’s mother to come.",
      "9": "Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay you for doing it.”\nSo the woman took the child and nursed him.",
      "10": "When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, with the explanation, “Because I drew him up out of the water.”",
      "11": "After some time, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his own people.",
      "12": "After he looked this way and that, and he saw that no one was there, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.",
      "13": "The next day when he went out, he came upon two Hebrew men who were fighting. He said to the one in the wrong, “Why were you striking your fellow Hebrew?”",
      "14": "The man said, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Are you planning to kill me just as you killed the Egyptian?”\nMoses was afraid and thought, “What I have done has definitely become known.”",
      "15": "When Pharaoh heard what Moses had done, he sought to kill Moses. Moses, however, fled from Pharaoh’s presence and went to live in the land of Midian. There he sat down by a well.",
      "16": "Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and started drawing water. They filled the troughs to water their father’s flock,",
      "17": "but some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses, however, stood up and helped them. He then watered their flock.",
      "18": "When the daughters came to Reuel, their father, he said, “Why have you returned so early today?”",
      "19": "They said, “An Egyptian man rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”",
      "20": "Reuel said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why have you left the man there? Invite him to have something to eat.”",
      "21": "Moses agreed to stay with the man. The man gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses as a wife.",
      "22": "She gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, for he said, “I have become an alien living in a foreign land.”",
      "23": "After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their slavery. They cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.",
      "24": "So God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.",
      "25": "God saw the people of Israel, and God watched over them."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Now Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, a priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.",
      "2": "The Angel of the Lord appeared to him in blazing fire from within a bush. Moses saw that the bush was on fire, but the bush was not burning up.",
      "3": "So he said, “I will go over and look at this amazing sight—to find out why the bush is not burning up.”",
      "4": "When the Lord saw that Moses had gone over to take a look, God called to him from the middle of the bush and said, “Moses! Moses!”\nMoses said, “I am here.”",
      "5": "The Lord said, “Do not come any closer. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”",
      "6": "He then said, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”\nMoses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.",
      "7": "The Lord said, “I have certainly seen the misery of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry for help because of their slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering.",
      "8": "So I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.",
      "9": "Now indeed, the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me. Yes, I have seen how the Egyptians are oppressing them.",
      "10": "Come now, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”",
      "11": "But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”",
      "12": "So he said, “I will certainly be with you. This will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will serve God on this mountain.”",
      "13": "But Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I say to them?”",
      "14": "So God replied to Moses, “I am who I am.” He also said, “You will say this to the Israelites: I am has sent me to you.”",
      "15": "God also told Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.’",
      "16": "“Go, gather the elders of Israel together and tell them: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying: I have certainly been paying attention to you and to what they have done to you in Egypt.",
      "17": "So I have said that I will bring you up from the misery in Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.’",
      "18": "“They will listen to your voice. Then you and the elders of Israel will go to the king of Egypt, and you will say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now let us go on a three-day journey into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord, our God.’",
      "19": "“But I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless he is forced to do so by a powerful hand.",
      "20": "So I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in their midst. Afterward he will let you go.",
      "21": "“I will give this people favor with the Egyptians so that when you go, you will not go out empty-handed.",
      "22": "Each woman is to ask her neighbor, as well as any woman staying in her house, for articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. You are to put them on your sons and daughters. In this way you will plunder the Egyptians.”"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "But Moses responded, “What if they do not believe me and do not listen to my voice, but instead they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’?”",
      "2": "So the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”\nHe said, “A staff.”",
      "3": "He said, “Throw it on the ground.”\nMoses threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, so he ran away from it.",
      "4": "The Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand and take it by the tail.”\nHe stretched out his hand and took hold of it, and it became a staff in his hand.",
      "5": "The Lord said, “This sign is being given to you so that the Israelites will believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”",
      "6": "The Lord also said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was leprous, as white as snow.",
      "7": "Then the Lord said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak again, and when he took it out of his cloak, it was restored like the rest of his flesh.",
      "8": "The Lord said, “If they do not believe you or do not respond to the first sign, they might believe because of the second sign.",
      "9": "If they do not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you are to take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry land. The water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry land.”",
      "10": "But Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, either in the past or more recently or even since you started speaking to your servant, for my mouth and tongue are slow and clumsy.”",
      "11": "So the Lord said to him, “Who made a mouth for people? Or who makes someone mute or deaf, able to see or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?",
      "12": "Now go, and I will be with your mouth, and I will teach you what you will speak.”",
      "13": "But he said, “Please, Lord, send someone else.”",
      "14": "Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, and the Lord said, “What about Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Look, he is already coming out to meet you. He will be very glad to see you.",
      "15": "You will speak to him and put the words into his mouth. I will be with your mouth and with his, and I will teach you what you are to do.",
      "16": "He will speak to the people for you so that it will be as if he were your mouth, and you were God to him.",
      "17": "You will also take this staff in your hand, the one with which you will perform the signs.”",
      "18": "Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Let me go and return to my own people, who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive.”\nJethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”",
      "19": "The Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return to Egypt, for everyone who wanted to kill you is dead.”",
      "20": "So Moses took his wife and his sons, placed them on a donkey, and set out to return to the land of Egypt. Moses took the staff of God in his hand.",
      "21": "The Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, make sure that you perform in the presence of Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put into your hand. However, I will make his heart hard, and he will not let the people go.",
      "22": "You will then say to Pharaoh, ‘The Lord says: Israel is my son, my firstborn,",
      "23": "and I have said to you, “Let my son go to serve me,” but you have refused to let him go. Watch out. I will kill your son, your firstborn.’”",
      "24": "At a lodging place along the way, the Lord confronted him and sought to kill him.",
      "25": "Then Zipporah took a flint blade, cut off her son’s foreskin, and cast it at his feet. Then she said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”",
      "26": "So the Lord left him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)",
      "27": "The Lord had said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.”\nSo he went, met Moses at the mountain of God, and kissed him.",
      "28": "Moses told Aaron all the words that the Lord had sent him to speak and all the signs he had commanded him to perform.",
      "29": "Moses and Aaron then went and gathered together every elder of the people of Israel.",
      "30": "Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses and performed the signs in the sight of the people.",
      "31": "The people believed. When they heard that the Lord had paid attention to the Israelites and that he had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Let my people go so that they may hold a festival for me in the wilderness.”",
      "2": "Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should listen to his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and I certainly will not let Israel go.”",
      "3": "They said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go on a three-day journey into the wilderness, and let us sacrifice to the Lord, our God, so that he does not strike us with plague or sword.”",
      "4": "But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their work? Get back to your forced labor!”",
      "5": "Pharaoh also said, “Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from doing their forced labor.”",
      "6": "That same day Pharaoh commanded the people’s taskmasters and overseers,",
      "7": "“Do not give the people straw for making bricks anymore. Let them go and gather their own straw.",
      "8": "But require them to make the same number of bricks as they made before. Do not reduce it. You see, they are lazy. That is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’",
      "9": "Make the work harder for the people so that they do their work and do not pay attention to lying words.”",
      "10": "So the people’s taskmasters and overseers went out and told the people, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you straw.",
      "11": "Go, get straw for yourselves wherever you can find it. But there will be no reduction at all in your work load.’”",
      "12": "So the people scattered all over the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.",
      "13": "The taskmasters kept insisting, “Fulfill your daily quota just as you did when straw was provided!”",
      "14": "The overseers, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had placed over the Israelites, were beaten. The taskmasters demanded, “Why have you not fulfilled your quota yesterday and today, as you did previously?”",
      "15": "Then the Israelite overseers came and cried out to Pharaoh, “Why are you doing this to your servants?",
      "16": "No straw is given to your servants, yet they tell us, ‘Make bricks!’ Look, your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people.”",
      "17": "But he said, “Lazy! You are lazy! That is why you are saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’",
      "18": "Now go! Get to work! Straw will not be provided to you, but you will deliver the same quota of bricks!”",
      "19": "The Israelite overseers realized that they were in trouble when Pharaoh said, “You must not reduce anything from your daily number of bricks!”",
      "20": "When they left Pharaoh, they met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting to meet them.",
      "21": "They said to Moses and Aaron, “May the Lord look at you and judge you, because you have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword into their hand to kill us.”",
      "22": "So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why did you send me?",
      "23": "Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "The Lord said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. Because of a mighty hand he will send them away, and because of a mighty hand he will drive them out of his land.”",
      "2": "Then God spoke to Moses, telling him, “I am the Lord.",
      "3": "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name, the Lord, I was not known to them.",
      "4": "I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land where they were residing as aliens.",
      "5": "I certainly have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians have enslaved, and I have remembered my covenant.",
      "6": "“Therefore, tell the Israelites, ‘I am the Lord. I will bring you out from under the forced labor of the Egyptians. I will deliver you from being their slaves. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.",
      "7": "I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, the one who brought you out from under the forced labor of the Egyptians.",
      "8": "I will bring you to the land which I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’”",
      "9": "Moses spoke these words to the Israelites, but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and because of the hard labor.",
      "10": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "11": "“Go, tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to let the Israelites go from his land.”",
      "12": "But Moses said in the Lord’s presence, “Look, the Israelites have not listened to me. Why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I am a poor speaker?”",
      "13": "The Lord again spoke to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites and about Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He commanded them to bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.",
      "14": "These were the heads of their fathers’ houses:\nThe sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, were Hanoch and\nPallu, Hezron and Carmi. These were the founders of the clans\nof Reuben.",
      "15": "The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar,\nand Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. These were the\nfounders of the clans of Simeon.",
      "16": "These were the names of the sons of Levi according to their family records: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.",
      "17": "The sons of Gershon were Libni and Shimei. They were founders of clans.",
      "18": "The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. Kohath lived 133 years.",
      "19": "The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi.\nThese were the clans of the Levites according to their family records.",
      "20": "Amram married Jochebed, his father’s sister, and she gave birth\nto Aaron and Moses for him. Amram lived 137 years.",
      "21": "The sons of Izhar were Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri.",
      "22": "The sons of Uzziel were Mishael, Elzaphan, and Sithri.",
      "23": "Aaron married Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and the\nsister of Nahshon, and she gave birth to Nadab and Abihu,\nEleazar and Ithamar for him.",
      "24": "The sons of Korah were Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph. These\nwere the founders of the clans of the Korahites.",
      "25": "Eleazar, the son of Aaron, married one of the daughters of Putiel,\nand she gave birth to Phinehas for him.\nThese were the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites that had become clans.",
      "26": "These were the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, “Bring out the Israelites from the land of Egypt according to their divisions.”",
      "27": "These were the same ones who spoke to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, in order to bring the Israelites out from Egypt. These were that same Moses and Aaron.",
      "28": "On the day that the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt,",
      "29": "the Lord said to him, “I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, everything that I tell you.”",
      "30": "But Moses said in the Lord’s presence, “You see, I am a poor speaker. Why would Pharaoh listen to me?”"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "The Lord said to Moses, “Look, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet.",
      "2": "You are to speak everything that I command you, and Aaron your brother is to speak to Pharaoh, so that he will let the Israelites go out from his land.",
      "3": "But I will make Pharaoh’s heart stubborn. I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.",
      "4": "Pharaoh will not listen to you, so I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my divisions, my people the Israelites, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.",
      "5": "The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand over Egypt, and I bring out the Israelites from their midst.”",
      "6": "This is what Moses and Aaron did. Just as the Lord commanded them, that is exactly what they did.",
      "7": "Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.",
      "8": "The Lord said to Moses and to Aaron,",
      "9": "“When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Give us a warning sign,’ then you are to tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down in front of Pharaoh, and it will become a snake.’”",
      "10": "Then Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh. They did just as the Lord had commanded. Aaron threw down his staff in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake.",
      "11": "But then Pharaoh also called for his wise men and sorcerers. Those magicians of Egypt did the same thing by their occult practices.",
      "12": "They each threw down their staffs, and those staffs became snakes. However, Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.",
      "13": "But Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.",
      "14": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding. He refuses to let the people go.",
      "15": "Go to Pharaoh in the morning. When he goes out by the water, stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him. Take in your hand the staff that was turned into a snake.",
      "16": "“You are to tell him: ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you. He says, “Let my people go so that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But look, until now you have not listened.",
      "17": "So this is what the Lord says: “In this way, you will know that I am the Lord.” Look! With the staff that is in my hand, I will strike the water in the Nile, and it will be turned to blood.",
      "18": "The fish that are in the Nile will die, and the Nile will stink. The Egyptians will not be able to drink water from the Nile.’”",
      "19": "The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff, and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over its rivers, its streams, its ponds, and all the reservoirs—and they will become blood. There will be blood in the entire land of Egypt, even in containers made of wood and stone.’”",
      "20": "Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and his officials, Aaron lifted up the staff and struck the water that was in the Nile. All the water in the Nile was turned to blood.",
      "21": "The fish that were in the river died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians were not able to drink water from the Nile. There was blood in the entire land of Egypt.",
      "22": "But the magicians of Egypt did the same thing by their occult practices. So Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had told them.",
      "23": "Pharaoh turned and went to his palace. He did not take to heart even this.",
      "24": "All the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink, because they were not able to drink the water from the Nile.",
      "25": "Seven days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, and tell him that this is what the Lord says: Let my people go so that they may serve me.",
      "2": "If you refuse to let them go, watch out. I will send a plague of frogs on your entire territory.",
      "3": "The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up and enter into your palace, into your bedroom, onto your bed, into your servants’ houses, on your people, into your ovens, and into your kneading troughs.",
      "4": "The frogs will come up on you, your people, and all your servants.”",
      "5": "The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, streams, and ponds, and bring frogs up onto the land of Egypt.’”",
      "6": "So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt. The frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt.",
      "7": "But the magicians did the same thing by their occult practices and brought frogs up onto the land of Egypt.",
      "8": "Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Plead with the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let the people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”",
      "9": "Moses said to Pharaoh, “I give you the honor of setting the time when I should plead for you, your servants, and your people so that the Lord will rid you and your houses of the frogs. They will remain only in the Nile.”",
      "10": "Pharaoh said, “Tomorrow.”\nMoses replied, “It will take place just as you have said, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God.",
      "11": "The frogs will leave you and your houses, your servants, and your people. They will remain only in the Nile.”",
      "12": "Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs, which he had brought upon Pharaoh.",
      "13": "The Lord did as Moses said: The frogs from the houses, courtyards, and fields died.",
      "14": "The people piled them up into heaps, and the land stank.",
      "15": "But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he made his heart unyielding and did not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.",
      "16": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron: ‘Stretch out your staff, and strike the dust of the ground, and it will become lice in the entire land of Egypt.’”",
      "17": "They did so. When Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the ground, there were lice on the people and animals. All the dust of the ground became lice in the entire land of Egypt.",
      "18": "The magicians tried to produce lice by their occult practices, but they could not. So there were lice on the people and on the animals.",
      "19": "The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.",
      "20": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh as he is going out to the water. Tell him this is what the Lord says: Let my people go so that they may serve me.",
      "21": "For if you will not let my people go, watch out. I will send swarms of flies on you, your servants, and your people, and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies. They will even cover the ground.",
      "22": "But on that day, I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people are living. There will not be swarms of flies in Goshen. In this way, you will know that I am the Lord on the earth.",
      "23": "I will make a distinction between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign will take place.”",
      "24": "So that is what the Lord did. Thick swarms of flies went into Pharaoh’s palace and his officials’ houses. Throughout Egypt, the land was ruined because of the swarms of flies.",
      "25": "Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, offer sacrifices to your God in the land!”",
      "26": "But Moses said, “It is not right to do that, because the sacrifices which we will offer to the Lord our God would be detestable to the Egyptians. If we offer sacrifices that are detestable to the Egyptians right in front of them, won’t they stone us?",
      "27": "We will go on a three-day journey into the wilderness and offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, just as he tells us.”",
      "28": "Pharaoh said, “I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the wilderness, but do not go very far away. Plead for me.”",
      "29": "Moses said, “All right. As soon as I leave you, I will plead to the Lord so that tomorrow the swarms of flies will depart from Pharaoh, his servants, and his people. Only do not let Pharaoh act deceitfully again by not letting the people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”",
      "30": "Moses went out from Pharaoh and pleaded to the Lord.",
      "31": "The Lord did as Moses said, and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, his servants, and his people. Not a fly remained.",
      "32": "Pharaoh made his heart unyielding this time also, and he did not let the people go."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go so that they may serve me.",
      "2": "But if you refuse to let them go and keep holding them back,",
      "3": "watch out, because the hand of the Lord will bring a very severe disease on your livestock which is in the field. It will be on the horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks.",
      "4": "But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of the Egyptians so that not one of the Israelites’ livestock will die.’”",
      "5": "The Lord appointed a set time by saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this in the land.”",
      "6": "So the next day, that is what the Lord did, and all the livestock of the Egyptians died, but none of the livestock of the Israelites died.",
      "7": "Pharaoh checked and found out that not even one of the livestock of the Israelites had died. But Pharaoh’s heart was unyielding, and he did not let the people go.",
      "8": "Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from a kiln, and have Moses toss it toward the sky in the sight of Pharaoh.",
      "9": "It will become fine dust over the entire land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on people and animals in the entire land of Egypt.”",
      "10": "So they took soot from a kiln and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it toward the sky, and festering boils broke out on people and animals.",
      "11": "The magicians could not stand in front of Moses because of the boils, since the boils were on the magicians and all the Egyptians.",
      "12": "But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had said to Moses.",
      "13": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning. Present yourself to Pharaoh, and tell him that this is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go so that they may serve me.",
      "14": "For at this time I will send all my plagues against you yourself, your servants, and your people, so that you will know that there is no one like me in all the earth.",
      "15": "For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague so that you would have been wiped off the earth.",
      "16": "However, for this very reason, I caused you to stand: so that I could show you my power, and that my name would be made known over the entire earth.",
      "17": "You still are acting arrogantly against my people by not letting them go.",
      "18": "Watch out. At this time tomorrow I will rain down a very severe hailstorm, unlike any other in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.",
      "19": "Now give orders to bring your livestock and everything of yours that is in the open field into shelters. Every person and animal out in the open that is not brought inside will die when the hail falls down on them.”",
      "20": "Those among Pharaoh’s officials who feared the word of the Lord made their servants and livestock take refuge inside.",
      "21": "But those who did not take the word of the Lord to heart left their servants and livestock in the field.",
      "22": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, and let there be hail in the entire land of Egypt: on the people, on the animals, and on every plant in the field throughout the land of Egypt.”",
      "23": "Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, and the Lord sent thunder and hail. Lightning also flashed down to the ground. The Lord rained down hail upon the land of Egypt.",
      "24": "The hail, with lightning flashing through it, was very severe. Nothing like it had happened in the entire land of Egypt since it became a nation.",
      "25": "Throughout the entire land, the hail struck everything that was in the field, both people and animals. The hail also struck every plant in the field and shattered every tree in the field.",
      "26": "But in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were, there was no hail.",
      "27": "Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. He said to them, “I have sinned this time. The Lord is the one who is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.",
      "28": "Plead to the Lord, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you do not have to stay here any longer.”",
      "29": "Moses said to him, “When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will stop, and there will no longer be any hail, so that you may know that the earth belongs to the Lord.",
      "30": "But as for you and your officials, I know that you still do not fear the Lord God.”",
      "31": "(The flax and the barley were destroyed, because the barley was ripe and the flax was in bloom.",
      "32": "But the wheat and the spelt were not destroyed, because they ripen later.)",
      "33": "Moses went out from Pharaoh and from the city. He spread out his hands to the Lord. The thunder and hail stopped, and the rain no longer poured down on the ground.",
      "34": "But when Pharaoh saw that the rain, hail, and thunder had stopped, he sinned again. He and his officials made their hearts unyielding.",
      "35": "Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and he did not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have made his heart unyielding, and his officials’ hearts too, so that I may perform these signs of mine in their midst,",
      "2": "and so that you may tell your children and your grandchildren how harshly I dealt with Egypt and about my signs which I did among them. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”",
      "3": "Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go so that they may serve me.",
      "4": "But if you refuse to let my people go, watch out, because tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory.",
      "5": "They will cover the surface of the ground so that no one will be able to see the ground. The locusts will eat what little you have left after the hail. They will also eat every tree that you have growing in the field.",
      "6": "Your houses, your officials’ houses, and every Egyptian’s house will be filled with them, something neither your fathers nor your fathers’ fathers have seen, from the day that they settled in this land up to this day.” Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh.",
      "7": "Pharaoh’s officials said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go so that they may serve the Lord, their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?”",
      "8": "So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, serve the Lord your God. But who exactly would be going?”",
      "9": "Moses said, “We will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters. We will go with our flocks and herds, for we are celebrating a festival to the Lord.”",
      "10": "But he said to them, “May the Lord be with you if I would ever let you and your families go! I see you are determined to do evil.",
      "11": "No! The men may go and serve the Lord, for that is what you have been asking for!” Then they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.",
      "12": "So the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt so that locusts come up over the land and eat every plant in the land, everything left by the hail.”",
      "13": "Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord made an east wind blow over the land all that day and all through the night. When morning came, the east wind had brought the locusts.",
      "14": "The locusts came up over the entire land of Egypt and settled down in the entire territory of Egypt. There had never been such a large number of locusts before, and there would never be again.",
      "15": "They covered the surface of the ground so completely that the land was dark. They ate every plant of the land and all the fruit of the trees—everything left after the hail. Nothing green was left on the trees or on the plants in the field throughout the entire land of Egypt.",
      "16": "Then Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you.",
      "17": "Now please forgive my sin once more, and plead to the Lord your God so that he may also remove this death from me.”",
      "18": "So Moses went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord.",
      "19": "The Lord changed the wind to a very strong west wind. That wind lifted up the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not one locust remained in the entire territory of Egypt.",
      "20": "But the Lord made Pharaoh’s heart hard, and he did not let the Israelites go.",
      "21": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness that can be felt.”",
      "22": "Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in the entire land of Egypt for three days.",
      "23": "No one could see anyone else, and for three days none of them moved from where they were. Yet all the Israelites had light where they lived.",
      "24": "Pharaoh called to Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord. Even your families may also go with you. But you must leave your flocks and herds behind.”",
      "25": "But Moses said, “You must also let us take sacrifices with us and burnt offerings to present to the Lord our God.",
      "26": "Our livestock must also go with us. Not a hoof is to be left behind, for we must take some of them to serve the Lord our God. We will not know, however, what we will need to serve the Lord until we get there.”",
      "27": "But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go.",
      "28": "Pharaoh said to Moses, “Get out of my sight! Make sure you do not see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you will die!”",
      "29": "Moses said, “Just as you have spoken: I will never see your face again.”"
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will certainly drive you completely out of here.",
      "2": "Now tell the people that both the men and the women are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold.”",
      "3": "(The Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Even the man Moses was highly regarded in the land of Egypt in the sight of Pharaoh’s officials and the people.)",
      "4": "So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says. About midnight I will go throughout Egypt,",
      "5": "and every firstborn in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, to the firstborn of the female slave who is behind the hand mill, even all the firstborn of the livestock.",
      "6": "There will be a loud outcry in the entire land of Egypt, unlike anything that happened before or anything that will take place again.",
      "7": "But among all the Israelites, not a dog will bark at a person or animal, so that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.",
      "8": "All these officials of yours will come and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you!’ After that, I will leave.” Then Moses, hot with anger, went out from Pharaoh.",
      "9": "The Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”",
      "10": "Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord made Pharaoh’s heart hard, and he did not let the Israelites go out of his land."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses and Aaron this in the land of Egypt:",
      "2": "This month is to be the beginning of your calendar. It is to be the first month of the year for you.",
      "3": "Tell the entire Israelite community that on the tenth day of this month, they are to take a lamb or a young goat for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, one lamb per household.",
      "4": "But if the household is too small for a whole lamb, then that person and his neighbor next door to him must select one, based on the number of people. Determine what size lamb is needed according to how much each person will eat.",
      "5": "Your lamb must be unblemished, a year-old male. You may take it from the sheep or the goats.",
      "6": "You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month. Then the whole assembly of the Israelite community is to slaughter the lambs at sunset.",
      "7": "They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat the lamb.",
      "8": "That night they shall eat the meat that has been roasted over a fire, along with unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs.",
      "9": "Do not eat it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over a fire—with its head, its legs, and its internal organs.",
      "10": "You shall not leave any of it until the morning. Whatever remains until the morning, you shall burn in the fire.",
      "11": "This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt ready for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.",
      "12": "For on that night I will pass through the land of Egypt. I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord.",
      "13": "The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. There will be no plague among you to destroy you when I strike down the land of Egypt.",
      "14": "This day shall be a memorial for you, and you are to celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. Throughout your generations you must celebrate it as a permanent regulation.",
      "15": "For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you must be sure to remove all yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day will be cut off from Israel.",
      "16": "On the first day you are to have a holy convocation; also on the seventh day there is to be a holy convocation. You shall not do any work, except to prepare what everybody needs to eat. That is all you may do.",
      "17": "You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your divisions out from the land of Egypt. You shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent regulation.",
      "18": "In the first month, you shall eat unleavened bread from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty-first day of the month.",
      "19": "No yeast is to be found in your houses for seven days, for whoever eats something leavened must be cut off from the Israelite community, whether a foreigner or native-born of the land.",
      "20": "You shall not eat anything leavened. You shall eat unleavened bread in every place you live.",
      "21": "Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take lambs for yourselves according to your family size, and slaughter the Passover lamb.",
      "22": "You shall take a bundle of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and paint the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you are to go out of the door of your house until morning.",
      "23": "When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.",
      "24": "“You shall observe these instructions as a perpetual regulation for you and your descendants.",
      "25": "When you enter the land that the Lord will give you just as he said he would, you shall observe this ceremony.",
      "26": "So when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’",
      "27": "you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Passover to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. When he struck the Egyptians, he spared our houses.’”\nThe people bowed down and worshipped.",
      "28": "The Israelites went and did all this. They did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.",
      "29": "At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, even all the firstborn of the livestock.",
      "30": "During the night Pharaoh got up—he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians—and there was a loud outcry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not someone dead.",
      "31": "Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron that night and said, “Get up, get away from my people! Both you and the Israelites, go, serve the Lord, as you have said!",
      "32": "Take also your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and go! But also bless me!”",
      "33": "The Egyptians urged the people to leave the land quickly, for the Egyptians said, “We are all going to die!”",
      "34": "The Israelites took their dough before it was leavened. They carried their kneading bowls, which were wrapped in their clothing, on their shoulders.",
      "35": "The Israelites did just as Moses had said, and they asked the Egyptians for articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing.",
      "36": "The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians so that they let the Israelites have what they asked for. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.",
      "37": "The Israelites set out from Rameses to Sukkoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides their families.",
      "38": "A mixed group of non-Israelites also went up along with them, as well as a large amount of livestock, both flocks and herds.",
      "39": "The Israelites baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened loaves, for it had not been leavened, because they had been driven out of Egypt and could not delay. They also had not prepared any provisions for themselves.",
      "40": "The amount of time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years.",
      "41": "At the end of four hundred thirty years, to the very day, all of the Lord’s divisions went out from the land of Egypt.",
      "42": "It was a night that the Lord kept vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt. This same night is dedicated to the Lord. All the Israelites are to keep vigil throughout their generations.",
      "43": "The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the regulation concerning the Passover: No foreigner may eat it.",
      "44": "But any slave whom you have purchased may eat it if you circumcise him.",
      "45": "A temporary resident or a hired servant may not eat it.",
      "46": "It must be eaten inside one house. You are not to carry any of the meat outside of the house. Do not break any of its bones.",
      "47": "The whole community of Israel shall do this.",
      "48": "If a resident alien among you wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, every male in his household must be circumcised. Then he may take part in it. He will be treated like a native-born of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat it.",
      "49": "The same law will apply to the native-born and to the alien who resides among you.”",
      "50": "So that is what all the Israelites did. They did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.",
      "51": "That same day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, lined up by their divisions."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Set apart all the firstborn for me, the firstborn of every mother among the Israelites, both people and animals. The firstborn belongs to me.”",
      "3": "Then Moses said this to the people:\nRemember this day when you came out of Egypt, where you were slaves. For by the strength of his hand the Lord brought you out from there. Nothing with leaven may be eaten.",
      "4": "Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving.",
      "5": "So when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites—the land he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to perform this ceremony during this month:",
      "6": "Seven days you must eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there is to be a festival to the Lord.",
      "7": "Unleavened bread must be eaten throughout the seven days. No leavened bread is to be seen among you. No yeast is to be seen among you, anywhere in your entire territory.",
      "8": "On that day you are to explain this to your son, “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.”",
      "9": "This will serve as a sign for you on your wrist and a reminder on your forehead so that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a mighty hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt.",
      "10": "You must keep this regulation at its appointed time from year to year.",
      "11": "When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites—just as he swore to you and to your fathers—and gives it to you,",
      "12": "then you must dedicate the firstborn of every mother to the Lord. Every firstborn of your livestock, the ones that are males, will belong to the Lord.",
      "13": "Every firstborn donkey you are to redeem with a lamb. But if you do not want to redeem it, then you are to break its neck. However, you must redeem all the firstborn among your sons.",
      "14": "In the future, when your son asks you, “What is this about?” you will say to him, “By the strength of his hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, where we were slaves.",
      "15": "When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, the firstborn of people and animals. That is why I sacrifice to the Lord the firstborn of every mother, the males, but I redeem every firstborn of my sons.”",
      "16": "It will serve as a sign on your wrist and a symbol on your forehead. For by the strength of his hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.",
      "17": "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way that goes to the land of the Philistines, although it was more direct, for God said, “If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.”",
      "18": "So God led the people by the way that goes through the wilderness toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up from the land of Egypt in battle formation.",
      "19": "Moses also took the bones of Joseph with him, because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. Joseph had said, “God will surely come to your aid. Then you must bring up my bones with you from Egypt.”",
      "20": "They set out from Sukkoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness.",
      "21": "The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on their way and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light. In this way they could travel by day and by night.",
      "22": "The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night never left its place in front of the people."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Then the Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Tell the Israelites to turn back and camp in front of Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to camp by the sea, facing Baal Zephon.",
      "3": "Then Pharaoh will say about the Israelites, ‘They are wandering around in the land. The wilderness has shut them in.’",
      "4": "I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue them, and I will gain glory through Pharaoh and his entire army. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So that is what the Israelites did.",
      "5": "When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials had a change of heart concerning the people. They said, “What have we done? We have let Israel go! They will not serve us anymore!”",
      "6": "So Pharaoh prepared his chariot and took his troops with him.",
      "7": "He also took six hundred of the best chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.",
      "8": "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites. The Israelites were going out defiantly.",
      "9": "The Egyptians pursued them. All the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his charioteers, and his army caught up with them where they were camping by the sea beside Pi Hahiroth, which faces Baal Zephon.",
      "10": "As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians marching after them. The Israelites were terrified and cried out to the Lord.",
      "11": "They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?",
      "12": "Wasn’t this what we said to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”",
      "13": "Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm, and see the salvation from the Lord, which he will perform for you today. For the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.",
      "14": "The Lord will fight for you. You must wait quietly.”",
      "15": "The Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to set out.",
      "16": "As for you, lift up your staff, stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide the sea so that the Israelites can go through the middle of the sea on dry ground.",
      "17": "I myself will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go into the sea after them, and I will gain glory through Pharaoh and his entire army, through his chariots and his charioteers.",
      "18": "The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I have gained glory through Pharaoh, his chariots, and his charioteers.”",
      "19": "Then the Angel of God, who was going in front of the Israelite forces, moved and went behind them. The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and stood behind them.",
      "20": "It went between the Egyptian forces and the Israelite forces. The cloud was dark on one side, but it lit up the night on the other. Neither group approached the other all night long.",
      "21": "Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all night long the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned the sea into dry land. The waters were divided.",
      "22": "The Israelites went into the middle of the sea on dry ground. The waters were like a wall for them on their right and on their left.",
      "23": "The Egyptians pursued them, and all of Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his charioteers went after them into the middle of the sea.",
      "24": "During the last watch of the night, the Lord looked down on the Egyptian forces from the pillar of fire and cloud. Then he confused the Egyptian forces.",
      "25": "He jammed their chariot wheels, and they had difficulty driving them. The Egyptians said, “We must flee from Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt!”",
      "26": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, and the waters will come back over the Egyptians, over their chariots and their charioteers.”",
      "27": "So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea returned to its normal place. While the Egyptians were fleeing from it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the middle of the sea.",
      "28": "The waters came back and covered the chariots and the charioteers, the entire army of Pharaoh that went into the sea after the Israelites. Not even one of them survived.",
      "29": "But the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry land, and the waters were like a wall for them on their right and on their left.",
      "30": "On that day the Lord saved Israel from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.",
      "31": "Israel saw the mighty hand which the Lord put into action against the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in Moses, his servant."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. They said:\nI will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted.\nThe horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.",
      "2": "The Lord is my strength and song.\nHe has become my salvation.\nThis is my God, and I will praise him;\nmy father’s God, and I will exalt him.",
      "3": "The Lord is a warrior.\nThe Lord is his name.",
      "4": "He has cast Pharaoh’s chariots and his army into the sea.\nHis elite officers are drowned in the Red Sea.",
      "5": "The deep waters covered them.\nThey sank down to the depths like a stone.",
      "6": "Lord, your right hand is glorious in power.\nLord, your right hand has shattered the enemy.",
      "7": "In your great majesty you overthrew those who opposed you.\nYou sent out your burning anger.\nIt consumed them like stubble.",
      "8": "At the blast from your nostrils the waters piled up.\nThe flowing waters stood up like a dam.\nThe deep waters became solid in the heart of the sea.",
      "9": "The enemy said, “I will pursue.\nI will overtake. I will divide the plunder.\nI will do whatever I want with them.\nI will draw my sword,\nand my hand will destroy them.”",
      "10": "But you blew with your breath,\nand the sea covered them.\nThey sank like lead in the mighty waters.",
      "11": "Lord, who is like you among the gods?\nWho is like you, glorious in holiness,\nawesome in praise, working wonders?",
      "12": "You stretched out your right hand,\nand the earth swallowed them.",
      "13": "In your mercy you will lead the people that you have redeemed.\nIn your strength you will guide them to your holy pastureland.",
      "14": "The nations will hear and tremble.\nAnguish will grip the inhabitants of Philistia.",
      "15": "Then the chiefs of Edom will be terrified.\nTrembling will seize the leaders of Moab.\nAll the inhabitants of Canaan will melt away in despair.",
      "16": "Terror and dread will fall upon them.\nBy the great power of your arm they will be as still as stone\n    until your people pass by, O Lord,\n    until the people whom you have purchased pass by.",
      "17": "You will bring them in and plant them\n    on the mountain that belongs to you,\n    the place, O Lord, that you have made for your dwelling,\n    the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established.",
      "18": "The Lord will reign forever and ever.",
      "19": "When Pharaoh’s horses along with his chariots and charioteers went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back on them, but the Israelites walked on dry land in the middle of the sea.",
      "20": "Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a hand drum, and all the women followed her with drums and dancing.",
      "21": "Miriam sang to them,\nSing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted.\nThe horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.",
      "22": "Then Moses led Israel on from the Red Sea, and they went out to the Wilderness of Shur. They traveled for three days in the wilderness but found no water.",
      "23": "When they came to Marah, they were not able to drink the waters of Marah, because they were bitter. That is why they named the place Marah.",
      "24": "The people grumbled against Moses, and they said, “What will we drink?”",
      "25": "Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him some wood. Moses threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.\nThere the Lord made a decree and ruling for them, and there he tested them.",
      "26": "So he said, “If only you would listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his eyes, and pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his regulations, I would not place on you any of the diseases that I placed on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”",
      "27": "Then they came to Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the waters."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt, the entire Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai.",
      "2": "The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.",
      "3": "The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat around pots of meat and ate as much food as we wanted, but now you have brought us out into this wilderness to have this whole community die of hunger.”",
      "4": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Watch what I will do. I will rain down bread from heaven for you, and the people will go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether they will follow my instructions or not.",
      "5": "On the sixth day they will prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”",
      "6": "So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “At evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt,",
      "7": "and in the morning you will see the Glory of the Lord, because he has heard your constant grumbling against the Lord. Who are we that you should grumble against us?”",
      "8": "Moses said, “Now the Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening and as much bread as you want in the morning, because the Lord has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”",
      "9": "Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling.’”",
      "10": "As Aaron spoke to the entire Israelite community, they turned toward the wilderness, and suddenly the Glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.",
      "11": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "12": "“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Say to them, ‘At evening you will eat meat, and in the morning you will eat bread until you are full. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”",
      "13": "So in the evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning a layer of dew surrounded the camp.",
      "14": "When the layer of dew was gone, there were thin flakes on the surface of the wilderness, thin as frost on the ground.",
      "15": "When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” because they did not know what it was.\nMoses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given to you as food to eat.",
      "16": "This is what the Lord has commanded: All of them are to gather as much of it as they need to eat. You are to take an omer per person based on the number of people each of you has in your tents.”",
      "17": "The Israelites did this, and some gathered more, some less.",
      "18": "When they measured it with an omer, the one who gathered more did not have too much, and the one who gathered less did not have too little. All of them gathered as much as they needed to eat.",
      "19": "Moses said to them, “No one is to leave any of it until morning.”",
      "20": "However, they did not listen to Moses. Some of them left part of it until morning, and it became full of worms and stank. So Moses was angry with them.",
      "21": "They gathered it each morning. All of them gathered as much as they needed to eat. When the sun grew hot, it melted away.",
      "22": "On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers for each person, and all the leaders of the community came and reported to Moses.",
      "23": "He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: Tomorrow is a complete rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil, but set aside for yourselves all the rest of it to be kept until morning.”",
      "24": "So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it.",
      "25": "Moses said, “Today eat whatever is left over, for today is a sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find any around the camp.",
      "26": "Six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”",
      "27": "On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather it, but they did not find any.",
      "28": "The Lord said to Moses, “How long will you people refuse to keep my commandments and my instructions?",
      "29": "Look, the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore on the sixth day he will give you two days’ worth of bread. All of you are to stay where you are. None of you are to leave your places on the seventh day.”",
      "30": "So the people rested on the seventh day.",
      "31": "The house of Israel called it manna. It looked like white coriander seed, and it tasted like wafers made with honey.",
      "32": "Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: A full omer of it is to be kept throughout your generations so that they may see the bread which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.”",
      "33": "Moses said to Aaron, “Take a container, and put a full omer of manna in it. Place it before the Lord, to be kept throughout your generations.”",
      "34": "To obey the Lord’s command to Moses, Aaron placed an omer before the Testimony, to be preserved.",
      "35": "The Israelites ate manna for forty years, until they came to a land that was inhabited. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.",
      "36": "(An omer, by the way, is one-tenth of an ephah.)"
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "The entire Israelite community set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin as the Lord had commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.",
      "2": "So the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”\nMoses said to them, “Why are you quarreling with me? Why are you testing the Lord?”",
      "3": "But the people were thirsty for water there, so they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you ever bring us up out of Egypt to let us, our children, and our livestock die of thirst?”",
      "4": "Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me!”",
      "5": "The Lord said to Moses, “Go in front of the people, and take the elders of Israel with you. Also take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.",
      "6": "Watch me. I will stand there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. You are to strike the rock. Water will come out of it, and the people will drink.” Moses did that in the sight of the elders of Israel.",
      "7": "He named the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”",
      "8": "Then the Amalekites came and fought against the Israelites at Rephidim.",
      "9": "Moses said to Joshua, “Select some men for us, and go out and fight against the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on the hilltop, and God’s staff will be in my hand.”",
      "10": "So Joshua did just as Moses told him.\nWhile Joshua was fighting against the Amalekites, Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the hilltop.",
      "11": "Whenever Moses held up his hand, the Israelites would start winning, but whenever he lowered his hand, the Amalekites would start winning.",
      "12": "When Moses’ arms became tired, they took a stone and placed it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands—one on one side, and one on the other side. In this way his hands were steady until sunset.",
      "13": "So Joshua defeated the Amalekite army with the sword.",
      "14": "The Lord then said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as a memorial, and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely erase the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven.”",
      "15": "Moses built an altar and named it “The Lord Is My Banner,”",
      "16": "because he had said, “Since a hand was raised against the throne of the Lord, the Lord will be at war with the Amalekites from generation to generation.”"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "Now Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, priest of Midian, heard about everything that God had done for Moses and for his people Israel and how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.",
      "2": "After Moses had sent his wife Zipporah away, his father-in-law Jethro had taken her in,",
      "3": "along with her two sons. The name of one son was Gershom, for Moses had said, “I have become an alien in a foreign land.”",
      "4": "The name of the other was Eliezer, for he had said, “My father’s God was my helper, and he has delivered me from Pharaoh’s sword.”",
      "5": "Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, Moses’ sons, and his wife were coming to Moses in the wilderness where he had camped at the mountain of God.",
      "6": "He sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, your wife, and her two sons are coming to you.”",
      "7": "Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and he bowed down and kissed him. They asked each other how they had been, and they went into the tent.",
      "8": "Moses told his father-in-law about everything that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, about all the hardships that had confronted them along the way, and how the Lord had delivered them.",
      "9": "Jethro rejoiced over all the good things that the Lord had done for Israel when he delivered them from the hand of the Egyptians.",
      "10": "Jethro said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and the hand of Pharaoh. Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered the people out of the hand of the Egyptians.",
      "11": "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods because he did this to those who acted arrogantly against the Israelites.”",
      "12": "Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God. Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat a meal with Moses’ father-in-law in the presence of God.",
      "13": "The next day Moses sat down to serve as a judge for the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening.",
      "14": "When Moses’ father-in-law saw everything that he did for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge with all the people standing around you from morning till evening?”",
      "15": "Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God.",
      "16": "Whenever there is a dispute between them, they come to me, and I judge between the two sides, and I reveal the regulations of God and his laws.”",
      "17": "Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good.",
      "18": "You will certainly wear out both yourself and these people who are with you, for the work is too much for you. You are not able to handle this alone.",
      "19": "Listen to me now. I will give you advice, and may God be with you. Represent the people before God, and bring their disputes to God.",
      "20": "Instruct them about the regulations and laws, and show them the way they are to live and the things that they are to do.",
      "21": "But you should select capable men from among all the people, God-fearing, trustworthy men, who hate dishonest gain. Then place them over the people as officials over groups of a thousand, a hundred, fifty, or ten.",
      "22": "Have them judge all the disputes of the people at the first level. They can refer any difficult case to you, but every easy case they can judge themselves. Make your load lighter; they can carry it with you.",
      "23": "If you will do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all these people will also return home satisfied.”",
      "24": "Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything that he had said.",
      "25": "Moses chose capable men from all of Israel and made them leaders over the people: officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.",
      "26": "They judged all the cases of the people initially. They brought the difficult cases to Moses, but every easy case they judged themselves.",
      "27": "Then Moses sent his father-in-law on his way, and he returned to his own land."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "In the third month after the Israelites had left the land of Egypt, on that same day of the month, they came to the Wilderness of Sinai.",
      "2": "After they set out from Rephidim and came to the Wilderness of Sinai, they camped in the wilderness. Israel camped there in front of the mountain.",
      "3": "Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, “This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and to tell the people of Israel:",
      "4": "‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.",
      "5": "Now if you will carefully listen to my voice and keep my covenant, then you will be my special treasure out of all the nations, although the entire earth is mine.",
      "6": "You will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.”",
      "7": "Moses went and summoned the elders of the people, and he set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him.",
      "8": "All the people answered together, “Everything that the Lord has said, we will do.”\nMoses brought back the people’s words to the Lord.",
      "9": "The Lord said to Moses, “Look, I will come to you in a dense cloud so that the people will hear when I speak with you, and then they will always believe you.” Moses told the people’s words to the Lord.",
      "10": "The Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people. Consecrate them today and tomorrow, and have them wash their clothes.",
      "11": "Be ready by the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.",
      "12": "You shall set boundaries for the people all around the mountain. Tell them: ‘Be careful that you do not go up onto the mountain or touch the edge of it.’ Whoever touches the mountain must certainly be put to death.",
      "13": "No one’s hand is to touch such a person, but that person is to be stoned to death or shot with arrows. No such animal or person shall be allowed to live. But when the special ram’s horn sounds a long blast, the people may come up to the mountain.”",
      "14": "Moses went down from the mountain to the people. He consecrated the people, and they washed their clothes.",
      "15": "He said to the people, “Be ready by the third day. Do not come near a woman.”",
      "16": "On the third day, when morning came, there was thunder and lightning. A thick cloud was over the mountain, and there was a very loud blast of a ram’s horn. All the people in the camp trembled.",
      "17": "Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.",
      "18": "All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. Its smoke went up like the smoke from a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently.",
      "19": "When the sound of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in the thunder.",
      "20": "The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, at the top of the mountain. The Lord then called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.",
      "21": "The Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people not to break through to see the Lord. If they do, many of them will fall.",
      "22": "Even the priests, who approach the Lord, must consecrate themselves so that the Lord does not break out against them.”",
      "23": "Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, because you warned, ‘Set boundaries around the mountain and treat it as holy.’”",
      "24": "The Lord said to him, “Go down and bring Aaron up with you, but the priests and the people must not break through to come up to the Lord, so that the Lord will not break out against them.”",
      "25": "So Moses went down to the people and told them these things."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Then God spoke all these words:",
      "2": "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.",
      "3": "You shall have no other gods beside me.",
      "4": "You shall not make any carved image for yourself or a likeness of anything in heaven above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.",
      "5": "Do not bow down to them or be subservient to them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. I follow up on the guilt of the fathers with their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren, if they also hate me.",
      "6": "But I show mercy to thousands who love me and keep my commandments.",
      "7": "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not permit anyone who misuses his name to escape unpunished.",
      "8": "Remember the Sabbath day by setting it apart as holy.",
      "9": "Six days you are to serve and do all your regular work,",
      "10": "but the seventh day shall be a sabbath rest to the Lord your God. Do not do any regular work, neither you, nor your sons or daughters, nor your male or female servants, nor your cattle, nor the alien who is residing inside your gates,",
      "11": "for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. In this way the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.",
      "12": "Honor your father and your mother so that you may spend many days on the land that the Lord your God is giving to you.",
      "13": "You shall not commit murder.",
      "14": "You shall not commit adultery.",
      "15": "You shall not steal.",
      "16": "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.",
      "17": "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.",
      "18": "All the people saw and heard the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the ram’s horn and the mountain smoking. The people saw, and they trembled and stood far away.",
      "19": "Then they said to Moses, “Speak with us yourself, and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, or we will die.”",
      "20": "Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, for God has come to test you, so that you may always fear him, so that you do not sin.”",
      "21": "The people stayed at a distance, but Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.",
      "22": "Then the Lord told Moses to tell the people of Israel the following things:\nYou yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.",
      "23": "You shall not make gods of silver or gods of gold and place them beside me. You shall not make them for yourselves.",
      "24": "You are to make an altar of earth for me and to sacrifice your whole burnt offerings on it, as well as your fellowship offerings, your sheep, and your cattle. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and I will bless you.",
      "25": "If you make a stone altar for me, you are not to build it out of cut stones, because by applying a tool to it you would pollute it.",
      "26": "You are not to go up to my altar by steps, so that your nakedness will not be uncovered upon it."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them:",
      "2": "If you purchase a Hebrew servant, he is to serve for six years, but in the seventh he may go free without paying anything.",
      "3": "If he comes in by himself, he will go out by himself. If he is married when he comes in, then his wife will go out with him.",
      "4": "If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children will belong to her master, and the servant will go out by himself.",
      "5": "But if the servant formally declares, “I love my master, my wife, and my children. I do not want to go out free,”",
      "6": "then his master shall bring him to the judges. His master shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and he shall bore through his ear with an awl. Then he shall serve him for the rest of his life.",
      "7": "If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she may not be sent out of the household as the male servants may be.",
      "8": "If she does not please her master who has married her, then he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has not kept his commitment to her.",
      "9": "If he marries her to his son, he must deal with her as he would deal with a daughter.",
      "10": "If he takes a second wife for himself, he must not diminish the food, the clothing, or the marital rights of the first wife.",
      "11": "If he does not do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money.",
      "12": "Anyone who strikes a man so that he dies must certainly be put to death.",
      "13": "However, if this was not done intentionally but rather was an act of God, for that kind of case I will appoint a place among you to which that man can flee.",
      "14": "But if a man plots and kills his neighbor deliberately, you shall take him from my altar, so that he may be put to death.",
      "15": "Anyone who strikes his father or his mother must certainly be put to death.",
      "16": "If anyone kidnaps someone and sells him, or if the kidnapped person is found in his possession, the kidnapper must certainly be put to death.",
      "17": "Anyone who curses his father or his mother must certainly be put to death.",
      "18": "If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and the victim does not die but is confined to bed—",
      "19": "if the victim gets up and can walk around outside with his staff, then the one who struck him shall not be punished, but he must pay for the victim’s lost work time while he is recuperating, until he is completely healed.",
      "20": "If a man strikes his male or his female servant with a club, and the servant dies at his hand, he must certainly be punished.",
      "21": "However, if the servant gets up after a day or two, the man shall not be punished, for the servant was his property.",
      "22": "If men are fighting and they injure a pregnant woman so that the child comes out, yet no harm follows, they must certainly be fined as much as the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve.",
      "23": "But if any harm follows, then you are to take life for life,",
      "24": "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,",
      "25": "burn for burn, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.",
      "26": "If a man strikes his male or female servant’s eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free as payment for the eye.",
      "27": "If he knocks out his male or female servant’s tooth, he must let the servant go free as payment for the tooth.",
      "28": "If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox must be stoned to death, and its flesh must not be eaten, but the owner of the ox will not be held responsible.",
      "29": "If the ox, however, had a habit of goring in the past, and its owner had been warned, but he did not keep it confined, and it then kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to death.",
      "30": "But if a redemption payment is imposed on the owner instead of the death penalty, he must pay whatever is imposed on him to save his life.",
      "31": "This is also the ruling that applies to him if the ox has gored someone’s son or daughter.",
      "32": "But if the ox gores a male servant or a female servant, thirty shekels of silver shall be given to the servant’s owner, and the ox is to be stoned to death.",
      "33": "If a man uncovers a cistern, or if a man digs a cistern and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,",
      "34": "the owner of the cistern shall pay for the loss in full. He shall give money to the owner of the animal, and the dead animal shall be his.",
      "35": "If one man’s ox injures his neighbor’s ox, so that it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide the money they got for it, and they shall also divide the dead animal.",
      "36": "But if it was known that the ox was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it confined, he must pay ox for ox, and the dead animal will be his."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "If a man steals an ox or a sheep and butchers it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.",
      "2": "If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the one who kills him shall not be guilty of bloodshed.",
      "3": "But if this takes place after sunrise, the one who kills him shall be guilty of bloodshed.\nA thief shall make restitution. If he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.",
      "4": "If the stolen animal found in his possession is alive, whether it is an ox, donkey, or sheep, he shall repay double.",
      "5": "If a man is grazing livestock in a field or a vineyard, and he lets his animals run loose and they graze in another man’s field, ⎣he shall make restitution from his own field on the basis of the produce that was eaten, but if they have grazed over the whole field,⎦ he shall make restitution from the best of his own field and from the best of his own vineyard.",
      "6": "If a fire gets out of control and spreads through the thorn bushes so that someone else’s shocks of grain, standing grain, or grain field are consumed, the one who lit the fire must certainly make restitution.",
      "7": "If a man entrusts money or other items to his neighbor for safekeeping, and they are stolen out of that man’s house, if the thief is found, he shall repay double.",
      "8": "If the thief is not found, then the owner of the house shall appear before the judges to find out whether he has laid his hands on his neighbor’s goods.",
      "9": "In every such offense, whether it involves an ox, a donkey, a sheep, clothing, or any other kind of lost property about which someone claims, “This is mine,” the claims of both parties shall be presented before the judges. Whichever party the judges find guilty shall repay double to his neighbor.",
      "10": "If a man entrusts a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to his neighbor for safekeeping, and it dies or is injured or is driven off, and no one sees what happened,",
      "11": "to settle the matter between them, the man who received the property must make an oath to the Lord that he has not laid his hands on his neighbor’s goods. Its owner must accept the oath, and the man who received the property shall not be required to make restitution.",
      "12": "But if, in fact, it was stolen while in his custody, he shall make restitution to its owner.",
      "13": "If it was torn in pieces by animals, let him bring it for evidence. He is not required to make good that which was torn.",
      "14": "If a man borrows anything from his neighbor, and it is injured or dies while its owner is not with it, the borrower must certainly make restitution.",
      "15": "If its owner is with it, the borrower will not be required to make restitution. If it was rented, the rent covers the loss.",
      "16": "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged in marriage and lies down with her, he must pay a bride price for her to be his wife.",
      "17": "If her father flatly refuses to give her to him, the offender still must weigh out silver equivalent to the bride price for virgins.",
      "18": "You shall not allow a sorceress to live.",
      "19": "Whoever lies down with an animal shall certainly be put to death.",
      "20": "Whoever sacrifices to any god, except to the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction.",
      "21": "You shall not wrong a resident alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.",
      "22": "You shall not take advantage of any widow or fatherless child.",
      "23": "If you take advantage of them in any way, and they make even the faintest cry to me, I will surely hear their cry,",
      "24": "and my anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows, and your children fatherless.",
      "25": "If you lend money to anyone among my people who is poor, you must not act like a moneylender. You must not charge him interest.",
      "26": "If you take your neighbor’s outer garment as collateral, you must restore it to him before the sun goes down,",
      "27": "for his garment is the only cover he has for his skin. What would he sleep in? Be assured that when he cries to me, I will hear, for I am gracious.",
      "28": "You shall not malign the judges, nor curse a ruler of your people.",
      "29": "You shall not delay bringing offerings from your abundant harvest and from your overflowing wine vats.\nYou shall present the firstborn of your sons to me.",
      "30": "You shall do the same with your cattle and with your sheep. For seven days a newborn animal shall be with its mother. Then on the eighth day you shall present it to me.",
      "31": "You are to be men set apart as holy for me. So you shall not eat any flesh that is torn by wild animals. You shall cast it to the dogs."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "You shall not spread a false report. Do not join hands with the wicked to be a malicious witness.",
      "2": "You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. Do not go along with the crowd by testifying in court to pervert justice.",
      "3": "You shall not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.",
      "4": "If you come upon your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you certainly must bring it back to him again.",
      "5": "If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has fallen down under its load, do not pass him by. You certainly must help him with it.",
      "6": "You shall not deny justice to the poor people among you in their lawsuits.",
      "7": "Keep your distance from a false charge. Do not put those who are innocent and those who are righteous to death, for I will not acquit the wicked.",
      "8": "You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and distorts the words of the righteous.",
      "9": "You shall not oppress a resident alien, for you know how it feels to be an alien, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.",
      "10": "For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce,",
      "11": "but during the seventh year you are to let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy among your people may eat, and the animals in the fields can eat what they leave. You are to deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove in the same way.",
      "12": "Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey will have rest, and so that the son of your female servant and the resident alien will be refreshed.",
      "13": "Be careful to do all the things that I have said to you. Do not mention the name of other gods. Do not let their names come out of your mouth.",
      "14": "Three times a year you shall observe pilgrimage festivals for me:",
      "15": "You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you shall eat bread without yeast, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib (for during that month you came out from Egypt). No one is to appear before me empty-handed.",
      "16": "Next observe the Festival of Reaping by presenting the first ripe produce of your labors, which you sow in the field.\nFinally, observe the Festival of Ingathering, at the end of the year, when you pick the fruits of your labors from the fields.",
      "17": "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God.",
      "18": "You shall not offer any bread made with yeast together with the blood of my sacrifices. None of the fat from my festival shall remain until morning.",
      "19": "The very first produce from your soil you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.\nYou shall not boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk.",
      "20": "Look, I will send an angel before you to guard you on your way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.",
      "21": "Pay attention to him. Listen to his voice. Do not provoke him, because he will not pardon your disobedience, for my Name is in him.",
      "22": "But if you carefully listen to his voice and carry out all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.",
      "23": "Yes, my Angel shall go ahead of you and bring you into the territory of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Then I will cut them off.",
      "24": "You shall not bow down to their gods. Do not serve them or follow their practices, but you must completely overthrow them and demolish their sacred memorial stones.",
      "25": "You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from your midst.",
      "26": "No one will miscarry or be childless in your land. I will grant you the full number of your days.",
      "27": "I will send my terror before you, and I will spread confusion among all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs and flee from you.",
      "28": "I will send the hornet ahead of you. It will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from your presence.",
      "29": "I will not drive them out from before you in a single year, or the land would become desolate, and the wild animals would become too numerous for you.",
      "30": "As you advance, I will drive them out little by little, until you have grown in number and taken possession of the land.",
      "31": "I will establish your border from the Red Sea all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Wilderness to the River. So I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.",
      "32": "You shall not make a treaty with them or with their gods.",
      "33": "They are not to dwell in your land, or they will make you sin against me, because if you serve their gods, this will surely be a trap for you."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, along with Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship me from a distance.",
      "2": "Only Moses is allowed to come near the Lord, but the others are not to come near, and the people are not to go up with him.”",
      "3": "Moses came and reported to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances. Then all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do.”",
      "4": "Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord.\nHe got up early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain. He set up twelve memorial stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.",
      "5": "He sent young Israelite men, who offered whole burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings of cattle to the Lord.",
      "6": "Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and he splashed half of the blood on the altar.",
      "7": "He took the Book of the Covenant and read it out loud to the people and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do. We will obey.”",
      "8": "Moses took the blood and splashed it on the people. He said, “Look, here is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord made with you by means of all these words.”",
      "9": "Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up.",
      "10": "They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet they saw what looked like a pavement of sapphire as clear as the sky.",
      "11": "The Lord did not lay his hand on the dignitaries of the people of Israel. They gazed at God, and they ate and drank.",
      "12": "The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain. Wait there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commands that I have written, so that you can teach them.”",
      "13": "Moses set out with his assistant Joshua and went up onto the mountain of God.",
      "14": "He said to the elders, “Wait here for us, until we come back to you. Look, here are Aaron and Hur. They will be with you. Whoever is involved in a dispute can go to them.”",
      "15": "Moses went up onto the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.",
      "16": "The Glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered the mountain for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud.",
      "17": "The appearance of the Glory of the Lord looked like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.",
      "18": "Moses entered into the middle of the cloud and climbed up the mountain. Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses. He said,",
      "2": "“Speak to the people of Israel so that they gather a special offering for me. From everyone whose heart makes him willing you shall gather the offering for me.”",
      "3": "This is the offering which you are to gather from them: gold, silver, and bronze;",
      "4": "blue, purple, and scarlet material, fine linen; goats’ hair,",
      "5": "rams’ skins dyed red, and hides of sea cows; acacia wood,",
      "6": "olive oil for the Light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense,",
      "7": "onyx stones, and stones to be mounted on the special vest and on the pouch.",
      "8": "They are to make a sanctuary for me, so that I may dwell among them.",
      "9": "You are to make it exactly according to the design for the Dwelling and the designs for all of its furniture which I will show you.",
      "10": "They shall make an ark of acacia wood. It is to be forty-five inches long, twenty-seven inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high.",
      "11": "Overlay it with pure gold. Overlay it on the inside and the outside, and make a gold border around it.",
      "12": "Cast four gold rings for it and place them next to its four feet. Two rings are for one side of it, and two rings for the other side.",
      "13": "Make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.",
      "14": "Put the poles which are used to carry the ark into the rings on the sides of the ark.",
      "15": "The poles are to be placed into the rings on the ark. They are not to be removed from the rings.",
      "16": "Put the Testimony, which I am about to give to you, into the ark.",
      "17": "Make an atonement seat of pure gold, forty-five inches long and twenty-seven inches wide.",
      "18": "Make two cherubim of hammered gold. You are to make them for the two ends of the atonement seat.",
      "19": "Make one cherub for one end and one cherub for the other end. The cherubim on its two ends are to form one piece with the atonement seat.",
      "20": "The cherubim will spread their wings upward so that they cover the atonement seat with their wings, and they will face each other. The faces of the cherubim are to be looking inward toward the atonement seat.",
      "21": "Put the atonement seat on top of the ark, and put the Testimony, which I will give to you, into the ark.",
      "22": "There I will meet with you, and from above the atonement seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the Ark of the Testimony, I will communicate to you all the commands that I will give to you for the people of Israel.",
      "23": "You shall make a table of acacia wood, thirty-six inches long, eighteen inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high.",
      "24": "Overlay it with pure gold and make a gold border around it.",
      "25": "Make a three-inch rim around it. Make a gold border for its rim all the way around it.",
      "26": "Make four gold rings for it and fasten the rings to the four corners, above the four legs of the table.",
      "27": "The rings shall be close to the border to hold the poles used to carry the table.",
      "28": "Make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, so that the table can be carried with them.",
      "29": "You are to make its dishes, its small bowls, its pitchers, and its larger bowls to pour out offerings. Make them of pure gold.",
      "30": "You are to set the Bread of the Presence on the table so that it is in front of me at all times.",
      "31": "You shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand is to be made of hammered metal. Its pedestal, its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its flowers are all to be formed as one piece with the lampstand.",
      "32": "There are to be six branches going out from its two sides: Three branches of the lampstand are to go out from one side, and three branches of the lampstand are to go out from the other side.",
      "33": "There are to be three cups shaped like almond blossoms with buds and flowers on the first branch, and three cups like almond blossoms with buds and flowers on the branch opposite it. All six branches going out from the lampstand are to be the same.",
      "34": "On the lampstand itself make four cups shaped like almond blossoms with buds and flowers.",
      "35": "The bud under one pair of branches is to form one piece with the lampstand, and the bud under the second pair of branches is to form one piece with the lampstand, and the bud under the third pair of branches is to form one piece with the lampstand—the same for all six branches going out of the lampstand.",
      "36": "Its buds and branches are to be made as one piece with it. All of it will be one hammered piece of pure gold.",
      "37": "You shall make seven lamps for it, and these lamps shall be lit to give light to the area in front of the lampstand.",
      "38": "Its wick trimmers and its pans are to be made of pure gold.",
      "39": "It is to be made of seventy-five pounds of pure gold with all these accessories.",
      "40": "See to it that you make them according to their design, which is being shown to you on the mountain."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "The curtain that forms the dwelling itself you shall make with ten panels of fine woven linen, with blue, purple, and scarlet material. Decorate them with cherubim, which are to be the work of a skillful craftsman.",
      "2": "The length of each panel of the curtain is to be forty-two feet, and the width of each panel six feet. All the panels are to be the same size.",
      "3": "Five panels of the curtain are to be connected together into one panel, and the other five panels are to be connected together into one.",
      "4": "Attach blue loops to the edge of the last panel in the first set of curtains. In the same way attach loops to the edge of the last panel of the second set.",
      "5": "Make fifty loops for the edge of the first set of curtains, and make fifty loops for the edge of the second set of curtains. The loops are to be opposite one another.",
      "6": "Make fifty gold clasps, and connect the two sets of curtains to each other with the clasps, so that the dwelling becomes one connected piece.",
      "7": "You shall make panels for a curtain made from goats’ hair to serve as a tent over the dwelling. Make eleven panels.",
      "8": "The length of each panel is to be forty-five feet, and the width of each panel six feet. The eleven panels are to be the same size.",
      "9": "Connect five panels of the curtain into one unit, and connect six panels into another unit. Fold the sixth panel of the curtain over the front edge of the Tent.",
      "10": "Attach fifty loops to the edge of the last panel of one set of curtains, and fifty loops to the edge of the last panel in the second set.",
      "11": "Make fifty bronze clasps, and put the clasps into the loops to join the two pieces of the tent together, so that it forms one unit.",
      "12": "The excess part of the curtains that form the tent, which is left over, that is, the half curtain that is extra, is to hang down over the back of the Dwelling.",
      "13": "The eighteen inches left over on one side and the eighteen inches left over on the other side, all along the length of the tent coverings, are to be left hanging down over the sides of the Dwelling on either side to cover it.",
      "14": "You shall also make a covering for the tent made from rams’ skins dyed red and a covering made from hides of sea cows to go above that one.",
      "15": "You shall make upright boards of acacia wood to serve as a framework for the Dwelling.",
      "16": "The length of each board is to be fifteen feet, and the width of each board is to be twenty-seven inches.",
      "17": "There are to be two pegs on each board for connecting them to the next board. That is the way you are to make all the boards for the Dwelling.",
      "18": "Make these boards for the Dwelling:\nMake twenty boards for the south side.",
      "19": "Make forty socket bases of silver to be placed under the twenty boards—two sockets to go under the first board to hold its two pegs, and two sockets to go under the next board for its two pegs.",
      "20": "For the second side of the Dwelling, the north side, make twenty boards,",
      "21": "with forty socket bases of silver—two sockets to go under the first board, and two sockets to go under the next board.",
      "22": "For the far side of the Dwelling, the west side, make six boards.",
      "23": "Then make two boards for each of the back corners of the Dwelling.",
      "24": "For the two corners there are to be twin boards from the bottom to the top, but they are to be joined at the top by one ring—both cornerpieces are to be made like this.",
      "25": "Altogether there will be eight boards with silver socket bases, sixteen socket bases—two socket bases to go under each board.",
      "26": "You shall make crossbars of acacia wood—five crossbars for the boards on one side of the Dwelling,",
      "27": "five crossbars for the boards on the other side of the Dwelling, and five crossbars for the boards on the backside of the Dwelling on the west.",
      "28": "The middle bar, placed halfway up the boards, shall pass through from one end of the boards to the other end.",
      "29": "Overlay the boards with gold. Attach gold rings to them to hold the crossbars, and overlay the crossbars with gold.",
      "30": "You shall set up the Dwelling according to the design that is being shown to you on the mountain.",
      "31": "You shall make a special veil of blue, purple, and scarlet material and of fine woven linen, decorated with cherubim. It shall be made as the work of a skillful craftsman.",
      "32": "Hang it on four posts of acacia wood overlaid with gold, which stand on four socket bases of silver. The hooks are to be made of gold.",
      "33": "Hang up the veil below the spot where the clasps join the two parts of the dwelling. Then bring the Ark of the Testimony inside the veil. The veil shall separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place for you.",
      "34": "You shall put the atonement seat on top of the Ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy Place.",
      "35": "You shall set the table outside the veil, and the lampstand opposite the table on the south side of the Dwelling. You shall put the table on the north side.",
      "36": "You shall make a screen for the entry to the tent from blue, purple, and scarlet material and of fine woven linen, the work of an embroiderer.",
      "37": "Make five posts of acacia wood to support the screen, and overlay them with gold. Their hooks shall be gold, and you shall cast five bronze socket bases for them."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "You shall make the altar of acacia wood, seven and a half feet long and seven and a half feet wide. The altar shall be square, and it shall be four and a half feet high.",
      "2": "You shall make horns on its four corners. These horns are to be made as one piece with the altar, and you are to overlay the altar with bronze.",
      "3": "Make pails to take away its fat-drenched ashes. Make shovels, basins, meat hooks, and fire pans for the altar. Make all its utensils of bronze.",
      "4": "Make a grate for it which is a latticework of bronze, and make four bronze rings for the four corners of the latticework grate.",
      "5": "Set the grate in place below the top edge of the altar, so that the grate rests halfway down from the top of the altar.",
      "6": "Make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze.",
      "7": "These poles are to be put through the rings on the two sides of the altar whenever it is carried.",
      "8": "You are to make the altar hollow, with sides made of boards. They are to make it as it is being shown to you on the mountain.",
      "9": "You shall make the courtyard for the Dwelling.\nFor the south side of the courtyard there shall be hangings of fine woven linen, one hundred fifty feet long for that side.",
      "10": "There shall be twenty posts for it, and their twenty socket bases shall be bronze. The hooks for the posts and the connectors shall be silver.",
      "11": "In the same way, for the north side there shall be hangings one hundred fifty feet long, with twenty posts and twenty bronze socket bases. The hooks for the posts and their connectors shall be silver.",
      "12": "For the courtyard on the west side there shall be hangings seventy-five feet wide, with ten posts and ten socket bases.",
      "13": "The width of the courtyard on the east side shall be seventy-five feet.",
      "14": "The hangings on one side of the entry gate shall be twenty-two feet six inches wide with three posts and three socket bases.",
      "15": "For the other side there shall be hangings twenty-two feet six inches wide with three posts and three socket bases.",
      "16": "For the entryway into the courtyard there shall be a screen thirty feet wide, made of blue, purple, and scarlet material and of fine woven linen, the work of an embroiderer. Make four posts for it and four socket bases.",
      "17": "All the posts around the courtyard shall be connected with silver. Their hooks shall be silver, and their socket bases bronze.",
      "18": "The length of the courtyard shall be one hundred fifty feet, and the width seventy-five feet on both ends. The height of the hangings of fine woven linen shall be seven and a half feet. Its socket bases shall be bronze.",
      "19": "All the utensils for all the services of the Dwelling, all its tent stakes, and all the stakes for the courtyard shall be bronze.",
      "20": "You shall command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the Light so that the lamp may burn every night.",
      "21": "In the Tent of Meeting, in front of the veil which is in front of the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend the lamp before the Lord from evening to morning. This shall be a permanent regulation throughout their generations for the people of Israel."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "Bring Aaron your brother near to you from among the people of Israel, and his sons with him, so that he may minister to me in the priest’s office. Bring Aaron and Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons.",
      "2": "You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother to give him honor and splendor.",
      "3": "Speak to all the skilled craftsmen, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, so that they make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him, so that he may minister to me in the priest’s office.",
      "4": "These are the garments which they shall make: a chest pouch, a special vest, a robe, a specially woven tunic, a turban, and a sash. They shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother and for his sons, so that he may minister to me in the priest’s office.",
      "5": "The craftsmen shall use the gold, and the blue, purple, and scarlet material, and the fine linen.",
      "6": "They shall make the special vest of gold and of blue, purple, and scarlet material and of fine woven linen, the work of a skillful craftsman.",
      "7": "It is to have two shoulder straps, one on each side, so that the vest can be fastened together.",
      "8": "The decorated band, which is attached to the vest, is to be just like it: made of gold, and of blue, purple, and scarlet material and of fine woven linen.",
      "9": "Take two onyx stones and engrave the names of the sons of Israel on them—",
      "10": "six of their names on one stone and the names of the other six on the other stone, in the order of their birth.",
      "11": "Engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel, in the same way that a gem cutter engraves a seal. Mount them in settings of gold.",
      "12": "Put the two stones on the shoulder straps of the vest to be memorial stones for the people of Israel. Aaron shall bear their names on his two shoulders as a memorial before the Lord.",
      "13": "Make settings of gold",
      "14": "and two chains of pure gold. Make them like braided cords, and attach the braided chains to the settings.",
      "15": "You shall make a chest pouch to be used for making decisions, the work of a skillful craftsman. You shall make it with the same workmanship as the vest. Make it from gold and from blue, purple, and scarlet material and from fine woven linen.",
      "16": "It is to be square when it is folded, nine inches by nine inches.",
      "17": "You shall arrange settings for precious stones on it, four rows of stones: The first row is to be carnelian, diamond, and jacinth;",
      "18": "the second row agate, sapphire, and emerald;",
      "19": "the third row beryl, jasper, and ruby;",
      "20": "and the fourth row topaz, onyx, and turquoise. They are to be mounted in gold settings.",
      "21": "There are to be twelve stones corresponding to the names of the sons of Israel. Each one shall be like an engraved seal, each with the name of one of the twelve tribes.",
      "22": "You shall make braided chains of pure gold as cords for the pouch.",
      "23": "Make two gold rings for the pouch, and attach the two rings to the top corners of the pouch.",
      "24": "Put the two braided chains of gold into the two rings at the top corners of the pouch.",
      "25": "Attach the other ends of the two braided chains to the two settings, and then attach them to the shoulder straps on the front of the vest.",
      "26": "Make two rings of gold, and put them on the two lower corners of the pouch, on its inside edge, which is toward the vest.",
      "27": "Make two more gold rings, and attach them to the two shoulder straps of the vest in the front, close to the bottom where it is joined to the band of the vest.",
      "28": "Tie the rings on the pouch to the rings on the vest with a blue cord, so that the pouch is right next to the band of the vest, so that the pouch does not swing out from the vest.",
      "29": "Whenever he goes into the Holy Place, Aaron shall wear the pouch for making decisions, which bears the names of the sons of Israel, over his heart as a constant memorial before the Lord.",
      "30": "You shall put the Urim and the Thummim into the pouch for making decisions, and they shall be over Aaron’s heart whenever he goes before the Lord. Aaron shall bear the means of making decisions for the people of Israel on his heart before the Lord continually.",
      "31": "You shall make the robe that is to be worn under the vest. It is to be all blue.",
      "32": "It is to have an opening in the middle of the top of it for the head. It is to have a woven binding around the opening, like the opening of a collar, to prevent it from tearing.",
      "33": "To be placed around its hem you shall make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet material. Alternate them with gold bells",
      "34": "(a gold bell, then a pomegranate, a gold bell, then a pomegranate), all around the hem of the robe.",
      "35": "The robe shall be on Aaron when he ministers, and its sound will be heard when he goes into the Holy Place before the Lord and when he comes out, so that he will not die.",
      "36": "You shall make a medallion of pure gold and engrave on it (like the engravings on a seal): Holy to the Lord.",
      "37": "You shall attach it to a blue cord to fasten it to the turban. It is to be placed on the front of the turban.",
      "38": "It shall be on Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron will bear any guilt in regard to the holy things, which the people of Israel consecrate as their holy gifts. The medallion shall always be on his forehead, so that the offerings may be accepted in the presence of the Lord.",
      "39": "You shall weave the tunic of fine linen, and you shall make a turban of fine linen, and you shall make a sash, the work of an embroiderer.",
      "40": "You shall make tunics for Aaron’s sons, and you shall make sashes for them, and you shall make small pointed turbans for them, to give them honor and splendor.",
      "41": "Put them on your brother Aaron and on his sons along with him, anoint them, and ordain them for their work and consecrate them, so that they may minister to me in the priest’s office.",
      "42": "Make linen pants for them to cover their naked flesh. The pants shall reach from the waist to the thighs.",
      "43": "They are to be worn by Aaron and his sons whenever they go into the Tent of Meeting, or whenever they come near the altar to minister in the Holy Place, so that they do not incur guilt and die. This shall be a permanent regulation for him and for his descendants after him."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "This is what you shall do to them to set them apart as holy, so that they can minister to me in the priest’s office:\nTake one young bull and two rams without defect,",
      "2": "unleavened bread, unleavened rolls mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil. Make them from fine wheat flour.",
      "3": "Put them into one basket and bring them in the basket when you bring the bull and the two rams.",
      "4": "Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water.",
      "5": "Take the garments and put them on Aaron: the tunic, the robe to be worn under the vest, the vest, and the pouch. Clothe him with the sash of the vest.",
      "6": "Set the turban on his head and put the holy crest on the turban.",
      "7": "Then take the anointing oil and pour it on his head to anoint him.",
      "8": "You shall bring his sons and put tunics on them.",
      "9": "Clothe them with sashes—Aaron and his sons—and bind small pointed turbans on them. Then they shall possess the priesthood by means of a perpetual regulation. You shall ordain Aaron and his sons for their work.",
      "10": "Bring the bull in front of the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull.",
      "11": "Slaughter the bull in the presence of the Lord at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.",
      "12": "Take some of the bull’s blood and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and pour out all the rest of the blood at the base of the altar.",
      "13": "Take all the fat that covers the internal organs, the lobe of the liver, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and burn them on the altar.",
      "14": "But the meat of the bull, its hide, and its intestines and their contents, you shall burn with fire outside of the camp. This is a sin offering.",
      "15": "Then take the first ram. Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram.",
      "16": "Slaughter the ram, and take its blood and splash it all around on the altar.",
      "17": "You shall cut the ram into pieces, wash its internal organs and its legs, and put them with the other pieces and with its head.",
      "18": "You shall burn the whole ram on the altar. This is a whole burnt offering to the Lord. It is a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "19": "Then take the other ram. Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram.",
      "20": "Then you shall slaughter the ram. Take some of its blood and put it on the tip of Aaron’s right ear, on the tip of the right ear of his sons, on the thumb of their right hand, and on the big toe of their right foot, and splash the blood all around on the altar.",
      "21": "Take some of the blood that is on the altar and some of the anointing oil and spatter it on Aaron and on his garments and on his sons and on the garments of his sons, who are with him. So he and his garments and his sons and his sons’ garments shall be consecrated.",
      "22": "From this ram take the fat, the fat tail, the fat that covers the internal organs, the lobe of the liver, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and the right thigh (for this is a ram for the dedication),",
      "23": "and one loaf of bread, one roll made with oil, and one wafer out of the basket of unleavened bread that is before the Lord.",
      "24": "You shall put all of this in Aaron’s hands and in his sons’ hands, and you shall wave them as a wave offering before the Lord.",
      "25": "Then you shall take them from their hands and burn them on the altar for the burnt offering as a pleasant aroma before the Lord. This is an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "26": "Take the breast from Aaron’s ram of ordination and wave it as a wave offering before the Lord, and it shall be your portion of the sacrifice.",
      "27": "Consecrate the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the elevated offering, which are waved and lifted up, from the ram of ordination. They are for Aaron and for his sons.",
      "28": "It shall belong to Aaron and his sons perpetually as their portion of the offering from the people of Israel, because it is an elevated offering. It shall be an elevated offering from the people of Israel from their sacrifices, from their fellowship offerings, that is, their elevated offering to the Lord.",
      "29": "The holy garments of Aaron shall belong to his descendants after him, so they are to wear them while they are being anointed and ordained for their work.",
      "30": "The son who is to be high priest in Aaron’s place shall put them on for seven days when he comes into the Tent of Meeting to minister in the Holy Place.",
      "31": "Take the ram of ordination and boil its meat in a holy place.",
      "32": "Aaron and his sons shall eat the meat of the ram and the bread that is in the basket at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.",
      "33": "They shall eat those things with which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration, but a non-priest shall not eat them, because they are holy.",
      "34": "If any of the meat or the bread from the ordination remains until the next morning, you shall burn the remainder with fire. It must not be eaten, because it is holy.",
      "35": "This is what you shall do to Aaron and to his sons, exactly as I have commanded you. You shall ordain them for seven days.",
      "36": "Every day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement, and you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to make it holy.",
      "37": "For seven days you shall make atonement for the altar to make it holy. The altar shall be most holy. Whatever touches the altar shall become holy.",
      "38": "Now this is what you shall offer on the altar regularly, every day: two lambs a year old.",
      "39": "The first lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight.",
      "40": "With the first lamb offer two quarts of fine flour mixed with a quart of beaten olive oil, and a quart of wine for a drink offering.",
      "41": "The other lamb you shall offer at twilight, and you shall offer with it the same grain offering and the same drink offering as in the morning, for a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "42": "It shall be presented as a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting before the Lord. There I will meet with you to speak to you.",
      "43": "There I will meet with the people of Israel, and the place will be made holy by my glory.",
      "44": "I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar. I will also consecrate Aaron and his sons to minister to me in the priest’s office.",
      "45": "I will dwell among the people of Israel and I will be their God.",
      "46": "They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, so that I may dwell among them. I am the Lord their God."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "You shall make an altar on which to burn incense. Make it of acacia wood.",
      "2": "It is to be eighteen inches long and eighteen inches wide. It is to be square, and three feet high. Its horns are to be one piece with it.",
      "3": "Overlay it with pure gold—its top, all its sides, and its horns. Make a gold border around it.",
      "4": "Make two gold rings to place under its border. Make them for each of its two opposite sides. They will serve as holders for poles with which to carry it.",
      "5": "Make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold.",
      "6": "Put the altar in front of the veil that hides the Ark of the Testimony, in front of the atonement seat that is above the Testimony, where I will meet with you.",
      "7": "Aaron shall burn incense made of fragrant spices on it every morning. When he tends the lamps, he shall burn the incense.",
      "8": "When Aaron lights the lamps at twilight, he shall burn it as the regular incense before the Lord throughout your generations.",
      "9": "You shall offer no other incense on it, no burnt offering, and no grain offering, and you shall pour no drink offering on it.",
      "10": "Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year. With the blood of the sin offering for atonement, once a year he shall make atonement for it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.",
      "11": "The Lord spoke to Moses. He said,",
      "12": "“When you count the men of Israel to register them, each man shall give to the Lord a redemption price for his life as you register him, so that there is no plague among them as you register them.",
      "13": "Each one shall give this redemption as he passes over to the group which has already been registered—half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel for an offering to the Lord.",
      "14": "Everyone who passes over to the group that has already been registered, those twenty years old and older, shall give the special elevated offering to the Lord.",
      "15": "The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel when you give the elevated offering for the Lord to redeem your lives.",
      "16": "You shall take the redemption money from the people of Israel, and you shall designate it for the work of the Tent of Meeting so that it may be a memorial for the people of Israel before the Lord, to redeem your lives.”",
      "17": "The Lord spoke to Moses. He said,",
      "18": "“You shall also make a large bronze basin in which to wash. Its pedestal shall also be bronze. Put it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it.",
      "19": "Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet with water from it.",
      "20": "When they go into the Tent of Meeting, they must wash with water so that they will not die. They shall wash whenever they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "21": "They shall wash their hands and their feet so that they do not die. This shall be a permanent regulation for them, for Aaron and for his descendants throughout their generations.”",
      "22": "The Lord spoke to Moses again. He said,",
      "23": "“Take fine spices: twelve and a half pounds of liquid myrrh, half as much (six and a quarter pounds) of fragrant cinnamon, six and a quarter pounds of fragrant cane,",
      "24": "twelve and a half pounds of cassia (weighed by the shekel of the sanctuary), and one gallon of olive oil.",
      "25": "Make it into a holy anointing oil, a perfume mixed with the skill of a perfume maker. It will be a holy anointing oil.",
      "26": "Use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Testimony,",
      "27": "the table and all its utensils, the lampstand and its utensils, the altar for incense,",
      "28": "the altar for burnt offering with all its utensils, and the basin with its pedestal.",
      "29": "You shall consecrate them so that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them will be holy.",
      "30": "You shall anoint Aaron and his sons and set them apart, so that they may minister to me in the priest’s office.",
      "31": "Speak to the people of Israel. Tell them, ‘This shall be a holy anointing oil for me throughout your generations.",
      "32": "Do not pour it on the flesh of anyone who is not a priest. Do not make any other perfume like it with the same ingredients. It is holy. It shall be holy to you.",
      "33": "Whoever mixes any perfume like it or whoever puts any of it on anyone who is not a priest shall be cut off from his people.’”",
      "34": "The Lord said to Moses, “Take fragrant spices, gum resin, shechelet, and helbanum, fragrant spices with pure frankincense. Use an equal weight of each ingredient,",
      "35": "and make incense from it, a blend made with the skill of a perfume maker, seasoned with salt, pure and holy.",
      "36": "Grind some of it very fine, and put some of it in front of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting where I will make myself known to you. It shall be most holy to you.",
      "37": "When you make incense for yourselves, you shall not make any with this recipe. You shall regard it as holy to the Lord.",
      "38": "Whoever makes any fragrance like that for himself shall be cut off from his people.”"
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Look, here is Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, from the tribe of Judah. I have called him by name.",
      "3": "I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, and with skill in all kinds of crafts.",
      "4": "He has the ability to create designs. He works with gold, silver, and bronze.",
      "5": "He is able to cut and engrave precious stones and mount them. He can also carve wood. He works skillfully in all kinds of crafts.",
      "6": "“Not only that, but I have also appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamak, from the tribe of Dan, to work with him. I have put wisdom into the heart of all the skilled craftsmen, so that they may make everything that I have commanded you:",
      "7": "the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Testimony, the atonement seat that is on it, all the furnishings for the tent,",
      "8": "the table and its vessels and accessories, the pure gold lampstand with all its utensils, the altar for incense,",
      "9": "the altar for burnt offerings with all its utensils, the basin and its pedestal,",
      "10": "the finely woven garments (the holy garments for Aaron the priest), the garments for his sons to minister in the priest’s office,",
      "11": "the anointing oil, and the incense made of fragrant spices for the Holy Place. The skilled craftsmen shall do everything just as I commanded.”",
      "12": "The Lord spoke to Moses. He said,",
      "13": "“Speak to the people of Israel. Tell them, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths diligently, because the Sabbath is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, so that you may know that I am the Lord, who sets you apart as holy.",
      "14": "So you shall observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it must certainly be put to death, for if anyone does any work on the Sabbath, his life shall be cut off from among his people.",
      "15": "On six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must certainly be put to death.",
      "16": "Therefore the people of Israel shall observe the Sabbath by keeping the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.",
      "17": "It is a permanent sign between me and the people of Israel, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”",
      "18": "When the Lord had finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, stone tablets, written with God’s finger."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "When the people saw that it took so long for Moses to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Get up, make a god for us, who will go before us, because this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what has become of him.”",
      "2": "Aaron said to them, “Pull off the gold earrings from your wives and sons and daughters and bring them to me.”",
      "3": "All the people pulled off their gold earrings and brought them to Aaron.",
      "4": "He took what they handed him and shaped it with an engraving tool and made it into a bull calf cast out of metal. Then they said, “This is your god, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”",
      "5": "When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of it, and Aaron made a proclamation. He said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.”",
      "6": "They got up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought fellowship offerings. Then the people sat down to eat and to drink and got up to celebrate wildly.",
      "7": "The Lord spoke to Moses: “Hurry down, because your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves!",
      "8": "They have quickly turned from the way which I commanded them. They have made a calf for themselves out of metal and have worshipped it. They have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”",
      "9": "The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and they certainly are a stiff-necked people.",
      "10": "So now leave me alone, so that my anger can burn hot against them, so that I may consume them and make you into a great nation.”",
      "11": "Moses begged the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?",
      "12": "Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He brought them out for an evil purpose, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn back from your fierce anger and change your mind about inflicting disaster on your people.",
      "13": "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self. You said to them, ‘I will multiply your seed like the stars of the sky, and I will give all this land that I have spoken about to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.’”",
      "14": "Then the Lord changed his mind about the disaster which he said he would inflict on his people.",
      "15": "Moses turned and went down the mountain, with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hand—tablets that were written on both sides, written on one side and on the other.",
      "16": "The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.",
      "17": "When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is the noise of war in the camp.”",
      "18": "Moses said, “It is not the sound of people who shout for victory; neither is it the sound of people who cry because of defeat. But I do hear the sound of people who are celebrating.”",
      "19": "As soon as Moses came near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing, and Moses’ anger burned. So he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.",
      "20": "He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, and scattered it on the water. Then he made the people of Israel drink it.",
      "21": "Moses said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you have brought such a great sin on them?”",
      "22": "Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord burn. You know these people. They are set on evil,",
      "23": "so they said to me, ‘Make a god for us, who will go ahead of us, because this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’",
      "24": "So I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, pull it off.’ So they gave it to me. I threw it into the fire and out came this calf.”",
      "25": "When Moses saw that the people were out of control (for Aaron had let them get so out of control that they were disgraced among their enemies),",
      "26": "Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side, come to me!”\nAll the descendants of Levi gathered themselves together to Moses.",
      "27": "He said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Every man is to strap his sword on his thigh and go back and forth throughout the camp, from one gate of the camp to the other, and every man is to kill his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’”",
      "28": "The Levites did what Moses said, and that day about three thousand men from among the people fell.",
      "29": "Moses said, “Begin your service of the Lord today. Yes, because every man among you took a stand against his son and against his brother, the Lord is bestowing a blessing on you today.”",
      "30": "On the next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a very serious sin. Now I will go up to the Lord. Perhaps I can gain atonement for your sin.”",
      "31": "Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Yes, this people has committed a very serious sin: They have made a god of gold for themselves.",
      "32": "Yet now, if you will, please forgive their sin—and if not, please erase me from your book, which you have written.”",
      "33": "The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me is the one I will erase from my book.",
      "34": "Now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you. Look, my Angel shall go ahead of you. Nevertheless, when the right day comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”",
      "35": "The Lord struck the people with a plague, because of what they had done with the calf that Aaron made."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses: “Depart. Go up from here, you and the people that you have brought up out of the land of Egypt. Go up to the land about which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob: ‘I will give it to your seed.’",
      "2": "I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.",
      "3": "Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I myself will not go up among you, because you are a stiff-necked people, and I would consume you on the way.”",
      "4": "When the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and none of them put on their jewelry,",
      "5": "for the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go up among you for one moment, I would consume you. Therefore now take off your jewelry, while I determine what to do to you.’”",
      "6": "So the people of Israel stripped themselves of their jewelry at Mount Horeb.",
      "7": "So Moses took a tent and set it up outside the camp, far away from the camp, and he called it the Tent of Meeting. Everyone who was seeking an answer from the Lord would go out to the Tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp.",
      "8": "Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people got up and stood at their tent doors and watched Moses, until he had gone into the tent.",
      "9": "Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stand at the door of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses.",
      "10": "All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the door of the tent, and all the people would rise up and worship, all of them at their own tent door.",
      "11": "The Lord spoke to Moses face-to-face, as a man speaks to his friend. Moses would return again into the camp, but his assistant Joshua son of Nun, a young man, did not leave the tent.",
      "12": "Moses said to the Lord, “Look, you yourself have been telling me, ‘Lead this people up,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’",
      "13": "So now if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, so that I may know you, so that I may find favor in your sight. Consider that this nation is your people.”",
      "14": "The Lord said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”",
      "15": "Moses said to him, “If your Presence is not going to go with me, do not send us up from here.",
      "16": "After all, how would people know that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Isn’t it in this way: that you go with us, so that we are distinguished, I and your people, from all the people who are on the face of the earth?”",
      "17": "The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have said, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”",
      "18": "Then Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”",
      "19": "The Lord said, “I will make all my goodness pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord in your presence. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.”",
      "20": "He said, “You cannot see my face, for no human may see me and live.”",
      "21": "The Lord also said, “Look, there is a place next to me, where you shall stand on the rock.",
      "22": "It will happen that, while my glory passes by, I will put you in a crevice in the rock. I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.",
      "23": "Then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back. But my face will not be seen.”"
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "The Lord said to Moses, “Cut out two stone tablets like the first ones. On these tablets I will write the same words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.",
      "2": "Be ready by morning, and come up to Mount Sinai in the morning. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain.",
      "3": "No one may come up with you. In fact, no person is to be seen anywhere on the entire mountain. Do not even let the flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.”",
      "4": "Moses cut out two stone tablets like the first ones. Moses got up early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and he carried the two stone tablets in his hand.",
      "5": "The Lord came down in the cloud. He took his stand there with Moses and proclaimed the name of the Lord.",
      "6": "The Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and overflowing with mercy and truth,",
      "7": "maintaining mercy for thousands, forgiving guilt and rebellion and sin. He will by no means clear the guilty. He calls their children and their children’s children to account for the guilt of the fathers, even to the third and the fourth generation.”",
      "8": "Moses quickly bowed to the ground and worshipped.",
      "9": "He said, “If I have now found favor in your sight, Lord, please let the Lord go along with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our guilt and our sin, and accept us as your possession.”",
      "10": "The Lord said,\nSee, I am making a covenant. In the presence of all your people I will do marvelous things such as have never been created anywhere on earth or in any nation. So all the people who are around you will see the work of the Lord. For it is an awe-inspiring thing that I will do for you.",
      "11": "Observe what I command you this day. Watch me as I drive out the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.",
      "12": "Be careful that you do not make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will be a trap in your midst.",
      "13": "But you must break down their altars and smash their sacred memorial stones to pieces, and you must cut down their Asherah poles.",
      "14": "So you must worship no other god. For the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.",
      "15": "Do not make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land, so that they can prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods. If you do, they will invite you to eat their sacrifices,",
      "16": "and they will invite you to take their daughters as wives for your sons, and their daughters will prostitute themselves and make your sons prostitute themselves to their gods.",
      "17": "You shall not make any idols for yourselves.",
      "18": "You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you are to eat bread without yeast, as I commanded you. Eat it at the time appointed in the month of Abib, because you came out of Egypt in the month of Abib.",
      "19": "The firstborn of every mother is mine—the firstborn from all your male livestock, the firstborn of cattle and sheep.",
      "20": "The firstborn of a donkey you may redeem with a lamb, but if you do not want to redeem it, then you must break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you must redeem. No one shall appear before me empty-handed.",
      "21": "Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you must rest. Even in plowing time and in harvest time you must rest.",
      "22": "You are to observe the Festival of Weeks with the first ripe produce from the wheat harvest.\nObserve the Festival of Ingathering at the year’s end.",
      "23": "Three times a year all your males are to appear before God the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "24": "Because I will drive out nations before you and expand your borders, no one will covet your land when you go up to be in the presence of the Lord, your God, three times a year.",
      "25": "You shall not offer leavened bread along with the blood of my sacrifices. Nothing from the sacrifice of the Festival of the Passover is to be left over until morning.",
      "26": "You are to bring the best of the firstfruits from your soil to the house of the Lord your God.\nYou shall not boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk.",
      "27": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words for yourself, for these are the words with which I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”",
      "28": "Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He did not eat any bread or drink any water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.",
      "29": "When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not realize that the skin of his face was shining because he had been speaking with the Lord.",
      "30": "When Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, they were amazed that the skin of his face was shining, so they were afraid to come close to him.",
      "31": "Moses called to them, so Aaron and all the rulers of the community returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.",
      "32": "Afterward, all the people of Israel came close to him, and he gave them all of the commands that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai.",
      "33": "When Moses was finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.",
      "34": "But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off until he came out again. Then he would come out and tell the people of Israel what he had been commanded.",
      "35": "Whenever the people of Israel saw Moses’ face, they would see that the skin of Moses’ face was shining. Then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with the Lord again."
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "Moses assembled the whole community of the people of Israel and told them, “These are the things which the Lord has commanded you to do.”",
      "2": "On six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a sabbath of complete rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on that day must be put to death.",
      "3": "You must not even light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.",
      "4": "Moses spoke to the whole community of the people of Israel. He told them what the Lord commanded:",
      "5": "From what you possess, gather a special offering for the Lord. Whoever has a willing heart, let him bring these things as the Lord’s offering: gold, silver, and bronze;",
      "6": "blue, purple, and scarlet material, fine linen; goats’ hair,",
      "7": "rams’ skins dyed red, and the hides of sea cows; acacia wood,",
      "8": "olive oil for the Light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense,",
      "9": "onyx stones, and stones to be mounted on the special vest and on the chest pouch.",
      "10": "Let every skilled craftsman among you come and make everything that the Lord has commanded:",
      "11": "the Dwelling, its tent and its outer coverings, its clasps, its framework, its crossbars, its posts, and its socket bases;",
      "12": "the ark and its poles, the atonement seat, the special veil that hides it;",
      "13": "the table with its poles, all its vessels and accessories, and the Bread of the Presence;",
      "14": "also the lampstand for the Light, with its utensils, its lamps, and the oil for the Light;",
      "15": "and the altar for incense with its poles, the anointing oil, the fragrant incense; the screen for the door at the entrance to the tent;",
      "16": "the altar for burnt offerings with its bronze grate, its poles, and all its utensils; the basin and its pedestal;",
      "17": "the hangings for the courtyard, its posts, their socket bases, and the screen for the gate of the courtyard;",
      "18": "the stakes for the tent, the stakes for the courtyard, and their ropes;",
      "19": "the finely woven garments for ministering in the Holy Place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments for his sons, to minister in the priest’s office.",
      "20": "So the whole community of Israel departed from the presence of Moses.",
      "21": "Then everyone whose heart moved him and everyone whose spirit was willing came back and brought offerings to the Lord for the construction of the Tent of Meeting and for all the things to be used in its services and for the holy garments.",
      "22": "They came back, both men and women, all those whose hearts were willing. They brought brooches, earrings, signet rings, armlets, and all kinds of gold jewelry. Every person who came presented a wave offering of gold to the Lord.",
      "23": "Everyone who had blue, purple, and scarlet material, fine linen, goats’ hair, rams’ skins dyed red, and hides of sea cows brought them.",
      "24": "Everyone who presented an offering of silver and bronze brought it as the Lord’s special offering, and everyone who had acacia wood for any use in the project brought it.",
      "25": "All the women who were skilled spun thread with their hands and brought what they had spun: the blue, the purple, and the scarlet material and the fine linen.",
      "26": "All the women who were willing and skillful spun the goats’ hair.",
      "27": "The tribal leaders brought the onyx stones and the stones to be mounted on the vest and the pouch,",
      "28": "also the spices, and the olive oil for the Light, for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense.",
      "29": "The people of Israel brought a voluntary offering to the Lord. Every man and woman whose heart was willing contributed to all the work which the Lord had commanded Moses to do.",
      "30": "Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, from the tribe of Judah.",
      "31": "He has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and skill in all kinds of crafts.",
      "32": "He has the ability to create designs and to work in gold, silver, and bronze.",
      "33": "He can cut and engrave precious stones for mounting and can carve wood. He works skillfully in all kinds of crafts.",
      "34": "The Lord has also put into his heart the ability to teach others—both he and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, from the tribe of Dan.",
      "35": "He has filled them with skill to work in all kinds of crafts: designing, embroidering in blue, purple, and scarlet, working with fine linen, and weaving—all kinds of workmanship and designing.”"
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "Moses continued, “Bezalel and Oholiab shall work with every skilled man, in whom the Lord has put wisdom and understanding, who knows how to carry out all the work for completing everything for the sanctuary, according to everything that the Lord has commanded.”",
      "2": "So Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab, and every skilled man into whose heart the Lord had put the needed wisdom and skill, that is, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come and join in the work.",
      "3": "They received from Moses all the materials which the people of Israel had brought as a special offering for the task of completing everything for the sanctuary, and the people continued to bring voluntary offerings to Moses every morning.",
      "4": "All the skilled craftsmen who were performing all the work for the sanctuary came from the specific work which they were doing.",
      "5": "Each of them told Moses, “The people have brought more than enough to complete the work which the Lord commanded.”",
      "6": "So Moses gave a command that was passed throughout the camp: “No man or woman should provide anything else for the offering for the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing more,",
      "7": "because the material they had brought was sufficient to complete all the work, with some left over.",
      "8": "All the skilled craftsmen among the workers made the dwelling out of ten curtains made from finely woven linen and with blue, purple, and scarlet material. They decorated the curtains with cherubim, which were the work of a skillful craftsman.",
      "9": "The length of each panel of the curtain was forty-two feet, and the width of each panel was six feet. All the panels were the same size.",
      "10": "One set of five curtains was connected together into one panel, and the other set of five curtains was connected together.",
      "11": "They attached blue loops to the edge of the last panel in the first set of curtains. In the same way they attached loops to the edge of the last panel of the second set.",
      "12": "They made fifty loops for the edge of the first set of curtains and fifty loops for the edge of the second set of curtains. The two sets of loops lined up opposite one another.",
      "13": "They made fifty gold clasps, and they connected one set of curtains to the other with the clasps, so that the tent became one connected piece.",
      "14": "They made a curtain from panels of goats’ hair to serve as a tent over the dwelling. They made eleven panels.",
      "15": "The length of each panel was forty-five feet, and the width of each panel was six feet. The eleven panels were the same size.",
      "16": "They connected five panels into one unit, and six panels into another unit.",
      "17": "They made fifty loops for the edge of the last curtain of one set, and fifty loops for the edge of the last curtain in the second set.",
      "18": "They made fifty bronze clasps and put the clasps into the loops to join the two pieces of the tent together, so that it was one unit.",
      "19": "They made another cover for the tent from rams’ skins dyed red and another cover from hides of sea cows to go above that one.",
      "20": "They made upright boards of acacia wood for the Dwelling.",
      "21": "Each board was fifteen feet tall, and the width of each board was twenty-seven inches.",
      "22": "There were two pegs on each board to join them to one another. This is the way they made all the boards for the Dwelling.",
      "23": "They made twenty boards for the south side of the Dwelling.",
      "24": "They made forty socket bases of silver to go under the twenty boards—two sockets under the first board for its two pegs, and two sockets under the next board for its two pegs.",
      "25": "For the second side of the Dwelling, the north side, they made twenty boards,",
      "26": "with forty socket bases of silver—two sockets under the first board, and two sockets under the next board.",
      "27": "For the far side of the Dwelling, the west side, they made six boards.",
      "28": "They made two boards for each of the back corners of the Dwelling.",
      "29": "These two corner boards were double on the bottom, but they both were joined at the top by one ring. Both sets were like this.",
      "30": "Altogether there were eight boards with silver socket bases. There were sixteen socket bases—two socket bases under each board.",
      "31": "They made crossbars of acacia wood—five for the boards on one side of the Dwelling,",
      "32": "five crossbars for the boards on the other side of the Dwelling, and five crossbars for the boards on the back of the Dwelling on the west.",
      "33": "The middle bar, placed halfway up the boards, passed through from one end to the other end.",
      "34": "They overlaid the boards with gold and made gold rings to attach to them as a housing for the crossbars, and they overlaid the crossbars with gold.",
      "35": "They made a veil of blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine woven linen, decorated with cherubim, the work of a skillful craftsman.",
      "36": "They made four posts of acacia wood overlaid with gold. The posts stood on four socket bases of silver. The hooks were made of gold.",
      "37": "They made a screen for the entry to the tent out of blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine woven linen, the work of an embroiderer.",
      "38": "They made five posts of acacia to support the screen and overlaid them with gold. Their hooks were gold, and they cast five bronze socket bases for them."
    },
    "37": {
      "1": "Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood. It was forty-five inches long, twenty-seven inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high.",
      "2": "He overlaid it with pure gold on the inside and the outside, and he made a gold border around it.",
      "3": "He cast four gold rings for it and placed them next to its four feet—two rings on one side of it and two rings on the other side.",
      "4": "He made poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold.",
      "5": "He put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark.",
      "6": "He made an atonement seat of pure gold, forty-five inches long and twenty-seven inches wide.",
      "7": "He made two cherubim of hammered gold for the two ends of the atonement seat,",
      "8": "one cherub for one end and one cherub for the other. The cherubim on its two ends formed one piece with the atonement seat.",
      "9": "The cherubim spread their wings upward so that they covered the atonement seat with their wings, and they faced each other. The faces of the cherubim were looking inward toward the atonement seat.",
      "10": "He made a table of acacia wood, thirty-six inches long, eighteen inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high.",
      "11": "He overlaid it with pure gold and made a gold border around it.",
      "12": "He made a three-inch rim around it. He made a gold border on its rim all the way around it.",
      "13": "He made four gold rings for it and put the rings at the four corners above the four legs of the table.",
      "14": "The rings were close to the border to hold the poles used to carry the table.",
      "15": "He made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold, so that the table could be carried with them.",
      "16": "He made the vessels and the accessories for the table out of pure gold—its dishes, its small bowls, its larger bowls, and its pitchers to pour out drink offerings.",
      "17": "He made a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand was made of hammered metal. Its base, its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its flowers were all formed as one piece with the lampstand.",
      "18": "There were six branches going out from its sides. Three branches of the lampstand went out from one side, and three branches of the lampstand went out from the other side.",
      "19": "Three cups like almond blossoms with buds and flowers were on the first branch, and three cups like almond blossoms with buds and flowers were on the branch opposite it. It was the same for all six branches that went out from the lampstand.",
      "20": "On the lampstand itself he made four cups like almond blossoms with buds and flowers.",
      "21": "The buds under one pair of branches formed one piece with the lampstand, and the buds under the second pair of branches formed one piece with the lampstand, and the buds under the third pair of branches formed one piece with the lampstand—the same for all six branches going out of the lampstand.",
      "22": "Its buds and branches were made as one piece with it. All of it was one hammered work of pure gold.",
      "23": "He made seven lamps for it. Its wick trimmers and its pans were pure gold.",
      "24": "It was made with seventy-five pounds of pure gold, along with all these accessories.",
      "25": "He made the altar for incense. He made it of acacia wood. Its length was eighteen inches, and its width was eighteen inches. It was square, and its height was three feet. Its horns formed one piece with it.",
      "26": "He overlaid it with pure gold, its top, all its sides, and its horns. He made a gold border around it.",
      "27": "He made two gold rings to go under its border. He made them for two opposite sides. They were holders for poles with which to carry it.",
      "28": "He made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold.",
      "29": "He made the holy anointing oil and the pure incense of fragrant spices, the work of a perfume maker."
    },
    "38": {
      "1": "He made the altar for burnt offerings from acacia wood. It was square, seven and a half feet long and seven and a half feet wide. It was four and a half feet high.",
      "2": "He made horns on its four corners. These horns were made as one piece with the altar, and he overlaid the altar with bronze.",
      "3": "He made all the utensils for the altar—the pails, the shovels, the basins, the meat hooks, and the fire pans—of bronze.",
      "4": "He made a grate for it, which was a latticework of bronze, and he made four bronze rings for the four corners of the latticework grate.",
      "5": "He set the grate in place below the top edge of the altar, so that the grate rested halfway down from the top of the altar.",
      "6": "He made poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlaid them with bronze.",
      "7": "He put these poles through the rings on two sides of the altar for carrying it. He made the altar hollow. Its sides were made of boards.",
      "8": "He made a large bronze basin. Its pedestal also was bronze. He made it from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.",
      "9": "He made the courtyard. For the south side of the courtyard he made hangings of fine woven linen, one hundred fifty feet long for that side.",
      "10": "He made twenty posts for it and twenty bronze socket bases for them. The hooks for the posts and the connectors were silver.",
      "11": "In the same way, for the north side there were hangings one hundred fifty feet long, with twenty posts and twenty bronze socket bases. The hooks for the posts and their connectors were silver.",
      "12": "For the courtyard on the west side there were hangings seventy-five feet wide, with ten posts and ten socket bases.",
      "13": "The width of the court on the east side was seventy-five feet.",
      "14": "The hangings on one side of the entry gate were twenty-two feet six inches wide with three posts and three socket bases.",
      "15": "For the other side there were hangings twenty-two feet six inches wide with three posts and three socket bases.",
      "16": "All the hangings around the court were of fine woven linen.",
      "17": "The socket bases for the posts were bronze. The hooks of the posts and their connectors were silver, and the overlay of the capitals on top of the posts was silver, and all the posts of the courtyard had silver bands.",
      "18": "There was a screen for the entry gate of the courtyard, made of blue, purple, and scarlet material and of fine woven linen, the work of an embroiderer. It was thirty feet wide, and like the hangings of the courtyard it was seven and a half feet high.",
      "19": "It had four posts and four bronze socket bases. The hooks of the posts and their connectors were silver, and the overlay of the capitals on top of the posts was silver.",
      "20": "All the tent stakes for the Dwelling and all the stakes for the surrounding courtyard were bronze.",
      "21": "These are the inventories of the material used for the Dwelling, that is, the Dwelling of the Testimony, as they were recorded by the Levites under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest, as Moses had commanded.",
      "22": "Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, from the tribe of Judah, made all that the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "23": "With him was Oholiab son of Ahisamak, from the tribe of Dan, an engraver, a skilled workman, and an embroiderer in blue, purple, and scarlet material and in fine linen.",
      "24": "All the gold that was used for all the work of the sanctuary project (that is, the gold from the wave offering) was 29 talents and 730 shekels, measured by the shekel of the sanctuary.",
      "25": "The silver received from those who were counted in the census of the community was 100 talents and 1,775 shekels, measured by the shekel of the sanctuary.",
      "26": "The rate was one beka a head (that is, half a shekel a head), measured by the shekel of the sanctuary. One beka was given by each man as he passed over to those who had been counted—a beka each was given by 603,550 men from twenty years old and older.",
      "27": "The one hundred talents of silver were used for casting the sockets for the sanctuary and the sockets for the veil. One hundred sockets were made from the one hundred talents, a talent per socket.",
      "28": "From the 1,775 shekels, Bezalel made hooks for the posts, overlaid their capitals, and made connectors for them.",
      "29": "The bronze from the offering was 70 talents and 2,400 shekels.",
      "30": "With this he made the sockets for the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, the bronze altar, the bronze grate for it, all the utensils for the altar,",
      "31": "the sockets around the courtyard, the sockets for the gate of the courtyard, all the stakes for the tent, and all the stakes around the courtyard."
    },
    "39": {
      "1": "From the blue, purple, and scarlet material, they made finely woven garments for ministering in the Holy Place, and they made the holy garments for Aaron, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "2": "He made the special vest from gold and from blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine woven linen.",
      "3": "They beat the gold into thin sheets and cut it into threads so that they could work it into the blue, purple, and scarlet material and into the fine linen, the work of a skilled craftsman.",
      "4": "They made two shoulder straps for the top, one on each side, so that the vest could be fastened together.",
      "5": "The decorated sash, which is attached to the vest, was made just like it: of gold, of blue, purple, and scarlet material, and of fine woven linen, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "6": "They took two onyx stones and mounted them in gold settings and engraved on them the names of the sons of Israel, like the engraving on signet seals.",
      "7": "They mounted them on the shoulder straps of the vest as memorial stones for the sons of Israel, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "8": "Bezalel made a folded pouch, the work of a skillful craftsman. He made it with the same workmanship as the vest. He made it of gold, and of blue, purple, and scarlet material and of fine woven linen.",
      "9": "It was square, nine inches by nine inches when it was folded double.",
      "10": "They mounted on it four rows of precious stones. The first row was carnelian, diamond, and jacinth;",
      "11": "the second row agate, sapphire, and emerald;",
      "12": "the third row beryl, jasper, and ruby;",
      "13": "and the fourth row topaz, onyx, and turquoise. The stones were mounted in gold settings.",
      "14": "There were twelve stones, corresponding to the names of the sons of Israel. Each one was like an engraved seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes.",
      "15": "They made braided chains of pure gold for the pouch.",
      "16": "They made two gold rings for the pouch and attached the two rings to the top corners of the pouch.",
      "17": "They put the two braided gold chains into the two rings at the top corners of the pouch.",
      "18": "The other ends of the two braided chains they attached to the two settings, and then attached them to the shoulder straps on the front of the vest.",
      "19": "They made two gold rings and put them on the two lower corners of the pouch, on its inside edge, which is toward the vest.",
      "20": "They made two more gold rings and attached them to the two shoulder straps of the vest in the front, close to the bottom where it is joined to the sash of the vest.",
      "21": "They tied the rings of the pouch to the rings of the vest with a blue cord, so that the pouch was kept right next to the woven sash of the vest and would not swing out from the vest—just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "22": "The robe that was to be worn under the vest was the work of a weaver. It was all blue.",
      "23": "It had an opening in the middle of its top for the head. It had a woven binding around the opening, like the opening of a collar, to prevent it from tearing.",
      "24": "For its hem they made pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet material.",
      "25": "They put the pomegranates around its hem with gold bells alternating with them",
      "26": "(a gold bell, then a pomegranate, a gold bell, then a pomegranate), all around the hem of the robe that was worn when ministering, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "27": "They wove the tunics of fine linen, the work of a weaver, for Aaron and for his sons.",
      "28": "They made the turban and the small pointed turbans of fine linen, and the underwear was made from a special kind of finely woven linen.",
      "29": "The sash was made of finely woven linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet material, the work of an embroiderer, just as the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "30": "They made a medallion of pure gold to serve as a crest and engraved on it (like the engravings on a seal): Holy to the Lord.",
      "31": "They put it on a blue cord to fasten it to the turban on the front, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "32": "In this way all the work on the Dwelling, that is, the Tent of Meeting, was finished. The people of Israel did everything exactly as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "33": "They brought the Dwelling to Moses: the tent with all its furniture, its clasps, its boards, its crossbars, its posts, its socket bases,",
      "34": "the covering of rams’ skins dyed red, the covering made from hides of sea cows, the special veil,",
      "35": "the Ark of the Testimony with its poles, the atonement seat,",
      "36": "the table, all its utensils, the Bread of the Presence,",
      "37": "the pure gold lampstand, its lamps (that is, the lamps to be set out in order), all its vessels and utensils, the oil for the Light,",
      "38": "the golden altar, the anointing oil, the fragrant incense, the screen for the door of the Tent,",
      "39": "the bronze altar, its bronze grate, its poles, all of its utensils, the basin and its pedestal,",
      "40": "the hangings of the courtyard, its posts, its sockets, the screen for the gate of the courtyard, its ropes, its stakes, all the equipment for the service of the Dwelling (that is, the Tent of Meeting),",
      "41": "the finely woven garments for ministering in the Holy Place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments for his sons to minister in the priest’s office.",
      "42": "So the people of Israel did all the work according to everything that the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "43": "Moses inspected all the work, and he saw that they had done it exactly as the Lord had commanded, so Moses blessed them."
    },
    "40": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses. He said,",
      "2": "“On the first day of the first month you are to raise up the Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting.",
      "3": "Put the Ark of the Testimony in it, and screen the ark with the veil.",
      "4": "Bring in the table, and set in order the things that are to be on it. Bring in the lampstand, and light its lamps.",
      "5": "Set the golden altar for incense in front of the Ark of the Testimony, and put the screen in the doorway to the tent.",
      "6": "Set the altar for burnt offerings in front of the entrance of the Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting.",
      "7": "Set the basin between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it.",
      "8": "Set up the courtyard around it, and hang up the screen of the gate of the courtyard.",
      "9": "Take the anointing oil, and anoint the tent and everything that is in it. You shall make it and all its furniture holy, and it will be holy.",
      "10": "Anoint the altar for burnt offerings with all its utensils. Consecrate the altar, and the altar will be most holy.",
      "11": "Anoint the large basin and its pedestal, and consecrate it.",
      "12": "Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and wash them with water.",
      "13": "Put the holy garments on Aaron, and anoint him and consecrate him, so that he may minister to me in the priest’s office.",
      "14": "Bring his sons and put tunics on them.",
      "15": "Anoint them, as you anointed their father, so that they may minister to me in the priest’s office. Their anointing will give them a permanent priesthood throughout their generations.”",
      "16": "Moses did so. He did everything exactly as the Lord had commanded him.",
      "17": "And so in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, the Dwelling was raised.",
      "18": "Moses raised the Dwelling. He laid out its socket bases, set up its boards, inserted its crossbars, and raised its posts.",
      "19": "He spread the tent over the Dwelling and put the cover for the tent above it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "20": "He took the Testimony and put it into the ark. He set the poles in place on the ark and placed the atonement seat on top of the ark.",
      "21": "He brought the ark into the tent. He set up the special veil to screen the Ark of the Testimony, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "22": "He put the table in the Tent of Meeting, on the north side of the tent, outside of the veil.",
      "23": "He set the bread in order on the table in the presence of the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "24": "He put the lampstand in the Tent of Meeting, opposite the table, on the south side of the tent.",
      "25": "He lit the lamps before the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "26": "He put the golden altar in the Tent of Meeting in front of the veil.",
      "27": "He burned incense of fragrant spices on it, just as the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "28": "He put up the screen for the entryway to the tent.",
      "29": "He set the altar of burnt offering at the door of the Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting, and offered the burnt offering and the grain offering on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "30": "He set the basin between the Tent of Meeting and the altar and put water in it, with which to wash.",
      "31": "Moses, Aaron, and Aaron’s sons washed their hands and their feet there.",
      "32": "When they went into the Tent of Meeting and when they came near the altar, they washed, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "33": "He erected the courtyard around the tent and the altar and set up the screen of the gate of the courtyard. So Moses completed the work.",
      "34": "Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Glory of the Lord filled the tent.",
      "35": "Moses was not able to enter the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud stayed over it, and the Glory of the Lord filled the tent.",
      "36": "Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tent, the people of Israel would move forward.",
      "37": "But if the cloud was not taken up, then they would not travel until the day when it was taken up.",
      "38": "For in the sight of the whole house of Israel, the cloud of the Lord was above the tent by day, and there was fire in the cloud by night, throughout all their journeys."
    }
  },
  "Leviticus": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Then the Lord summoned Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting.",
      "2": "He said, “Speak to the Israelites and tell them these things.”\nWhen any of you present an offering to the Lord, when it is from the livestock, you may present your offering from the herd or the flock.",
      "3": "If a person’s offering is a whole burnt offering selected from the herd, he shall present a male without blemish. He shall present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be accepted before the Lord.",
      "4": "He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering so that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.",
      "5": "He shall slaughter the young bull before the Lord. Then Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall present the blood and splash the blood against all the sides of the altar at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "6": "They are to skin the burnt offering and cut it up into sections.",
      "7": "The sons of Aaron the priest are to stoke the fire on the altar and lay out wood on the fire.",
      "8": "Then Aaron’s sons, the priests, are to lay out the sections, together with the head and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar.",
      "9": "Then they are to wash its inner organs and its lower legs with water. The priest shall send it all up in smoke on the altar as a whole burnt offering, an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "10": "If a person’s offering for a whole burnt offering is from the flock, from the sheep or from the goats, he shall present a male without blemish.",
      "11": "He shall slaughter it on the north side of the altar in the presence of the Lord. Then Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall splash its blood against all sides of the altar.",
      "12": "When he has cut it into sections, together with its head and its fat, the priest is to lay them out on the wood that is on the fire on the altar.",
      "13": "Then he is to wash the inner organs and the lower legs with water. The priest shall present all of it and send it up in smoke on the altar. It is a whole burnt offering, an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "14": "If a person’s offering to the Lord for a whole burnt offering consists of birds, he shall present a turtledove or some kind of pigeon as his offering.",
      "15": "The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off its head, and send it up in smoke on the altar. Its blood is to be drained out on the side of the altar.",
      "16": "He is to remove its digestive system by cutting off its tail feathers and throwing them into the place for the ashes at the east side of the altar.",
      "17": "He is to tear it open by its wings, without tearing it apart. Then the priest shall send it up in smoke on the altar, upon the wood that is on the fire. It is a whole burnt offering, an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "When a person brings a grain offering to the Lord, his gift shall be fine flour. He is to pour oil on it, place frankincense on it,",
      "2": "and bring it to Aaron’s sons, the priests. He is to scoop out a handful of its fine flour and some of its oil, as well as all the frankincense. The priest shall turn its memorial portion into smoke on the altar, as an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "3": "But the rest of the grain offering will belong to Aaron and his sons, a most holy part from the Lord’s gifts.",
      "4": "When you present a grain offering that has been baked in an oven, it shall be fine flour made into unleavened round loaves mixed with oil or unleavened wafers coated with oil.",
      "5": "If your offering is a grain offering prepared on a flat griddle, it shall be fine flour mixed with oil, left unleavened.",
      "6": "Crumble it into bits and pour oil on it. It is a grain offering.",
      "7": "But if your offering is a grain offering made in a pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.",
      "8": "You may bring to the Lord a grain offering made in any of these ways. It shall be presented to the priest, who shall deliver it to the altar.",
      "9": "The priest shall separate the memorial portion from the grain offering and send it up in smoke on the altar as an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "10": "But the rest of the grain offering shall belong to Aaron and his sons, a most holy portion from the Lord’s gifts.",
      "11": "No grain offering that you present to the Lord shall be made with yeast, because you must not send up in smoke as a gift to the Lord anything made with yeast or with honey or fruit syrup.",
      "12": "You may present them as a firstfruit offering to the Lord, but they shall not be offered up on the altar as a pleasing aroma.",
      "13": "You are to season all your grain offerings with salt. You are not to leave out the salt of the covenant of your God from your grain offering. On all your offerings you must offer salt.",
      "14": "If you present a grain offering of first ripe grain to the Lord, you shall present fresh, undried grain roasted with fire, crushed kernels of the fresh barley, as a grain offering of your first ripe grain.",
      "15": "You are to add oil to it and place frankincense on it. It is a grain offering.",
      "16": "The priest shall turn its memorial portion into smoke (some of its crushed kernels and oil, with all of its frankincense) as an offering made by fire to the Lord."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "When someone presents a sacrifice as a fellowship offering, if he presents it from the herd, either a male or a female, he shall present before the Lord an animal without blemish",
      "2": "and lay his hand on the head of his offering. He shall slaughter it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Aaron’s sons, the priests, are to splash the blood against all sides of the altar.",
      "3": "From the sacrifice of the fellowship offering he is then to present as an offering made by fire to the Lord these parts: the fat that surrounds the inner organs and all the fat on the inner organs,",
      "4": "the two kidneys with the fat around them on the muscles and sinews, and the protruding lobe of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys.",
      "5": "Aaron’s sons shall send it up in smoke on the altar. Place it on top of the burnt offering that is placed on the wood on the fire. Offer it as an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "6": "If he presents a male or a female from the flock to the Lord as the sacrifice of a fellowship offering, he shall present an animal without blemish.",
      "7": "If he presents a sheep as his offering, he shall present it before the Lord",
      "8": "and lay his hand on the head of his offering. He shall slaughter it in front of the Tent of Meeting, and Aaron’s sons shall splash its blood against all sides of the altar.",
      "9": "Then he shall present the fat from the sacrifice of the fellowship offering as an offering made by fire to the Lord. Include all of the fat tail, which is cut off from the base of the spine, the fat that surrounds the inner organs, and all of the fat on the inner organs.",
      "10": "Also include the two kidneys with the fat around them on the muscles and sinews, as well as the protruding lobe of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys.",
      "11": "The priest shall send it up in smoke on the altar as food, as an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "12": "If his offering is a goat, he shall present it before the Lord",
      "13": "and lay his hand on its head. He shall slaughter it in front of the Tent of Meeting, and Aaron’s sons shall splash its blood against all sides of the altar.",
      "14": "He shall then present his offering from it as an offering made by fire to the Lord: the fat that covers the inner organs and all the fat around the inner organs,",
      "15": "as well as the two kidneys with the fat around them on the muscles and sinews, and the protruding lobe of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys.",
      "16": "The priest shall turn them into smoke on the altar as food, as an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma. All fat belongs to the Lord.",
      "17": "This is a permanent regulation throughout your generations in all your settlements: You must not eat any fat or any blood."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "The Lord again told Moses,",
      "2": "“Tell these things to the Israelites.”\nWhen a person sins unintentionally against any of the Lord’s commands by doing something which the Lord has prohibited, this is what you must do:",
      "3": "If it is the anointed priest who sins and thereby brings guilt on the people, for the sin that he has committed he shall present a young bull without blemish as a sin offering to the Lord.",
      "4": "He shall bring the bull before the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and lay his hand on the head of the bull. Then he shall slaughter the bull in the presence of the Lord.",
      "5": "The anointed priest shall take some of the blood from the bull and bring it into the Tent of Meeting.",
      "6": "The priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood in front of the curtain of the Holy Place seven times in the presence of the Lord.",
      "7": "The priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is in the Tent of Meeting, as a fragrant incense in the presence of the Lord. All the rest of the bull’s blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar for burnt offerings, which is in front of the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "8": "He is to reserve all the fat from the bull of the sin offering: the fat that covers the inner organs and all the fat that is around the inner organs,",
      "9": "the two kidneys with the fat that is around them on the muscles and sinews, and the protruding lobe of the liver, which he shall remove together with the kidneys.",
      "10": "It is to be reserved just as it is reserved from the cattle for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering. Then the priest shall turn them into smoke on the altar for burnt offerings.",
      "11": "But the hide of the bull and all its meat, together with its head and its lower legs, its intestines and their contents—",
      "12": "all the rest of the bull—he is to carry to a clean place outside the camp, to the ash dump, and burn it on a wood fire. It is to be burned on the ash dump.",
      "13": "If the whole community of Israel goes astray unintentionally and the offense is not noticed by the assembly, so that they violate one of the Lord’s commands by doing something that should not be done, but they later realize their guilt,",
      "14": "when the sin which they have committed has been made known to them, the assembly shall present a young bull as a sin offering and bring it before the Tent of Meeting.",
      "15": "The elders of the community shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord, and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord.",
      "16": "The anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the bull into the Tent of Meeting,",
      "17": "and the priest shall dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle it seven times on the curtain in the presence of the Lord.",
      "18": "He shall also put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is before the Lord in the Tent of Meeting. All the rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar for burnt offerings, which is at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "19": "He is to reserve all its fat and send it up in smoke on the altar.",
      "20": "He is to perform the same procedure for this bull as he performed for the bull of the sin offering. He shall perform the same procedure for it. This is the way the priest is to make atonement for them, so that they may be forgiven.",
      "21": "The bull is to be carried outside the camp, and it is to be burned just as the first bull was burned. It is a sin offering for the assembly.",
      "22": "When a tribal leader sins by unintentionally disobeying any of the commands of the Lord his God and doing something that should not be done, and he then realizes his guilt,",
      "23": "or the sin which he has committed has been made known to him, he shall bring a male goat without blemish as his offering.",
      "24": "He shall lay his hand on the head of the goat. It is to be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered before the Lord. It is a sin offering.",
      "25": "The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar for burnt offerings, and the rest of its blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar for burnt offerings.",
      "26": "He shall turn all its fat into smoke on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of the fellowship offering. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him, so that he may be forgiven.",
      "27": "If any common person from the land sins by unintentionally violating any of the Lord’s commands by doing something that should not be done, and he then realizes his guilt,",
      "28": "or the sin that he committed has been made known to him, he shall bring a female goat without blemish as his offering for the sin that he has committed.",
      "29": "He shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter the sin offering at the place for the burnt offering.",
      "30": "Then the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar for burnt offerings. All the rest of its blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar.",
      "31": "After he removes all its fat, just as the fat was removed from the sacrifice of the fellowship offering, the priest shall send it up in smoke on the altar as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. In this way the priest shall make atonement for him, so that he may be forgiven.",
      "32": "If he brings a sheep as his sin offering, he shall bring a female without blemish.",
      "33": "He shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it as a sin offering in the place where he would slaughter the burnt offering.",
      "34": "Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar for burnt offerings. All the rest of its blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar.",
      "35": "After he removes all its fat, just as the fat of the sheep was removed from the sacrifice of the fellowship offering, the priest shall send it up in smoke on the altar on top of the offerings made by fire to the Lord. In this way the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin that he has committed, so that he may be forgiven."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "When a person sins because he did not speak up, even though he was an eyewitness to a case or knew what happened, and he had even heard a curse pronounced against anyone who failed to testify, he is guilty.",
      "2": "When a person touches something unclean, whether it is the carcass of an unclean wild animal or the carcass of unclean livestock or the carcass of an unclean swarming creature, but he does not realize it, he nevertheless is unclean, and he is liable.",
      "3": "When a person touches human impurity, any impurity by which one becomes unclean, but at first he does not realize it, but later becomes aware of it, he is nevertheless unclean, and he is liable.",
      "4": "Or when a person rashly utters an oath, whether for an evil purpose or a good purpose—no matter what anyone may rashly utter as an oath—even though he does not realize it at first, when he finds out about it later, he is liable in any one of these cases.",
      "5": "When he realizes his liability in one of these cases, he shall confess the sin of which he is guilty.",
      "6": "As his penalty for the sin of which he is guilty, he shall bring to the Lord a female from the flock (a sheep or a goat) as a sin offering, so that the priest may make atonement for him for his sin.",
      "7": "But if he cannot afford a sheep or goat, he shall bring to the Lord as his penalty for that sin two turtledoves or two pigeons: one for a sin offering and the other for a whole burnt offering.",
      "8": "He shall bring them to the priest. First, the priest shall offer the one for the sin offering by wringing its head from its neck without severing it.",
      "9": "He shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar, while the rest of the blood is to be drained at the base of the altar. It is a sin offering.",
      "10": "Then he shall perform the procedure for the second sacrifice according to the regulation for a whole burnt offering. In this way the priest shall make atonement for him from the sin of which he is guilty, so that he may be forgiven.",
      "11": "If the person cannot afford two turtledoves or two pigeons, he shall bring as his offering for his guilt two quarts of choice flour for a sin offering. He shall not add olive oil to it or put frankincense on it, because it is a sin offering.",
      "12": "He shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall scoop out a handful of it as its memorial portion and send it up in smoke on the altar, on top of the gifts made by fire for the Lord. It is a sin offering.",
      "13": "In this way the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin of which he is guilty, so that he may be forgiven. Like the grain offering, it shall belong to the priest.",
      "14": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "15": "When a person commits an offense by unintentionally sinning in regard to any of the Lord’s holy things, he shall bring to the Lord as his restitution offering an unblemished ram from the flock or its equivalent amount in silver shekels by the sanctuary weight, as a restitution offering.",
      "16": "He shall make restitution for the holy thing in regard to which he sinned, by adding one-fifth of its value and giving this amount to the priest. Then the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the restitution offering, so that he may be forgiven.",
      "17": "If, however, a person sins by doing anything against the Lord’s commands by doing something that should not be done, even though he is not aware of it, he is liable and shall bear the punishment for his guilt.",
      "18": "He shall bring an unblemished ram from the flock or its equivalent as a restitution offering to the priest. The priest shall make atonement for him for his unintentional sin, which he had committed unknowingly, so that he may be forgiven.",
      "19": "It is a restitution offering. He has indeed made restitution to the Lord."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses and told him these things:",
      "2": "If a person sins and commits an offense against the Lord by deceiving his fellow citizen about a deposit or an investment or something stolen, or if he has extorted something from his fellow citizen,",
      "3": "or if he has found something that was lost and he pretended it was his, or if he swears falsely about any offense that a person may commit in connection with any of these sins—",
      "4": "when he has sinned and then admits his guilt, he shall return what he has stolen, or what he has extorted, or the deposit which was entrusted to him, or the lost thing that he has found,",
      "5": "or anything else about which he has sworn falsely. He shall repay it in its entirety and then add one-fifth of its value to the payment. He shall pay this to its owner when he admits his liability.",
      "6": "Then he shall bring to the priest as his penalty to the Lord an unblemished ram from the flock (or its equivalent) as a restitution offering.",
      "7": "The priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, so that he may be forgiven for whatever he has done to incur liability.",
      "8": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "9": "“Command this law to Aaron and his sons.”\nThis is the law for the whole burnt offering. It concerns the part of the burnt offering that remains on the altar hearth all night until the morning, while the fire is kept burning on the altar.",
      "10": "After the priest has put on his linen garments and wears linen underclothes next to his flesh, he shall remove the fat-drenched ashes from the burnt offering that remains on the altar after the burning, and he shall place them beside the altar.",
      "11": "When he has taken off his garments and put on other clothing, he shall carry the fat-drenched ashes outside the camp to a clean place.",
      "12": "The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It is not to go out. Every morning the priest is to burn more wood on it, so that he may lay out the burnt offering on top of it and turn the fat parts of the fellowship offerings into smoke on top of it.",
      "13": "The fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar. It must not go out.",
      "14": "This is the law for the grain offering.\nThe sons of Aaron shall present it before the Lord, in front of the altar.",
      "15": "One of them shall take a handful of the fine flour of the grain offering and some of its olive oil, together with all the frankincense that is on the grain offering, and turn its memorial portion into smoke on the altar as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "16": "Then Aaron and his sons shall eat the rest of it. It shall be eaten without yeast in a holy place. They shall eat it in the courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.",
      "17": "It shall not be baked with leavened dough. I have assigned it as their portion from my gifts. It is most holy, like the sin offering and the restitution offering.",
      "18": "Any male among Aaron’s descendants may eat it as his perpetual portion from the Lord’s gifts throughout your generations. Anyone who touches the offerings will be set apart as holy.",
      "19": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "20": "This is the offering that Aaron and his sons shall present to the Lord on the day when he is anointed: They shall bring two quarts of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half in the evening.",
      "21": "It is to be prepared with oil on a griddle. You shall bring it well soaked and present pieces of the grain offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "22": "The priest who has been anointed to succeed him from among his sons shall perform this sacrifice as a perpetual obligation to the Lord. It shall be turned entirely into smoke.",
      "23": "So too every grain offering of a priest shall be a total sacrifice. It is not to be eaten.",
      "24": "The Lord spoke to Moses and told him",
      "25": "to tell Aaron and his sons these things.\nThis is the law for the sin offering.\nThe sin offering is to be slaughtered before the Lord in the same place where the burnt offering is slaughtered. It is most holy.",
      "26": "The priest who offers it as a sin offering shall eat it. It is to be eaten in a holy place, in the courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.",
      "27": "Whoever touches its meat must be set aside as holy, and if any of its blood is spattered on any garment, you shall clean the spattered part in a holy place.",
      "28": "Any clay pot in which it has been boiled is to be smashed. But if it is boiled in a bronze pot, the pot shall be scoured and rinsed with water.",
      "29": "Any male among the priests may eat the offering. It is most holy.",
      "30": "But no sin offering from which some of the blood has been brought into the Tent of Meeting, to make atonement in the Holy Place, may be eaten. It must be burned with fire."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "This is the law for the restitution offering.\nIt is most holy.",
      "2": "The restitution offering shall be slaughtered in the same place where the whole burnt offering is slaughtered. The priest shall splash its blood against all sides of the altar.",
      "3": "All the fat from it is to be presented: the fat tail, the fat that covers the inner organs,",
      "4": "the two kidneys with the fat that is around them on the muscles and sinews, and the protruding lobe of the liver, which is to be removed with the kidneys.",
      "5": "Then the priest shall turn them into smoke on the altar as an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a restitution offering.",
      "6": "Any male among the priests may eat it. It is to be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy.",
      "7": "The restitution offering is like the sin offering. The same law applies to both: It shall belong to the priest who makes atonement with it.",
      "8": "Also the priest who presents anyone’s burnt offering shall keep the hide of the burnt offering that he has presented.",
      "9": "Any grain offering that is baked in an oven and any offering that is prepared in a pan or on a griddle shall belong to the priest who offers it.",
      "10": "Any grain offering that has been mixed with oil or is dry shall belong to all the sons of Aaron alike.",
      "11": "And this is the law for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering that is presented to the Lord.",
      "12": "If anyone presents it for thanksgiving, then, in addition to what he is offering as the thank offering, he shall present round unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and ring-shaped loaves made of well-soaked fine flour, mixed with oil.",
      "13": "In addition to the sacrifice of his fellowship offering that was presented as a thank offering, he shall present round loaves of leavened bread with his offering.",
      "14": "From this he shall present one of each kind as an offering elevated to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who splashes the blood of the fellowship offering.",
      "15": "The meat from the sacrifice of his fellowship offering for thanksgiving is to be eaten on the day that it is presented. None of it is to be left until morning.",
      "16": "But if the sacrifice that he offers is an offering to fulfill a vow or a voluntary offering, it may be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice. Whatever is left of it may also be eaten the next day,",
      "17": "but whatever meat is left on the third day is to be burned with fire.",
      "18": "Indeed, if any of the meat from the sacrifice of his fellowship offering is eaten on the third day, the one who presented it will not be accepted. It will not be credited to him. It will be regarded as rotten meat. Any person who eats any of it shall bear his guilt.",
      "19": "Meat that touches anything that is ceremonially unclean must not be eaten. It must be burned with fire. As for the other meat from the fellowship offering, anyone who is clean may eat such meat.",
      "20": "But the person who eats the meat from the sacrifice of his fellowship offering to the Lord while in a state of uncleanness will be cut off from his people.",
      "21": "If a person touches any unclean thing, whether it is human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or any detestable creature, and then eats some of the meat from the sacrifice of a fellowship offering which belongs to the Lord, that person will be cut off from his people.",
      "22": "The Lord spoke to Moses and told him",
      "23": "to tell the Israelites these things:\nYou shall not eat any fat from any cattle, sheep, or goats.",
      "24": "The fat of an animal that has died naturally or has been mauled by wild animals may be put to any other use, but you must never eat it.",
      "25": "Indeed, if anyone eats the fat from any kind of animal which someone may present as an offering made by fire to the Lord, the person who eats it will be cut off from his people.",
      "26": "You must not eat any blood from birds or animals in any of the places where you settle.",
      "27": "Any person who eats any blood will be cut off from his people.",
      "28": "The Lord spoke to Moses",
      "29": "and told him to tell the Israelites these things:\nAnyone who presents his sacrifice as a fellowship offering to the Lord shall bring some of his fellowship sacrifice as an offering to the Lord.",
      "30": "His own hands must bring the gifts made by fire to the Lord. He shall bring the fat on the breast in order to offer the breast as a wave offering to the Lord.",
      "31": "The priest shall turn the fat into smoke on the altar, but the breast shall belong to Aaron and his sons.",
      "32": "You shall give the right thigh to the priest as an elevated offering from your fellowship sacrifices.",
      "33": "The right thigh shall be the portion that belongs to the son of Aaron who offers the blood and the fat of the fellowship offering.",
      "34": "For from the Israelites I have taken the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the elevated offering from their fellowship sacrifices, and I have assigned them to Aaron the priest and to his sons from the Israelites as a perpetual regulation.",
      "35": "This is the assigned share for Aaron and the assigned share for his sons from the offerings made to the Lord by fire from the day when he presents them to serve the Lord as priests.",
      "36": "It is the share which the Lord commands the Israelites to give them from the day when he anoints them. It is a permanent regulation throughout their generations.",
      "37": "These are the laws for the whole burnt offerings, the grain offerings, the sin offerings, the restitution offerings, the ordination offerings, and the sacrifice of the fellowship offerings,",
      "38": "which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, when he commanded the Israelites to present their offerings to the Lord, in the Wilderness of Sinai."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Take Aaron and his sons with him, the garments, the anointing oil, the bull for the sin offering, the two rams, and the basket of unleavened bread,",
      "3": "and assemble the whole congregation at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.”",
      "4": "Moses did as the Lord had commanded him. When the whole congregation had assembled at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting,",
      "5": "Moses said to the congregation, “This is what the Lord has commanded you to do.”",
      "6": "Then Moses presented Aaron and his sons and washed them with water.",
      "7": "He put the tunic on him, tied the sash around him, clothed him with the robe, put the special vest on him, wrapped the decorated band of the vest around him, and tied the vest to him with the band.",
      "8": "He placed the pouch on him and put the Urim and Thummim into the pouch.",
      "9": "Then he placed the turban on his head, and he placed the gold medallion, the holy crest, on the front of the turban just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "10": "Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the Dwelling and everything in it, to consecrate them.",
      "11": "He sprinkled some of it on the altar seven times and anointed the altar with all its utensils and the basin with its pedestal, to consecrate them.",
      "12": "He poured out some of the anointing oil on the head of Aaron and anointed him to consecrate him.",
      "13": "Then Moses presented the sons of Aaron, clothed them with tunics, fastened a sash around them, and put small pointed turbans on them, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "14": "After the bull for the sin offering had been presented, Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull for the sin offering.",
      "15": "After it had been slaughtered, Moses took the blood, and with his finger he smeared it all around the horns of the altar, purifying the altar. Then he poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. In this way he consecrated the altar by making atonement for it.",
      "16": "Then, taking all the fat around the inner organs and the protruding lobe of the liver and the two kidneys with their fat, Moses sent them up in smoke on the altar.",
      "17": "But the bull, with its hide, its flesh, and its manure, was burned with fire outside the camp, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "18": "After the ram for the whole burnt offering had been presented, Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the ram’s head.",
      "19": "After it had been slaughtered, Moses splashed the blood against all sides of the altar.",
      "20": "After the ram had been cut into sections, Moses turned the head, the cut-up sections, and the fat into smoke.",
      "21": "After the inner organs and the legs had been washed with water, Moses turned all of the ram into smoke on the altar. It was a burnt offering for a pleasing aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "22": "Then the second ram, the ram of ordination, was presented. Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the ram’s head,",
      "23": "and it was slaughtered. Moses took some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron’s right ear, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.",
      "24": "After he had presented Aaron’s sons, Moses put some of the blood on the lobes of their right ears, on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. Then Moses splashed the rest of the blood against all sides of the altar.",
      "25": "Next he took the fat—the fat tail, all the fat around the inner organs, the protruding lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys with their fat—and the right thigh.",
      "26": "From the basket of unleavened bread that was placed before the Lord, he took one round loaf of unleavened bread, one round loaf of bread made with olive oil, and one wafer, and he placed them on top of the fat and the right thigh.",
      "27": "He put all these on the palms of Aaron and on the palms of his sons, and he raised them as an offering that is waved before the Lord.",
      "28": "Then Moses took them out of their palms and sent them up in smoke on top of the burnt offering on the altar. They were an ordination offering for a pleasing aroma. It was an offering by fire to the Lord.",
      "29": "Moses took the breast and presented it as an offering that was waved before the Lord. It was the portion for Moses from the ram of ordination, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "30": "After Moses had taken some of the anointing oil and some of the blood that was on the altar, he sprinkled them on Aaron, on his garments, and on his sons, and on the garments of his sons as well. In this way he consecrated Aaron, his garments, his sons, and the garments of his sons as well.",
      "31": "Then Moses said to Aaron and his sons: “Boil the meat at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. You shall eat it there with the bread that is in the basket of ordination, just as I commanded when I said, ‘Aaron and his sons shall eat it.’",
      "32": "What is left over from the meat and the bread you shall burn with fire.",
      "33": "You shall not go outside the entrance to the Tent of Meeting for seven days, until the period of your ordination is completed, because it will take seven days to ordain you.",
      "34": "The Lord has commanded what has been done on this day to make atonement for you,",
      "35": "while you stay at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting day and night for seven days. You shall keep the Lord’s vigil, so that you do not die, since this is what I have been commanded.”",
      "36": "So Aaron and his sons did all the things that the Lord had commanded through Moses."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "On the eighth day Moses summoned Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel.",
      "2": "He said to Aaron, “Take a bull calf from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a whole burnt offering, both without blemish, and present them before the Lord.",
      "3": "Then speak to the Israelites and say, ‘Take a male goat for a sin offering. Also take a calf and a lamb, both a year old and without blemish, for a burnt offering.",
      "4": "As a fellowship offering take one of the cattle and a ram to be sacrificed before the Lord, and take a grain offering mixed with oil, for today the Lord will appear to you.’”",
      "5": "They took what Moses had commanded to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. Then the whole congregation approached and stood before the Lord.",
      "6": "Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded you to do, so that the Glory of the Lord may appear to you.”",
      "7": "Then Moses said to Aaron, “Approach the altar and present your sin offering and your burnt offering. Make atonement for yourself and for the people. Then present the offering for the people. Make atonement for them, just as the Lord has commanded.”",
      "8": "Aaron approached the altar and slaughtered the calf as a sin offering for himself.",
      "9": "Then Aaron’s sons presented the blood to him. After he had dipped his finger in the blood, he put it on the horns of the altar, and he poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar.",
      "10": "Then he turned the fat, the kidneys, and the protruding lobe of the liver from the sin offering into smoke upon the altar, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "11": "But the meat and the hide were burned with fire outside the camp.",
      "12": "After he slaughtered the burnt offering, Aaron’s sons brought the blood to him, and he splashed it against all sides of the altar.",
      "13": "They brought the whole burnt offering to him, piece by piece, including the head, and he turned them into smoke on the altar.",
      "14": "He washed the inner organs and the legs and turned them into smoke on top of the whole burnt offering that was on the altar.",
      "15": "Then he presented the offering for the people. He took the male goat for the sin offering for the people, slaughtered it, and made a sin offering with it as he had done with the first one for himself.",
      "16": "He then presented the whole burnt offering and carried out the offering according to the regulations.",
      "17": "Next he presented the grain offering. Taking a handful of it, he sent it up in smoke on the altar, in addition to the morning burnt offering.",
      "18": "When he had slaughtered the offering of one of the cattle and of the ram as the people’s sacrifice for fellowship offerings, Aaron’s sons brought the blood to him, which he splashed against all sides of the altar,",
      "19": "and the fat pieces from the offering of the ox and the ram—the broad tail, the layer of fat, the kidneys, and the protruding lobe of the liver.",
      "20": "They laid the fat pieces on the breasts, and he turned the fat pieces into smoke on the altar.",
      "21": "Aaron waved the breasts and the right thigh as a wave offering before the Lord, just as Moses had commanded.",
      "22": "Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them. After he had presented the sin offering, the whole burnt offering, and the fellowship offerings, he came down from the altar.",
      "23": "Then Moses and Aaron entered the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people, and the Glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.",
      "24": "Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat pieces on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell on their faces."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Now Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his incense pan, put coals on it, and laid incense on it, and they presented unauthorized fire in the Lord’s presence, which was not according to his command.",
      "2": "Then fire came out from the Lord’s presence and consumed them. This is how they died in the Lord’s presence.",
      "3": "Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord said: ‘I must be treated as holy by those who are near me. I will be glorified in the sight of all the people.’” But Aaron remained silent.",
      "4": "Then Moses summoned Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Uzziel, Aaron’s uncle, and said to them, “Come forward and carry your cousins outside the camp, away from the sanctuary.”",
      "5": "They came forward and carried them outside the camp by their tunics, just as Moses had ordered.",
      "6": "Then Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons: “Do not dishevel your hair and do not tear your garments, so that you will not die, and so that wrath does not come down on the whole congregation. But your relatives, all the household of Israel, may weep because of the blazing fire that the Lord has ignited.",
      "7": "You must not go outside the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, or you will die, because the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.” So they did as Moses had ordered.",
      "8": "The Lord spoke to Aaron:",
      "9": "“When you enter the Tent of Meeting, you and your sons shall not drink any wine or beer, so that you will not die. This is a permanent regulation throughout your generations.",
      "10": "You must distinguish between what is holy and what is common, what is unclean and what is clean,",
      "11": "and you must teach the Israelites all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them through Moses.”",
      "12": "Moses spoke to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s remaining sons: “Take the grain offerings that are left over from the offerings for the Lord made by fire, and eat them as unleavened bread beside the altar, for they are most holy.",
      "13": "You shall eat them in a holy place, because they are your allotment and the allotment for your sons from offerings for the Lord made by fire, for that is what I have been commanded.",
      "14": "But you and your sons, and your daughters as well, may eat the breast that is waved and the thigh that is elevated in any clean place, for they have been assigned as something due to you and to your children as your allotment from the sacrifices of the fellowship offerings of the Israelites.",
      "15": "In addition to the offerings made by fire from the fat pieces, they are to bring the thigh that is elevated and the breast that is waved in order to wave them as a wave offering before the Lord. They shall be a permanent allotment for you and for your children with you, just as the Lord has commanded.”",
      "16": "When Moses inquired about the goat of the sin offering, he discovered that it had already been burned. He was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s remaining sons, and said,",
      "17": "“Why didn’t you eat the sin offering in the proper place in the sanctuary? It is certainly most holy since the Lord has given it to you for bearing the guilt of the community by making atonement for them in the Lord’s presence.",
      "18": "Since its blood was not brought into the inner part of the sanctuary, you definitely should have eaten it in the sanctuary, just as I commanded.”",
      "19": "Aaron replied to Moses, “Even though they presented their sin offering and whole burnt offering in the Lord’s presence today, such things have happened to me! Would the Lord have approved if I had eaten the sin offering today?”",
      "20": "When Moses heard this, he approved."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and told them",
      "2": "to tell the Israelites these things.\nThese are the animals that you may eat:\nOf all the mammals on land,",
      "3": "you may eat any that have hoofs with splits in the hoofs and that rechew their food.",
      "4": "But you are not to eat the following, which only rechew their food or only have hoofs: The camel, although it rechews its food, has no hoofs. It is unclean for you.",
      "5": "Do not eat the rock badger, for although it rechews its food, it has no hoofs. It is unclean for you.",
      "6": "Do not eat the hare, for although it rechews its food, it has no hoofs. It is unclean for you.",
      "7": "Do not eat the pig, for although it has hoofs with splits in the hoofs, it does not rechew its food. It is unclean to you.",
      "8": "You shall not eat any of their meat or touch their carcasses. They are unclean for you.",
      "9": "These are the creatures that you may eat from all those that live in water: You may eat anything from the water that has fins and scales, whether from the seas or the streams.",
      "10": "But everything else in the seas or in the streams that does not have fins and scales, every swarming creature in the water and every other living creature in the water, is detestable to you",
      "11": "and shall remain detestable to you. You shall not eat any of their meat, and you shall detest their carcasses.",
      "12": "Every creature in the water that does not have fins or scales is detestable to you.",
      "13": "You shall detest the following among the birds. They shall not be eaten. These are detestable: the eagle, the black vulture, the bearded vulture,",
      "14": "the red kite and black kites of every kind,",
      "15": "ravens and crows of every kind,",
      "16": "the eagle owl, the short-eared owl, the long-eared owl, all species of hawks,",
      "17": "the tawny owl, the fisher owl, the screech owl,",
      "18": "the white owl, and the scops owl, the osprey,",
      "19": "the stork and all species of herons, the hoopoe, and the bat.",
      "20": "All winged swarming insects that walk on all fours are detestable for you.",
      "21": "But among all the winged swarming insects that walk on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which they leap off the ground.",
      "22": "Of them you may eat the following: all species of locusts, all species of bald locusts, all species of crickets, and all species of grasshoppers.",
      "23": "But all other winged swarming insects that have four feet are detestable for you.",
      "24": "By any of the following you will make yourselves unclean (anyone who touches their carcasses will remain unclean until sunset,",
      "25": "and anyone who picks up any part of their carcasses shall wash his clothes and remain unclean until sunset):",
      "26": "All animals that have hoofs without splits between the hoofs or that do not rechew their food are unclean for you. Anyone who touches them will become unclean.",
      "27": "All animals that walk on their paws and go on all fours are unclean for you. Anyone who touches their carcasses will remain unclean until sunset,",
      "28": "and whoever picks up their carcasses shall wash his clothes and remain unclean until sunset. They are unclean for you.",
      "29": "These are the most unclean for you of the creatures that swarm on the ground: the rat, the mouse, and all species of large lizards,",
      "30": "the gecko, the spotted lizard, the lizard, the skink, and the chameleon.",
      "31": "These are the most unclean for you of the creatures that swarm. Whoever touches any of these when they are dead will remain unclean until sunset.",
      "32": "Any article made of wood or fabric or leather or sackcloth on which any of these fall when they are dead will become unclean. Any article that may be used for any task is to be put in water and remain unclean until sunset. Then it will be clean.",
      "33": "You must smash any clay pot into which any of them falls. Everything in it will become unclean.",
      "34": "If any water from the pot touches any food that may be eaten, the food will become unclean, and if any drink that may be drunk is in any clay pot which the unclean thing touches, it will become unclean.",
      "35": "Anything else on which the carcass of any of them falls will become unclean. An oven or stove must be broken up. They are unclean and will remain unclean for you.",
      "36": "But a spring or a cistern with a reservoir of water will remain clean, even though anyone who touches the carcass will become unclean.",
      "37": "If the carcass of any of them falls upon any seed grain that is about to be sown, the seed is clean,",
      "38": "but if water has been added to the seed and the carcass of any of them falls on it, it will become unclean for you.",
      "39": "If an animal that you may eat has died, anyone who touches its carcass will remain unclean until sunset.",
      "40": "Anyone who eats any part of its carcass must wash his clothes and remain unclean until sunset. Anyone who carries its carcass shall wash his clothes and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "41": "Any swarming creature that swarms on the ground is detestable; it must not be eaten.",
      "42": "You shall not eat any swarming creature that swarms on the ground, anything that goes on its belly, and anything that goes on all fours, or anything that has many legs, because these creatures are detestable.",
      "43": "You shall not make yourself detestable with any creature that swarms, nor shall you make yourself unclean with them, so that you become unclean by them,",
      "44": "for I am the Lord your God. Set yourselves apart, therefore, so that you may be holy, for I am holy. You shall not make yourself unclean with any swarming creature that crawls on the ground,",
      "45": "for I am the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God. You therefore shall be holy, for I am holy.",
      "46": "This is the law concerning land animals, flying creatures, all living things that move in the water, and all living things that swarm on the ground,",
      "47": "so that you can distinguish between what is unclean and what is clean, as well as between animals that may be eaten and animals that may not be eaten."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses and told him",
      "2": "to tell the Israelites these things:\nWhen a woman produces offspring and gives birth to a male, she will become unclean for seven days just as she is unclean during the time of her monthly period.",
      "3": "On the eighth day, the foreskin of his flesh shall be circumcised.",
      "4": "She will remain in the process of being purified from her flow of blood for thirty-three days. She shall not touch any holy thing nor enter the sanctuary until her period of purification is complete.",
      "5": "If she gives birth to a female, she will become unclean for two weeks as she does during her monthly period. She shall remain in the process of being purified from her flow of blood for sixty-six days.",
      "6": "At the completion of her time of purification for either a son or a daughter, she shall bring a lamb in its first year as a whole burnt offering and a pigeon or turtledove as a sin offering to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "7": "He shall present it before the Lord and make atonement for her, so that she may be clean from her flow of blood. This is the law for a woman who gives birth to a male or female.",
      "8": "If, however, she cannot afford a sheep or a goat, she may bring two turtledoves or two pigeons, one as a whole burnt offering and the other as a sin offering. The priest shall make atonement for her, so that she will be clean."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron:",
      "2": "When a person has a discoloration or a scab or a shiny patch on the skin of his body, which may become an outbreak of an impure skin disease on the skin of his body, he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who are priests.",
      "3": "The priest shall examine the infection on the skin of his body. If the hair on the infection has turned white and if the infection appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is an outbreak of an impure skin disease. After the priest has examined it, he shall declare it unclean.",
      "4": "But if there is a white shiny patch on the skin of his body that does not appear to be any deeper than the skin and if its hair has not turned white, the priest shall quarantine the person with the infection for seven days.",
      "5": "On the seventh day the priest shall examine him, and if, in his judgment, the infection has stayed the same and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall quarantine him for seven days a second time.",
      "6": "On the seventh day the priest shall examine him a second time. If the infection has faded and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall declare it clean. It is only a scab. After he washes his clothes, he will be clean.",
      "7": "But if the scab on his skin spreads after he has shown himself to the priest for his purification, he shall show himself to the priest once again.",
      "8": "The priest shall examine him. If the scab has spread on the skin, the priest shall declare him unclean. It is an impure skin disease.",
      "9": "When a person has an outbreak of a skin disease, he shall be brought to the priest.",
      "10": "The priest shall examine him. If there is white discoloration in the skin that has turned the hair white, and there is a sore of raw flesh in the discoloration,",
      "11": "it is a persistent skin disease on his body. The priest shall declare him unclean. He shall not hold him in quarantine, because he is unclean.",
      "12": "But if the disease breaks out all over the skin, so that a diseased condition covers all the skin with the infection, from his head to his feet, as far as the priest can see,",
      "13": "then the priest shall examine him. If the condition covers the whole of his body, he shall declare the infected area clean, since the whole of it has turned white. He is clean.",
      "14": "But as soon as raw flesh reappears on him, he becomes unclean.",
      "15": "The priest shall examine the raw flesh and declare it unclean. The raw flesh is unclean. It is an impure skin disease.",
      "16": "If, however, the raw flesh once again turns white, he shall come to the priest again.",
      "17": "The priest shall examine it. If the infected area has turned white, the priest shall declare the infection clean. He is clean.",
      "18": "When someone’s body has a boil on the skin that has healed,",
      "19": "and a white discoloration or shiny, reddish-white patch develops on the site of the boil, he shall show himself to the priest.",
      "20": "The priest shall examine him. If the infection appears deeper than the skin and if its hair has turned white, the priest shall declare him unclean. It is an outbreak of an impure skin disease. It has broken out in the boil.",
      "21": "But if the priest examines it and finds that the hair in it is not white, and it is not deeper than the skin, but it has faded, the priest shall quarantine him for seven days.",
      "22": "If the outbreak spreads on the skin, the priest shall declare him unclean. It is an infection.",
      "23": "But if the shiny patch remains the same and it does not spread, it is the scar of a boil. The priest shall declare him clean.",
      "24": "When someone’s body has a burn on the skin, and the sore from the burn becomes a shiny, reddish-white or white patch,",
      "25": "the priest shall examine it. If the hair in the shiny patch has turned white and it appears to be deeper than the skin, it is an impure skin disease. It has broken out in the burn. The priest shall declare him unclean. It is an outbreak of an impure skin disease.",
      "26": "But if the priest examines it and finds that the hair in the shiny patch is not white or it is not deeper than the skin, but it has faded, the priest shall quarantine him for seven days.",
      "27": "On the seventh day the priest shall examine it. If it should spread on the skin, the priest shall declare him unclean. It is an outbreak of a skin disease.",
      "28": "But if the patch remains the same, without spreading on the skin, and if it has faded, it is the discoloration from a burn. The priest shall declare him clean, because it is the scar of a burn.",
      "29": "When a man or a woman has an outbreak on the head or on the chin,",
      "30": "the priest shall examine the outbreak. If it appears deeper than the skin and if the hair in it is yellow and thin, the priest shall declare the person unclean. It is a lesion. It is an impure skin disease of the head or the chin.",
      "31": "If the priest examines the infected area of the sore and it appears no deeper than the skin and there is no black hair in it, the priest shall quarantine the person who has the outbreak of the sore for seven days.",
      "32": "On the seventh day the priest shall examine the infected area. If the lesion has not spread and there is no yellow hair in it and if the outbreak appears no deeper than the skin,",
      "33": "the man shall shave himself, without shaving the infected area. The priest shall quarantine the person with the lesion a second time for seven days.",
      "34": "On the seventh day the priest shall examine the lesion. If the lesion has not spread on the skin and it appears no deeper than the skin, the priest shall declare him clean. After he washes his clothes, he will be clean.",
      "35": "If, however, the lesion spreads on the skin after his purification,",
      "36": "the priest shall examine it. If the lesion has spread on the skin, the priest does not need to look for the yellow hair. The person is unclean.",
      "37": "But, if in the priest’s judgment the lesion has stayed the same and black hair has grown in it, the lesion is healed. That person is clean. The priest shall declare him clean.",
      "38": "When a man or a woman has many shiny white patches on the skin of his or her body,",
      "39": "the priest shall examine that person. If the patches on the skin of the body are a faded white, it is a rash that has broken out on the skin. That person is clean.",
      "40": "When a man loses hair from the top of his head, he is bald, but he is clean.",
      "41": "If he loses hair from his forehead, he has a receding hairline, but he is clean.",
      "42": "But if he has a reddish-white infection on his bald crown or on his bald forehead, it is an impure skin disease that has broken out on his bald head or on his bald forehead.",
      "43": "The priest shall examine it. If the discoloration of the infection is reddish-white on his bald head or on his bald forehead and it looks like the disease on the skin of the body,",
      "44": "he has an impure skin disease. He is unclean. The priest shall declare him completely unclean. It is an infection on his head.",
      "45": "The person with the skin disease who has an infection on him must wear torn clothes and let his hair be disheveled. He must cover his upper lip and cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!”",
      "46": "For as long as the infection is on him he shall remain unclean. He is unclean. He must live alone in a place outside the camp.",
      "47": "When an outbreak of mold occurs on any piece of clothing, on woolen or linen cloth,",
      "48": "on the warp or the woof of linen or wool, on leather or anything made of leather,",
      "49": "and if the contamination on the cloth or the leather, or in the warp or the woof, or on any article made of leather is bright yellow-green or bright red, it is an outbreak of mold. It shall be shown to the priest.",
      "50": "The priest shall examine the contaminated area and shall quarantine the contaminated article for seven days.",
      "51": "On the seventh day he shall examine the contaminated article. If the contamination has spread on the cloth, or in the warp or the woof, or on the leather, or on any article that is made of leather, the contamination is a persistent mold. It is unclean.",
      "52": "He must burn the clothing and the warp or the woof, whether it is made of wool or of linen, or whether it is any article made of leather that has the contamination on it. Because it has a persistent mold, it must be burned in fire.",
      "53": "But if the priest examines it and discovers that the contamination has not spread on the clothing, or in the warp or the woof, or on any leather article,",
      "54": "the priest shall command that the material with the contamination on it is to be washed, and he shall quarantine it for seven days a second time.",
      "55": "Then after the contaminated material has been laundered, and the priest examines it, even if he discovers that the contamination has not changed its appearance and the contamination has not spread, it is unclean. You must burn it in fire, whether the rot is on its front or its back.",
      "56": "But if the priest examines it and discovers that the contamination has faded after it has been washed, he shall tear it out of the clothing or the leather or the warp or the woof.",
      "57": "If it reappears in the clothing or the warp or the woof or any leather article, it is a new outbreak. You must burn the material with the contamination on it with fire.",
      "58": "If, however, the contamination vanishes from the clothing, or the warp or the woof, or any leather article that you wash, it shall be washed a second time; then, it will be clean.",
      "59": "These are the laws about a contamination of mold in woolen or linen clothing, in the warp or the woof, or on any leather article, in order to determine whether it is clean or unclean."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "This is the law for the purification of a person with an impure skin disease:\nWhen it is reported to the priest,",
      "3": "the priest shall go outside the camp. The priest shall examine him. If the area infected by the skin disease has become healthy,",
      "4": "the priest shall command that two clean wild birds, some cedar wood, some scarlet yarn, and some hyssop be taken for the person who is being purified.",
      "5": "The priest shall command that one bird be slaughtered in an earthen pot over water from a flowing source.",
      "6": "After taking the live bird, along with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn, and the hyssop, he shall dip them, along with the live bird, into the blood of the bird that was slaughtered over the water from a flowing source.",
      "7": "He shall sprinkle the blood seven times on the person who is being purified from the skin disease. When he has declared him clean, he shall release the live bird into the open country.",
      "8": "The person who is being purified shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and bathe in water; then, he will be clean. After that he may enter the camp, but he must stay outside his tent for seven days.",
      "9": "On the seventh day he shall shave off all his hair. He shall shave his head, his chin, his eyebrows, and all the rest of his hair. He shall wash his clothes and bathe in water; then, he will be clean.",
      "10": "On the eighth day he shall take two male lambs without blemish, one yearling ewe without blemish, six quarts of fine flour for a grain offering mixed with olive oil, and one cup of olive oil.",
      "11": "The priest who performs the purification shall make the person who is being purified stand in front of the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, together with the other objects.",
      "12": "The priest shall take one of the male lambs, bring it forward as a restitution offering, together with the cup of olive oil, and wave it as a wave offering before the Lord.",
      "13": "The lamb shall be slaughtered in the sanctuary, at the place where the sin offering and the burnt offering are slaughtered, because the restitution offering is like the sin offering. It belongs to the priest. It is most holy.",
      "14": "The priest shall take some of the blood of the restitution offering and put it on the right ear lobe of the person who is being purified, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.",
      "15": "The priest shall take some of the olive oil from the cup and pour it into the palm of the priest’s left hand.",
      "16": "Then the priest shall dip his right finger into some of the olive oil that is in his left palm and sprinkle some of the olive oil with his finger seven times before the Lord.",
      "17": "Then the priest shall put some of the olive oil that remains in his palm on the right ear lobe of the person who is being purified, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot, on top of the blood of the restitution offering.",
      "18": "The priest shall put the rest of the olive oil that is in his palm on the head of the person who is being purified. Then the priest will make atonement for him before the Lord.",
      "19": "The priest shall present the sin offering to make atonement for the person being purified from his impurity.\nAfter that, the burnt offering is to be slaughtered,",
      "20": "and the priest shall offer up the whole burnt offering and the grain offering on the altar. In this way the priest shall make atonement for him so that he will be clean.",
      "21": "If, however, the unclean person is poor and he cannot afford all these items, he shall take one male lamb as a restitution offering to be waved to make atonement for him, two quarts of fine flour mixed with olive oil for a grain offering, and one cup of olive oil,",
      "22": "as well as two turtledoves or two pigeons (whichever are within his means), one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering.",
      "23": "On the eighth day he shall bring them to the priest for his purification at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting in the presence of the Lord.",
      "24": "The priest shall take the lamb for the restitution offering and the cup of olive oil, and the priest shall wave them as a wave offering before the Lord.",
      "25": "After the lamb for the restitution offering has been slaughtered, the priest shall take some of the blood of the restitution offering and place it on the lobe of the right ear of the person who is being purified, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.",
      "26": "After the priest has poured out some of the olive oil on the palm of the priest’s left hand,",
      "27": "the priest shall use his right finger to sprinkle some of the olive oil from his left palm before the Lord seven times.",
      "28": "The priest shall also put some of the olive oil from his palm on the lobe of the right ear of the person being purified, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot—on the same places as the blood of the restitution offering.",
      "29": "Then the priest shall put the rest of the olive oil that is in his palm on the head of the person who is being purified by making atonement for him before the Lord.",
      "30": "The priest shall then offer one of the turtledoves or pigeons that are within the person’s means—",
      "31": "whichever he can afford—one as a sin offering and the other as a whole burnt offering, together with the grain offering. This is how the priest shall make atonement before the Lord for the person being purified.",
      "32": "These are the laws for anyone who has an outbreak of skin disease on him and whose means are insufficient at the time of his purification.",
      "33": "The Lord spoke these things to Moses and Aaron:",
      "34": "When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as a possession, and I put a contamination of mold on a house in the land that you possess,",
      "35": "the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, “There seems to me to be some sort of contamination in my house.”",
      "36": "The priest shall order the house to be cleared before the priest comes to examine the contamination, so that nothing in the house will be declared unclean. After that the priest shall go in to examine the house.",
      "37": "If, when he examines the contamination, the contamination on the walls of the house consists of depressions that are bright green or bright red and that appear deeper than the surface of the wall,",
      "38": "the priest shall come out of the house to the entrance of the house and quarantine the house for seven days.",
      "39": "On the seventh day the priest shall return to examine it. If the contamination has spread on the walls of the house,",
      "40": "the priest shall order that they rip out the stones with the contamination on them and throw them into an unclean place outside the town.",
      "41": "The house must be scraped all around the inside, and they must dump the mud that is scraped off in an unclean place outside the town.",
      "42": "They are to take other stones and bring them to replace those stones and other mud to plaster the house.",
      "43": "If the contamination breaks out again in the house after the stones have been ripped out and after the house has been scraped and replastered,",
      "44": "the priest shall go in to examine it. If the contamination has spread in the house, it is a destructive mold in the house. It is unclean.",
      "45": "The house shall be demolished and its stones and timber and all its mud are to be brought out to an unclean place outside the town.",
      "46": "Whoever enters the house at any time during its quarantine will be unclean until sunset.",
      "47": "Whoever sleeps in the house must wash his clothes, and whoever eats in the house must wash his clothes.",
      "48": "If, however, the priest enters and sees that the contamination has not spread in the house after the house was plastered, the priest shall declare the house clean, because the contamination has been cleansed.",
      "49": "To purify the house, he shall take two birds, some cedar wood, some scarlet yarn, and some hyssop.",
      "50": "He shall slaughter one of the birds in a clay pot over water from a flowing source.",
      "51": "He shall take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet yarn, and the live bird and dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird and in the water from a flowing source and sprinkle it on the house seven times.",
      "52": "When he has purified the house with the blood of the bird, the water from a flowing source, the live bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet yarn,",
      "53": "he shall release the live bird into the open country outside the town. In this way he shall make atonement for the house, so that it will be clean.",
      "54": "This is the law for every infection of skin disease, for rash,",
      "55": "for mold on clothing or a house,",
      "56": "for discoloration and a scab and a shiny patch—",
      "57": "to give instruction about when it is unclean and when it is clean.\nThis is the law concerning impure skin disease and contamination."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses and Aaron to speak to the Israelites and to tell them this:",
      "2": "Whenever a man has a discharge flowing from his flesh, that discharge is unclean.",
      "3": "This is the law about how a bodily discharge makes someone unclean: Whether his flesh secretes a discharge or it has a blocked discharge, ⎣he is unclean. As long as his flesh has a discharge or his body blocks a discharge,⎦ this makes him unclean.",
      "4": "Any bedding that the man with a discharge lies on is unclean, and every object on which he sits becomes unclean.",
      "5": "Anyone who touches his bedding must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "6": "Whoever sits on any object on which the man with a discharge sat must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "7": "Whoever touches the body of the man with a discharge must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "8": "If the man with a discharge spits on someone who is clean, that person must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "9": "Any saddle on which the man with a discharge rides becomes unclean.",
      "10": "Everyone who touches anything that was under him will become unclean until sunset, and whoever carries these things must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "11": "If the man with a discharge touches anyone without washing his hands, that person must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "12": "Any clay pottery that the man with a discharge touches must be broken, and any vessel or utensil made of wood must be rinsed with water.",
      "13": "When the man with a discharge has been cleansed from his discharge, he shall count off seven days for his process of purification, wash his clothes, and bathe his body in water from a flowing source; then, he will be clean.",
      "14": "On the eighth day he shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and come before the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and give them to the priest.",
      "15": "The priest shall present the offering for them—one bird as a sin offering and the other as a whole burnt offering. This is how the priest shall make atonement for the man in the presence of the Lord, from his discharge.",
      "16": "When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body in water and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "17": "Any garment or leather with an emission of semen on it must be washed in water and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "18": "Also if a man lies down with a woman and has an emission of semen, they must bathe in water and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "19": "When a woman has a discharge of blood from her flesh, her menstrual impurity will last for seven days. Anyone who touches her will remain unclean until sunset.",
      "20": "Everything on which she lies during her monthly period is unclean, and everything on which she sits becomes unclean.",
      "21": "Anyone who touches her bed must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset,",
      "22": "and anyone who touches anything on which she sat must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "23": "If the uncleanness is on the bed or on anything else on which she is sitting when he touches it, he will become unclean until sunset.",
      "24": "And if a man lies down with her, and her menstrual impurity comes in contact with him, he will be unclean for seven days. Any bed on which he lies will be unclean.",
      "25": "When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days besides during the time of her monthly period, or when she has a discharge that lasts longer than her monthly period, she will be unclean for as many days as her discharge continues, just as she is during her monthly period.",
      "26": "During her discharge any bed on which she lies is to be treated just like the bed during her monthly period, and every piece of furniture on which she sits will be unclean, as it would be during the impurity of her monthly period.",
      "27": "Anyone who touches them will become unclean. Any such people must wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset.",
      "28": "When she is cleansed from her discharge, she shall count off seven days, and after that she will be clean.",
      "29": "On the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons for herself and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "30": "The priest shall offer one dove as a sin offering and the other as a whole burnt offering. This is how the priest is to make atonement for her in the presence of the Lord, from the impurity of her discharge.",
      "31": "In this way you shall separate the people of Israel from their impurity, so that they do not die in their impurity because they defiled my dwelling place that is in their midst.",
      "32": "This is the law for those who have a discharge: for a man who has an emission of semen by which he becomes unclean,",
      "33": "for a woman who is not well because of her menstrual period, for anyone, male or female, who has a discharge, and for the man who lies down with a woman who is unclean."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron’s two sons, who had died when they approached the presence of the Lord.",
      "2": "The Lord said to Moses, “Tell your brother Aaron that he must not enter into the Holy Place at any time he chooses by going inside the veil which is in front of the atonement seat that is on the ark. This is so that he will not die, for I appear in the cloud over the atonement seat.”",
      "3": "This is how Aaron shall enter the Holy Place: with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a whole burnt offering.",
      "4": "He is to wear a sacred linen tunic, with linen underwear covering his flesh, with the linen sash as his belt, and with his head wrapped with the linen turban. These are the sacred garments. He must wash his body with water and then put the garments on.",
      "5": "From the congregation of the people of Israel he shall also receive two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a whole burnt offering.",
      "6": "Aaron shall present the bull for his own sin offering, to make atonement for himself and for his household.",
      "7": "He shall take the two male goats and stand them before the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "8": "Aaron is to cast lots for the two goats, one lot marked “for the Lord” and the other lot marked “for the scapegoat.”",
      "9": "Aaron shall bring forward the goat that received the lot “for the Lord,” to prepare it as a sin offering,",
      "10": "but the goat that received the lot marked “for the scapegoat” is to be kept alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it in order to send it off into the wilderness as the scapegoat.",
      "11": "After Aaron has presented the bull for his sin offering to make atonement for himself and for his household, he shall slaughter the bull for his sin offering.",
      "12": "Then he is to take a full pan of glowing coals from the top of the altar, which is before the Lord, and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and bring them inside the veil.",
      "13": "He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord so that the cloud from the incense covers the atonement seat that is over the Testimony, so he will not die.",
      "14": "He is to take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger upon the surface of the atonement seat on its east side. He is also to sprinkle some of the blood seven times with his finger in front of the atonement seat.",
      "15": "He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering of the people. He is to bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he had done with the blood of the bull. He is to sprinkle it on the atonement seat and in front of the atonement seat.",
      "16": "He shall make atonement for the sanctuary to cleanse it from the uncleanness of the Israelites and from their rebellions and all their sins. This is what he shall do for the Tent of Meeting, which dwells in the midst of Israel’s uncleanness.",
      "17": "When he enters to make atonement in the sanctuary, no other person may be in the Tent of Meeting until he has come out. In this way he shall make atonement for himself and his household, as well as for the entire assembly of Israel.",
      "18": "He shall then come out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He is to take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat and smear it all around the horns of the altar.",
      "19": "With his finger he is to sprinkle some of the blood upon it seven times. In this way he is to purify it and set it apart from the uncleanness of the Israelites.",
      "20": "When he has finished making atonement to cleanse the sanctuary, the Tent of Meeting, and the altar, he shall present the live goat.",
      "21": "Then Aaron shall lay his two hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the guilt of the people of Israel and all their rebellions and all their sins. He is to put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness in the custody of an appointed man.",
      "22": "So the goat will carry all their guilt on itself to a remote, desolate place, and the man will send the goat away into the wilderness.",
      "23": "Then Aaron shall enter the Tent of Meeting, take off the special linen garments that he had put on to enter into the sanctuary, and leave them there.",
      "24": "He shall bathe his body in water in a holy place and put on his regular garments. Then he shall go out and offer the burnt offering for himself and the burnt offering for the people to make atonement for himself and for the people.",
      "25": "He shall turn the fat from the sin offering into smoke on the altar.",
      "26": "The man who releases the goat designated as the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water. After that he may re-enter the camp.",
      "27": "The bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood has been brought in to make atonement in the sanctuary, shall be brought outside the camp. Their hide and flesh and manure are to be burned in fire.",
      "28": "The man who burns them is to wash his clothes and bathe his body in water. After that he may re-enter the camp.",
      "29": "This shall be a permanent regulation for you: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble yourselves, and you shall not do any kind of work, neither the native-born nor the alien who resides among you.",
      "30": "For on this day atonement will be made on your behalf to cleanse you. You will become clean from all your sins in the presence of the Lord.",
      "31": "It shall be a sabbath of complete rest, and you shall humble yourselves. It is a permanent regulation.",
      "32": "The priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as priest in his father’s place shall make atonement, wearing the linen garments—the sacred garments.",
      "33": "He shall make atonement for the Most Holy Place, and he shall make atonement for the Tent of Meeting and for the altar. He shall make atonement on behalf of the priests and all the people of the assembly.",
      "34": "This shall be a permanent regulation for you to make atonement for the people of Israel from all their sins once a year.\nSo Aaron did as the Lord had commanded Moses."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses",
      "2": "to speak to Aaron, his sons, and all the Israelites and to tell them that this is what the Lord has commanded:",
      "3": "If anyone from the house of Israel slaughters a head of cattle or a sheep or a goat in the camp or slaughters it outside the camp",
      "4": "without bringing it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting ⎣to sacrifice it for a burnt offering or fellowship offering to the Lord to be acceptable as a pleasant aroma, and if anyone slaughters it outside the camp and does not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting⎦ to present it as an offering to the Lord at the Dwelling of the Lord, guilt for blood will be charged to that man. He has shed blood. That man will be cut off from the midst of his people.",
      "5": "This is so that the Israelites will bring the sacrifices that they have been offering in the open country to the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, to the priest. They will sacrifice them as fellowship offerings to the Lord",
      "6": "so that the priest may splash the blood against the altar of the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and turn the fat into smoke as a pleasing aroma to the Lord,",
      "7": "so that they no longer offer their sacrifices to the goat demons, to which they have been prostituting themselves. This shall be a permanent regulation for them throughout their generations.",
      "8": "Tell them that if anyone from the house of Israel or from the aliens who reside among them offers up a burnt offering or a sacrifice",
      "9": "and does not bring it into the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to offer it to the Lord, that man will be cut off from his people.",
      "10": "If anyone from the house of Israel or from the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against the person who eats the blood, and I will cut him off from among his people.",
      "11": "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have given it to you to make atonement for your lives upon the altar, because it is the blood that makes atonement by means of the life.",
      "12": "Therefore I have said to the Israelites: None of you shall eat blood, nor shall any alien who resides among you eat blood.",
      "13": "If any of the Israelites or any alien who resides among them successfully hunts wild game and takes an animal or a bird that may be eaten, he must pour out its blood and cover it with earth.",
      "14": "For the life of all flesh is its blood. It is its life. Therefore I have said to the Israelites: You shall not eat the blood from any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it will be cut off.",
      "15": "If any person, whether native or alien, eats anything that has died naturally or has been torn by wild animals, he shall wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until sunset. Then he shall be clean.",
      "16": "But if he does not wash his clothes and bathe his body, he shall bear his guilt."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Speak to the Israelites and tell them this.”\nI am the Lord your God.",
      "3": "You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived. You shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. Do not walk in their religious practices.",
      "4": "Follow my ordinances and keep my regulations by walking in them. I am the Lord your God.",
      "5": "Keep my regulations and my ordinances. Anyone who does them will have life through them. I am the Lord.",
      "6": "No one shall approach his own flesh and blood to uncover their nakedness. I am the Lord.",
      "7": "You shall not uncover the nakedness that is reserved for your father, that is, the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness.",
      "8": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife. It is nakedness that is reserved for your father.",
      "9": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your half-sister, whether she is your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether born in the household or outside it.",
      "10": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter. That would be like uncovering your own nakedness.",
      "11": "The nakedness of the daughter of your father’s wife, the adopted child of your father—she is your sister—you shall not uncover her nakedness.",
      "12": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister. She has the same flesh as your father.",
      "13": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, because she is the same flesh as your mother.",
      "14": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother by approaching his wife. She is your aunt.",
      "15": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife. You shall not uncover her nakedness.",
      "16": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife. Her nakedness is reserved for your brother.",
      "17": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of both a woman and her daughter. You shall not take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter and so uncover nakedness that belongs to her. They are her flesh. It is a depraved act.",
      "18": "You shall not take a woman and then take her sister as a rival by uncovering her sister’s nakedness during that first wife’s lifetime.",
      "19": "And you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during the period when she is unclean.",
      "20": "You shall not give the wife of your fellow citizen your deposit of semen for seed, so that you become unclean with her.",
      "21": "You shall not dedicate any of your seed to Molek, thereby defiling the name of your God. I am the Lord.",
      "22": "You shall not lie down with a male as you do with a woman. It is an abomination.",
      "23": "And you shall not give your emission to any animal, so that you become unclean by it. No woman shall stand in front of an animal to let it mate with her. It is an unnatural perversion.",
      "24": "You must not make yourselves unclean in any of these ways, for in all these ways the nations that I am casting out before you have made themselves unclean.",
      "25": "In this way the land became unclean, so I have come to deal with its guilt, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants.",
      "26": "But you yourselves must keep my regulations and ordinances. You must not practice any of these abominations. This applies both to the native and to the alien who resides among you.",
      "27": "Because the people of the land who were there before you practiced all these abominations, the land became unclean.",
      "28": "So do not let the land vomit you out for making it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was there before you.",
      "29": "If anyone does any of these abominations, the lives of those who practice them will be cut off from the midst of their people.",
      "30": "Keep my instructions. Do not perform any of the abominable practices which were done before you arrived, so that you do not defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord your God."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses",
      "2": "to speak to the whole community of the Israelites and tell them these things:\nYou shall be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.",
      "3": "Each of you must respect your mother and father and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.",
      "4": "You shall not turn to gods that really are not gods. You must not make for yourselves gods cast out of metal. I am the Lord your God.",
      "5": "When you offer a sacrifice that is a fellowship offering to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you will be accepted.",
      "6": "It is to be eaten on the day that you offer it or on the next day, but whatever is left over on the third day is to be burned in fire.",
      "7": "If it is eaten at all on the third day, it will be regarded as rotten meat. It is not acceptable.",
      "8": "Whoever eats it will bear his guilt, because he has desecrated what is holy to the Lord. Any such person will be cut off from his people.",
      "9": "When you reap the harvest from your land, you are not to finish reaping all the way to the edge of the field. Do not gather up the gleanings of your harvest.",
      "10": "Do not strip your vineyard clean, and do not pick up the fallen grapes from your vineyard, but leave them for the poor and the alien who live with you. I am the Lord your God.",
      "11": "You shall not steal. You shall not swindle. You shall not lie to one another.",
      "12": "You shall not swear falsely by my name so that you do not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.",
      "13": "You shall not exploit your neighbor. You shall not rob him. You shall not keep the wages of a day laborer with you overnight until morning.",
      "14": "You shall not curse a deaf person, nor shall you put an obstacle in front of a blind person, but you must fear your God. I am the Lord.",
      "15": "You shall not act unjustly in court cases. Do not show favoritism to a poor person, and do not show undue honor to an important person. You must judge your fellow citizens with justice.",
      "16": "You shall not go around spreading slander among your people. You shall not testify falsely against your neighbor in a capital case. I am the Lord.",
      "17": "You shall not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. You must openly rebuke your fellow citizen so that you do not become responsible for his sin.",
      "18": "You must not take revenge. You must not bear a grudge against the members of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.",
      "19": "You shall keep my regulations. You must not cause two different kinds of livestock to mate together. You must not sow your field with two kinds of seed. You must not wear any clothing made with two kinds of material.",
      "20": "If a man lies down with a woman and has an emission of semen, if she is a female slave who has already been designated for another man, but she has not yet been fully ransomed or received her freedom, a hearing shall be held concerning financial compensation, but they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed.",
      "21": "But he must bring his restitution offering to the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting—a ram for restitution.",
      "22": "The priest shall perform atonement on his behalf before the Lord with the ram for the restitution offering for his sin that he has committed, so that he may be forgiven for his sin that he has committed.",
      "23": "Also when you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, you must cut off its budding fruit as if it were a foreskin. For three years you shall regard the tree and its fruit as uncircumcised. Its fruit shall not be eaten.",
      "24": "In the fourth year, all its fruit shall be set aside as a holy offering of praise to the Lord.",
      "25": "You may eat its fruit in the fifth year, so that its yield may be increased for you. I am the Lord your God.",
      "26": "You shall not eat meat with the blood in it.\nYou shall not interpret omens, nor shall you perform divination.",
      "27": "You shall not round off the hair on the side of your heads, nor shall you disfigure the edge of your beard.",
      "28": "You shall not make a gash in your flesh for the dead, nor shall you put tattoos on yourselves. I am the Lord your God.",
      "29": "You must not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land will not be subjected to prostitution and filled with depravity.",
      "30": "You must keep my Sabbaths, and you must revere my sanctuary. I am the Lord.",
      "31": "You must not turn to mediums or to spiritists and so become unclean through them. I am the Lord your God.",
      "32": "You must rise in the presence of gray hair and show respect in the presence of an elder, so that you fear your God. I am the Lord.",
      "33": "When an alien resides with you in your land, you must not mistreat him.",
      "34": "You shall treat the alien who resides with you as a fellow citizen. You shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.",
      "35": "You shall not use dishonest measurements of weight or volume.",
      "36": "Instead you must use an honest scale, honest weights, an honest dry measure, and an honest liquid measure.\nI am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt;",
      "37": "therefore, you shall keep all my requirements and my ordinances and carry them out. I am the Lord."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Then the Lord told Moses",
      "2": "to say this to the Israelites:\nAny Israelite or any of the aliens who reside in Israel who give any of their children to Molek must certainly be put to death. The people of the land shall stone that person to death.",
      "3": "I myself will set my face against that person and cut him off from among his people, because when he gave some of his children to Molek, he made my sanctuary unclean and defiled my holy name.",
      "4": "Furthermore, if the people of the land deliberately shut their eyes when that man gives any of his children to Molek, and they do not put him to death,",
      "5": "I myself will set my face against that man and against his clan. I will cut off from among their people both that man and all those who join with him in prostituting themselves to Molek.",
      "6": "If any person turns to mediums or to spiritists and prostitutes himself to them, I will set my face against that person and cut him off from among his people.",
      "7": "You shall set yourselves apart, and you shall be holy, for I am the Lord your God.",
      "8": "You shall keep my regulations, and you shall put them into practice. I am the Lord, who has set you apart.",
      "9": "Indeed, if anybody curses his father and his mother, he must certainly be put to death. Since he has cursed his father and his mother, his blood is upon him.",
      "10": "If a man commits adultery with the wife of another man, if he commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress must certainly be put to death.",
      "11": "If a man lies down with his father’s wife, he has uncovered nakedness that is reserved for his father. Both of them certainly must be put to death. Their blood is upon them.",
      "12": "If a man lies down with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. They have committed an unnatural perversion. Their blood is upon them.",
      "13": "If a man lies down with a male as one lies down with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They must certainly be put to death. Their blood is upon them.",
      "14": "If a man takes a woman and her mother, it is a depraved act. Both he and they shall be burned in fire, so that there may be no depravity among you.",
      "15": "If a man gives his emission to an animal, he must certainly be put to death, and you must kill the animal.",
      "16": "If a woman approaches any animal to let it mate with her, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They must certainly be put to death. Their blood is on them.",
      "17": "If a man takes his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother, and he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a shameful act. They will be cut off in the sight of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness. He will bear his guilt.",
      "18": "If a man lies down with a woman during her period and uncovers her nakedness, he uncovers her flow, and she uncovers her flow of blood. Both of them will be cut off from the midst of their people.",
      "19": "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or your father’s sister, for that would be uncovering one’s own flesh. They will bear their guilt.",
      "20": "If a man lies down with the wife of his father’s brother, he uncovers the nakedness that is reserved for his father’s brother. They shall bear their sin. They will die childless.",
      "21": "If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is a polluted act. He has uncovered nakedness that is reserved for his brother. They will remain childless.",
      "22": "You shall keep all my regulations and all my ordinances and put them into practice, so that the land to which I am bringing you to live will not vomit you out.",
      "23": "You shall not walk according to the religious practices of the nation which I am casting out before you, for I was disgusted with them because they did all these things,",
      "24": "so I said to you, “You will take possession of their land. I myself will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. I, the Lord, am your God, who has distinguished you from the other peoples.",
      "25": "You shall therefore distinguish the clean animal from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable with an animal or a bird or anything that crawls on the ground that I have distinguished by declaring what is unclean for you.",
      "26": "You will be holy to me, for I, the Lord, am holy, and I have distinguished you from the other peoples so that you belong to me.”",
      "27": "A man or a woman who is a medium or deals with the spirits of the dead must certainly be put to death. They must be stoned to death. Their blood is on them."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses to speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and tell them this:\nNo one shall make himself unclean for a dead person among his people,",
      "2": "except for his closest relatives. He may do it for his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, or his brother,",
      "3": "and also for his virgin sister, who is close to him because she does not have a husband—for her he may make himself unclean.",
      "4": "But he shall not make himself unclean for his relatives by marriage and so defile himself.",
      "5": "The priests shall not cut a bald patch on to their heads or cut off the edges of their beards or gash their bodies.",
      "6": "They shall be holy to their God, and they shall not defile the name of their God. Because they present offerings made by fire, the food of their God, they are to be set apart as holy.",
      "7": "They shall not marry a woman who has been a prostitute or is defiled. Neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for each priest is holy to his God.",
      "8": "So you shall treat him as holy. Since he presents the food of your God, he shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sets you apart as holy, am holy.",
      "9": "When the daughter of a man who is a priest defiles herself through prostitution, she is defiling her father. She shall be burned in fire.",
      "10": "The high priest, who is greater than his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been ordained to wear the holy garments, shall not dishevel his hair nor tear his garments.",
      "11": "He shall not enter any place where there is a dead person. He shall not make himself unclean even for his father or his mother.",
      "12": "He shall not leave the sanctuary, so that he will not defile the sanctuary of his God, for the mark of consecration with the anointing oil of his God is upon him. I am the Lord.",
      "13": "The high priest shall marry a woman who is a virgin.",
      "14": "A widow or a divorcée or a woman defiled because of prostitution—these he shall not marry. Instead, he shall take a virgin from his own people as a wife,",
      "15": "so that he does not defile his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord, who sets him apart as holy.",
      "16": "The Lord told Moses",
      "17": "to tell Aaron this:\nAny man from your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect may not approach to present the food of his God.",
      "18": "Indeed, any man who has a defect shall not approach—a man who is blind or lame, or who has a limb that is too short or too long,",
      "19": "or a man who has a crippled foot or a crippled hand,",
      "20": "or who is deformed or abnormally small, or who has a growth in his eye, or a festering boil, or some other disfiguring skin condition, or a damaged testicle.",
      "21": "Any man among the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a defect shall not draw near to present the gifts of the Lord. He has a defect, so he shall not draw near to present the food of his God.",
      "22": "But he may eat the food of his God from the most holy things and from the holy things.",
      "23": "Nevertheless, he shall not go in front of the veil and shall not approach the altar because he has a defect, so that he does not defile my holy things, for I am the Lord, who sets them apart as holy.",
      "24": "So Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Tell Aaron and his sons to be very careful with the holy things of the people of Israel, which they consecrate to me, so that they may not defile my holy name. I am the Lord.",
      "3": "Tell them these things.”\nIn future generations, if any man among all your descendants, while he is in a state of uncleanness, approaches the holy things, which the Israelites consecrate to the Lord, that person is to be cut off from my presence. I am the Lord.",
      "4": "Any man of Aaron’s descendants who has an impure skin disease or a bodily discharge shall not eat any of the holy things until he is clean.\nAny man who touches anything made unclean by a dead person, or any man from whom an emission of semen goes out,",
      "5": "or any man who touches any swarming creature that makes him unclean, or who touches any human being who makes him unclean, whatever his uncleanness might be—",
      "6": "that person who touches any of these things will be unclean until sunset and shall not eat any of the holy things unless he has washed his body with water.",
      "7": "When the sun has gone down, he will be clean. After that he may eat from the holy things, for it is his food.",
      "8": "But he shall not eat anything that has died naturally or been torn by wild animals, and so become unclean by it. I am the Lord.",
      "9": "Aaron’s descendants shall therefore keep watch for me, so that they do not become responsible for sin on account of uncleanness and die for it because they have defiled something holy. I am the Lord, who sets them apart as holy.",
      "10": "No person who is not a member of a priest’s family may eat anything holy. No guest or employee of a priest may eat anything holy.",
      "11": "But if a priest purchases anyone with his money, that person may eat from it, and those who are born into his household may eat from his food.",
      "12": "If a priest’s daughter has a husband who is not a priest, she may not eat any of the holy things that have been donated as an elevated offering.",
      "13": "But if a priest’s daughter is widowed or divorced and she has no children and returns to her father’s house as in her youth, she may eat of her father’s food. No person who is not a member of a priest’s family may eat of it.",
      "14": "If anyone eats a holy thing unintentionally, he shall add one fifth of its value to it and give the holy thing to the priest.",
      "15": "The priests shall not defile the holy things that the Israelites donate as an elevated offering to the Lord",
      "16": "by letting other people eat them and so make that person incur the penalty of a restitution offering for the holy things, because I am the Lord, who sets them apart as holy.",
      "17": "The Lord told Moses",
      "18": "to speak to Aaron and his sons and the whole people of Israel and tell them this:\nWhenever anyone of the house of Israel or any of the aliens residing in Israel presents their offerings—whether it is any kind of offering to fulfill a vow or any kind of voluntary offering, which may be presented to the Lord as a burnt offering—",
      "19": "in order for the offering to be accepted it must be a male without blemish, from the cattle or the sheep or the goats.",
      "20": "You shall not present any animal with a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf.",
      "21": "If anyone presents a sacrifice as a fellowship offering to the Lord from the herd or the flock to fulfill a vow or as a voluntary offering, it must be without blemish for it to be accepted on your behalf. There must not be any defect in it.",
      "22": "Any animal that is blind, injured, or maimed, with a growth in the eye, a festering boil, or sores—these you shall not present to the Lord. You shall not put any of these on the altar as an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "23": "You may, however, make a voluntary offering with a head of cattle or with a sheep or goat that has a long or short leg, but it will not be accepted as an offering to fulfill a vow.",
      "24": "You shall not present to the Lord any animal that has its testicles bruised or crushed or torn out or cut off. You shall not do this in your land.",
      "25": "You shall not present any of these animals from a foreigner as the food of your God. Because they are flawed, with a defect in them, they will not be accepted on your behalf.",
      "26": "Then the Lord told Moses this:",
      "27": "When a calf or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall remain with its mother for seven days. From the eighth day on, it will be acceptable as an offering that is a gift made by fire to the Lord.",
      "28": "But you shall not slaughter a cow or a ewe with her young on the same day.",
      "29": "When you offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you will be accepted.",
      "30": "It must be eaten on the same day. You shall not leave any of it over until the morning. I am the Lord.",
      "31": "So you shall keep my commandments by doing them. I am the Lord.",
      "32": "Therefore you shall not defile my holy name, so that I may be honored as holy among the Israelites. I am the Lord, who sets you apart as holy,",
      "33": "who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses",
      "2": "to speak to the Israelites and to tell them this:\nThese are the appointed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as holy convocations. These are my appointed times:",
      "3": "On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall not do any work. It shall be a sabbath to the Lord in all the places you live.",
      "4": "These are the appointed times of the Lord, the holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.",
      "5": "The first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, is the Lord’s Passover,",
      "6": "and the fifteenth day of this month is the Festival of Unleavened Bread for the Lord. You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days.",
      "7": "On the first day a holy convocation is to be proclaimed for you. You shall not do any work in your regular occupation.",
      "8": "You shall present an offering by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be proclaimed as a holy convocation. You shall not do any work for your regular occupation.",
      "9": "The Lord told Moses",
      "10": "to speak to the people of Israel and tell them this:\nWhen you enter the land that I am giving to you and you reap its harvest, and when you bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the priest",
      "11": "so that he may wave the sheaf before the Lord so that you will be accepted, the priest shall wave it on the day after the Sabbath.",
      "12": "On the day that you wave the sheaf, you shall offer as a burnt offering to the Lord a lamb without blemish, one year old.",
      "13": "The grain offering accompanying it is to be four quarts of fine wheat flour mixed with oil, a gift to the Lord, a pleasing aroma. The drink offering accompanying it shall be a quart of wine.",
      "14": "You shall not eat any of this year’s bread or roasted grain or fresh ears until this very day, until you have brought the offering of your God. This is a permanent regulation throughout your generations in all the places you live.",
      "15": "Then from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you bring the sheaf to be waved, you shall count off seven weeks for yourselves. They must be complete weeks.",
      "16": "You shall count fifty days, until you reach the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present an offering of new grain to the Lord.",
      "17": "From the places where you live you shall bring two loaves of bread as a wave offering. They shall be made of four quarts of fine wheat flour, baked with yeast, as first ripe produce for the Lord.",
      "18": "Then with the bread you shall present seven lambs without blemish, each of them one year old, one young bull from the herd, and two rams—they shall be a whole burnt offering for the Lord, together with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "19": "You shall also present the sin offering with one male goat and the fellowship offering with two one-year-old male lambs.",
      "20": "The priest shall wave them, together with the bread from the first ripe produce, as a wave offering before the Lord, in addition to the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest.",
      "21": "On this very same day you shall make a proclamation. A holy convocation will be proclaimed for you. You shall do no work in your regular occupation. This is a permanent regulation in all the places you live throughout your generations.",
      "22": "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not completely reap the edges of your field or gather the dropped stalks from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the resident alien. I am the Lord your God.",
      "23": "The Lord told Moses",
      "24": "to speak to the people of Israel:\nIn the seventh month, on the first of the month, you shall have a complete rest, a memorial celebration with loud blasts of the ram’s horn, proclaimed as a holy convocation.",
      "25": "You shall not do any work in your regular occupation, and you shall present a gift made by fire to the Lord.",
      "26": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "27": "It is the tenth day of this seventh month that is the Day of Atonement. It shall be proclaimed as a holy convocation for you. You shall humble yourselves, and you shall present an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "28": "You shall not do any work on this special day, because it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God.",
      "29": "Indeed, anyone who does not humble himself on this special day will be cut off from his people.",
      "30": "Anyone who does any work on this very special day, I will exterminate from the midst of his people.",
      "31": "You shall do no work. This is a permanent regulation throughout your generations in all your places where you live.",
      "32": "It is a sabbath of complete rest for you. You shall humble yourselves on the ninth day of the month at evening. From that evening until the next evening, you shall observe a sabbath rest.",
      "33": "The Lord told Moses",
      "34": "to tell the people of Israel this:\nBeginning on the fifteenth day of this seventh month, celebrate the Festival of Shelters for seven days for the Lord.",
      "35": "On the first day proclaim a holy convocation. You shall not do any work for your regular occupation.",
      "36": "For seven days you shall bring an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day proclaim a holy convocation for yourselves, and you shall present an offering made by fire to the Lord. This is a closing ceremony. You shall not do any work for your regular occupation.",
      "37": "These are the appointed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as holy convocations for the presentation of offerings made by fire to the Lord—burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings as commanded for each day.",
      "38": "Offer these in addition to the Sabbath offerings of the Lord, in addition to your personal wave offerings, in addition to all your offerings to fulfill a vow, and in addition to all your voluntary offerings that you give to the Lord.",
      "39": "Beginning exactly on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, when you go to celebrate the festival of the Lord for seven days as a pilgrim, there shall be a complete sabbath rest on the first day and a complete sabbath rest on the eighth day.",
      "40": "On the first day you shall select for yourselves fruit from splendid trees, branches of palm trees, boughs from leafy trees, and willows from by the stream—and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.",
      "41": "Celebrate the festival for the Lord as a pilgrim for seven days each year. This is a permanent regulation throughout your generations. In the seventh month you shall celebrate the festival as a pilgrim.",
      "42": "You shall live in temporary shelters for seven days—every native-born person in Israel shall live in shelters—",
      "43": "so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in shelters when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.",
      "44": "That is what Moses said about the appointed times of the Lord to the people of Israel."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil from beaten olives for the Light so the lamps will be kept burning continually.",
      "3": "Aaron shall set the Light before the Lord in the Tent of Meeting, outside the veil which is in front of the Testimony, every night from the evening to the morning. It is a permanent regulation throughout your generations.",
      "4": "He shall set the lamps regularly on the pure gold lampstand before the Lord.",
      "5": "You shall take fine flour and bake twelve round loaves from it. Each loaf shall be made with four quarts of flour.",
      "6": "You shall put them in two stacks, six to each stack, on the pure gold table before the Lord.",
      "7": "Upon the stacks you shall place clear frankincense as a memorial portion for the bread. It is a gift of food to the Lord.",
      "8": "On every Sabbath day he shall arrange it before the Lord regularly. It is a permanent covenant on behalf of the Israelites.",
      "9": "The bread shall belong to Aaron and his sons, who shall eat it in a holy place, for it belongs to him as a most holy thing from the gifts of food to the Lord, a perpetual allotment.",
      "10": "A man who was the son of an Israelite woman and of an Egyptian man came along with the Israelites. This son of the Israelite woman fought with another Israelite in the camp.",
      "11": "The Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name and cursed, so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, belonging to the tribe of Dan.)",
      "12": "They put him in custody to wait for a decision from the mouth of the Lord.",
      "13": "Then the Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "14": "“Take the man who cursed outside the camp, and all those who heard it shall lay their hands on his head, and the whole community shall stone him.",
      "15": "Then speak to the Israelites: If anyone curses his God, he shall bear his sin,",
      "16": "but if anyone blasphemes the name of the Lord, he must certainly be put to death; the whole community must stone him. Whether he is an alien or a citizen, when he has blasphemed the Name, he must be put to death.”",
      "17": "“If anyone hits someone and kills him, he must certainly be put to death.",
      "18": "But one who strikes and kills an animal must make restitution for it, a life for a life.",
      "19": "If anyone injures his fellow citizen, he shall have the same thing done to him as he has done:",
      "20": "fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he injured that other person, the same is to be done to him.",
      "21": "One who strikes an animal so that it dies shall make restitution for it, but one who strikes a human being and kills him shall be put to death.",
      "22": "You shall have the same standard of justice for the alien who lives with you and for the citizen, for I am the Lord your God.”",
      "23": "After Moses had spoken this to the Israelites, the man who had cursed was taken outside the camp and stoned to death. The Israelites did as the Lord had commanded Moses."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai,",
      "2": "“Speak to the Israelites and say this to them.”\nWhen you enter the land that I am giving to you, the land shall observe a sabbath rest for the Lord.",
      "3": "For six years you may sow your field, and for six years you may prune your vineyard and gather its produce.",
      "4": "But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord. You shall not sow your field, and you shall not prune your vineyard.",
      "5": "You shall not reap the produce that grows by itself from your harvest or gather the grapes from your unpruned vine. It shall be a year of complete rest for the land.",
      "6": "The sabbath of the land will, however, provide food for you—for you, for your male slaves and for your female slaves, for your hired workers and for your servants who are living with you temporarily as aliens working for you,",
      "7": "for your livestock and for the wild animals which are in your land. You may eat all its produce.",
      "8": "You shall count off seven weeks of years. Count off seven years seven times, so that the duration of the seven weeks of years is forty-nine years.",
      "9": "Then you shall sound loud blasts on the ram’s horn. In the seventh month on the tenth day, on the Day of Atonement, you are to have a ram’s horn sounded throughout your land,",
      "10": "so that you may set aside the fiftieth year as holy and proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you, so that each of you may return to his family property and each of you may return to his clan.",
      "11": "The fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you. You shall not sow the field, and you shall not reap the grain that grows by itself, and you shall not gather fruit from its unpruned vines.",
      "12": "Because it is a Jubilee, it shall be holy for you. You may eat its produce from the field.",
      "13": "In this year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his family property.",
      "14": "When you sell some land to your countryman, or when you buy land from your countryman, you must not cheat your brother Israelite.",
      "15": "When you buy from your countryman, set the price according to the number of years since the last Jubilee. When he sells it to you, he shall set the price according to the number of years of produce left till the next Jubilee.",
      "16": "When there are many years left, you shall increase the purchase price. When there are few years left, you shall decrease its purchase price, because what the owner is actually selling to you is the amount of produce.",
      "17": "So each of you must not cheat your countryman, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.",
      "18": "You shall carry out my regulations, and you shall observe my ordinances. You shall carry them out, so that you may live on the land securely.",
      "19": "The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live securely on it.",
      "20": "If you ask, “What will we eat during the seventh year, since we may not sow and we may not gather our produce?”",
      "21": "I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that the land will yield enough produce for three years.",
      "22": "When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the sixth year’s crop. You will eat the sixth year’s crop until the ninth year, when its produce comes in.",
      "23": "But the land must not be sold without a right to recover it, for the land really belongs to me. You are actually resident aliens under my authority.",
      "24": "Therefore, throughout all the land that you possess, you shall grant the right of redemption for the land.",
      "25": "When your brother Israelite becomes so impoverished that he has to sell some of the land that he holds, his closest relative shall come and redeem what his brother has sold.",
      "26": "When the man who has no close relative prospers and acquires enough for the price to redeem his land,",
      "27": "he may calculate the years since he sold it, refund the difference to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his family property.",
      "28": "But if he does not acquire a sufficient amount to recover the land for himself, what he has sold shall remain under the control of the one who bought it until the year of Jubilee. It shall become free in the Jubilee, so that the seller may return to his family property.",
      "29": "When a man sells a house where he lives in a walled town, his right of redemption shall last until a full year after its sale. The time to redeem it lasts for a year.",
      "30": "But if it is not redeemed before the completion of a full year, the house which is in a town which has a wall will belong to its buyer and his descendants. It cannot be reclaimed. It will not be released in the Jubilee.",
      "31": "But the houses in the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified as part of the farmland. They have the right of redemption and shall become free in the Jubilee.",
      "32": "All the towns of the Levites and the houses in the towns which are their property have a permanent right of redemption.",
      "33": "Whatever a Levite is permitted to redeem (such as a house which he sold that had been his property in a city) will become free in the Jubilee, because the houses in the towns of the Levites are their possession among the Israelites.",
      "34": "But the pastures and fields around the Levites’ towns may not be sold, for that is their permanent possession.",
      "35": "When your fellow Israelite becomes so impoverished that he cannot support himself, help him as you would help a resident alien or a temporary resident. Let him retain his right to work for a livelihood among you.",
      "36": "You shall not take advance interest or accrued interest from him, but you shall fear your God and let your brother retain his livelihood with you.",
      "37": "You shall not lend him your money for advance interest or your food for accrued interest.",
      "38": "I am the Lord your God, who freed you from the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.",
      "39": "When your fellow Israelite becomes so indebted to you that he is sold to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave.",
      "40": "He shall remain with you as a hired laborer or a temporary resident. He shall work for you until the year of Jubilee.",
      "41": "Then he and his children with him will become free from your authority. He shall return to his family home and to his ancestral landholding,",
      "42": "for the Israelites are my servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold in a slave sale.",
      "43": "You shall not rule over them harshly, but you shall fear your God.",
      "44": "You may buy a male slave or a female slave for yourself from the nations around you.",
      "45": "You may also buy some of the children of those who reside as aliens among you and some of their extended families who are born in your land, so that they become your property.",
      "46": "You may leave them to your children as inherited property. You may make them work as slaves for life. But as for your brothers, the Israelites, each of you must not rule over your brother harshly.",
      "47": "If a resident alien living among you prospers, and if your brother Israelite becomes so indebted to him that he is sold to that alien living among you or to that alien’s family,",
      "48": "the Israelite who has been sold shall have the right to be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him,",
      "49": "or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or anyone from his immediate family or extended family may redeem him, or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.",
      "50": "Together with his buyer, he shall calculate the elapsed time from the year that he was sold until the year of Jubilee, and the price to redeem him shall be based on that number of years. It shall be calculated as if he were a hired laborer.",
      "51": "If there are still many years left, he shall pay the price of redemption proportionally to the years that have passed.",
      "52": "If only a few years remain until the year of Jubilee, he shall calculate the redemption in this way: He shall pay the price of his redemption on the basis of his years of work,",
      "53": "as if he were a worker hired year by year. You shall see to it that the owner does not rule over him harshly.",
      "54": "If he has not been redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children with him shall become free in the year of Jubilee,",
      "55": "because the Israelites are servants who really belong to me. They are my servants whom I freed from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "You shall not make gods that are really not gods for yourselves, and you shall not set up an image or a sacred memorial stone for yourselves, and you shall not set up a carved stone relief in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God.",
      "2": "You shall observe my Sabbaths and revere my sanctuary. I am the Lord.",
      "3": "If you walk according to my regulations and keep my commandments and carry them out,",
      "4": "I will give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees in the farmland will yield their fruit.",
      "5": "Threshing will last until the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will last until the time for sowing. You will eat your food until you are full, and you will live securely in your land.",
      "6": "I will give peace in the land so that you may lie down without anyone frightening you. I will eliminate ferocious animals from the land, and no sword will pass through your land.",
      "7": "You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.",
      "8": "Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword.",
      "9": "I will look on you with favor, and I will make you fruitful and will multiply you, and I will keep my covenant with you.",
      "10": "You will eat grain from previous harvests, grain long stored, until you remove the old grain to make room for the new.",
      "11": "I will place my Dwelling in your midst, and I will not at all detest you.",
      "12": "I will walk about in your midst, and I will be your God, and you will be my people.",
      "13": "I am the Lord your God, who freed you from the land of Egypt so that you would not be slaves to them. I broke the bars of your yoke so that I could make you walk upright.",
      "14": "But if you will not listen to me and do not obey all these commandments,",
      "15": "if you reject my regulations and you detest my ordinances so much that you do not obey all my commandments, so that you break my covenant,",
      "16": "I in turn will do this to you: I will inflict upon you panic, wasting disease, and fever, which will cause your eyes to fail and your vitality to slip away. You will sow your seed but get no return, for your enemies will eat it.",
      "17": "I will set my face against you. You will be beaten by your enemies, and those who hate you will rule over you. You will flee, even though nobody is pursuing you.",
      "18": "If, despite these things, you will not listen to me, I will go on to discipline you seven times for your sins.",
      "19": "I will break your proud strength and make your sky like iron and your land as hard as bronze,",
      "20": "so that your strength will be exhausted without accomplishing anything. Your land will not yield its produce, and the trees on the land will not yield their fruit.",
      "21": "If you still remain hostile to me and you are not willing to listen to me, I will multiply the plague against you seven times more according to your sins.",
      "22": "I will send against you the wild animals so that they will deprive you of your children and cut off your livestock. They will make you so few that your roads will be deserted.",
      "23": "If in spite of all these things you still refuse to be disciplined by me, and you remain hostile to me,",
      "24": "I will also remain hostile to you. I will strike you seven times more for your sins.",
      "25": "I will bring a sword on you to avenge the covenant. If you withdraw into your towns, I will send an epidemic among you, so that you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.",
      "26": "When I break your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven. They will have to ration your bread, and though you eat, you will not be satisfied.",
      "27": "But if, in spite of all this, you will not listen to me and remain hostile to me,",
      "28": "I will remain hostile to you in anger. I myself will discipline you seven times as much for your sins.",
      "29": "You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.",
      "30": "I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense burners, and place your corpses on the corpses of your filthy idols. With all my heart I will detest you.",
      "31": "I will turn your towns into a wasteland and make your holy places desolate, and I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.",
      "32": "I myself will make your land so desolate that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled at it,",
      "33": "while I scatter you among the nations and unsheathe my sword against you. Then your land will be a desolation, and your towns will be a wasteland.",
      "34": "The land will then enjoy its sabbaths during all the days of its desolation, while you are in the land of your enemies. Yes, the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.",
      "35": "All the days when it is desolate it will rest, because it did not rest on your sabbaths when you lived there.",
      "36": "As for those of you who survive, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that the sound of a scattered leaf will scare them away. They will flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they will fall though no one is pursuing them.",
      "37": "Each of them will stumble over his brother, as if from a sword, even though no one is pursuing him. You will have no power to stand against your enemies,",
      "38": "and you will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will devour you.",
      "39": "Those of you who survive will rot away in the lands of your enemies because of their guilt. They will rot away because of the guilt of their ancestors.",
      "40": "They will confess their guilt and the guilt of their ancestors because of the unfaithfulness that they committed against me, and also because they remained hostile to me.",
      "41": "So I in turn became hostile to them, and I brought them into the land of their enemies. So their uncircumcised hearts will then be humbled, and they will then accept the punishment for their guilt.",
      "42": "Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham as well. I will remember the land.",
      "43": "The land will be empty of them, so that in its desolation it may enjoy its sabbaths without them, while they suffer punishment for their guilt, because, and only because, they rejected my ordinances and they detested my statutes with all their heart.",
      "44": "Yet, for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, and I will not detest them so much that I exterminate them. I will not annul my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.",
      "45": "I will remember in their favor the covenant to be their God that I made with their first generation, whom I freed from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations. I am the Lord.",
      "46": "These are the regulations, the ordinances, and the laws that the Lord instituted between himself and the people of Israel at Mount Sinai through Moses."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Speak to the Israelites and say this to them.”\nWhen a person makes a special vow to the Lord which is based on the value of different classes of people,",
      "3": "the set value of a male from twenty years to sixty years of age is fifty shekels of silver, using the sanctuary shekel as the standard.",
      "4": "If it is a female, the value is thirty shekels.",
      "5": "If the age is from five years to twenty years, the value is twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female.",
      "6": "If the age is from one month to five years, the value for the male is five shekels of silver, while the value for the female is three shekels of silver.",
      "7": "If the age is sixty years or over, the value is fifteen shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female.",
      "8": "But if anyone making a dedication is too poor to pay that standard value, he shall appear before the priest with the dedicated person, and the priest shall assess a substitute valuation for the person. The priest shall assess a value on the basis of what the person who has made the vow can afford.",
      "9": "If what is vowed is livestock which is acceptable as an offering to the Lord, anything that a person dedicates to the Lord is set apart as holy.",
      "10": "He may not exchange it or substitute another for it, either good for bad, or bad for good. If he substitutes one animal for another, both the animal and its substitute are set aside as holy.",
      "11": "If what has been vowed is any kind of unclean livestock, which may not be presented as an offering to the Lord, he shall present the animal before the priest",
      "12": "so that the priest may assess it. Whatever value is set by the priest, whether high or low, will be binding.",
      "13": "But if he does indeed redeem it, he must add one-fifth to its value.",
      "14": "When a person dedicates his house as holy to the Lord, the priest shall assess it. Whatever value the priest assesses, whether high or low, will be binding.",
      "15": "But if the person who has dedicated his house redeems it, he must add one-fifth to its value in silver, so that it belongs to him again.",
      "16": "If a person dedicates any field from his family property to the Lord, its value shall be based on how much seed is needed to sow it. Land sown by six bushels of barley seed is worth fifty shekels of silver.",
      "17": "If he dedicates his field during the year of Jubilee, its value stands as stated,",
      "18": "but if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, the priest shall recalculate its value in silver based on the number of years that are left until the next year of Jubilee, and that much will be deducted from the value.",
      "19": "If the person who dedicated the field redeems it, he must add one-fifth to its value in silver, so that it may be returned to him.",
      "20": "But if he does not redeem the field but has sold the field to another person, it may no longer be redeemed.",
      "21": "When the field is released on the Jubilee, it will be set aside as holy. It belongs to the Lord as a dedicated field. It belongs to the priest as his holding.",
      "22": "If someone dedicates to the Lord a field he has purchased that is not part of his family landholding,",
      "23": "the priest shall calculate the amount of value until the year of Jubilee, so that he may pay the value on that day as something holy to the Lord.",
      "24": "In the year of Jubilee, the field shall return to the person from whom the donor bought it, to the one to whom the landholding originally belonged.",
      "25": "Every value shall be based on the sanctuary shekel, which has twenty gerahs to the shekel.",
      "26": "However, no one may dedicate a firstborn from the livestock that has already been designated for the Lord as a firstborn, whether it is a head of cattle or a sheep or a goat. It already belongs to the Lord.",
      "27": "But if it is one of the unclean livestock, he may buy it back at its set value plus one-fifth. If it is not redeemed, it may be sold at its set value.",
      "28": "However, if anyone devotes anything that belongs to him to the Lord unconditionally, whether it is a human being or livestock or any part of his landholding, it may not be sold and may not be redeemed. Everything devoted unconditionally is most holy to the Lord.",
      "29": "Any person who has been devoted to destruction may not be ransomed. He must certainly be put to death.",
      "30": "But every tithe from the land, whether from the seed of the land or from the fruit of the trees, belongs to the Lord. It is holy to the Lord.",
      "31": "If anyone redeems any of his tithe, he must add one-fifth to it.",
      "32": "The tithe from the herd or the flock, that is, every tenth animal that passes under the staff of the shepherd, shall be set apart as holy to the Lord.",
      "33": "The donor must not sort out the good from the bad, and he must not make any substitutions for it. If he makes a substitution for it, then both the first animal and its substitute shall be set apart as holy. It cannot be redeemed.",
      "34": "These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel at Mount Sinai."
    }
  },
  "Numbers": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt. He said,",
      "2": "“Take a census of the entire community of the people of Israel, according to their clans and their fathers’ houses. Count the names of every male, one by one,",
      "3": "twenty years old and up, all who are of age to serve in Israel’s army. Aaron and you are to register them by their military units.",
      "4": "A man from each tribe will be with you. Every one of them will be the head of his fathers’ house.",
      "5": "These are the names of the men who will assist you:\nfrom Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur;",
      "6": "from Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai;",
      "7": "from Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab;",
      "8": "from Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar;",
      "9": "from Zebulun, Eliab the son of Helon;",
      "10": "from the sons of Joseph:\nfrom Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud;\nfrom Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur;",
      "11": "from Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni;",
      "12": "from Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai;",
      "13": "from Asher, Pagiel son of Ochran;",
      "14": "from Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel;",
      "15": "from Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan.”",
      "16": "These were the men chosen from the community, the chiefs of the tribes of their fathers. They were the heads of Israel’s divisions.",
      "17": "Moses and Aaron brought together these men, who had been designated by name.",
      "18": "They assembled the entire community on the first day of the second month, and they recorded the people’s ancestry by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those who were twenty years old and up, one by one.",
      "19": "Moses registered them in the Wilderness of Sinai, exactly as the Lord commanded him.",
      "20": "The male descendants of Reuben, Israel’s firstborn, were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing one by one the names of every male twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "21": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Reuben totaled 46,500.",
      "22": "The male descendants of Simeon were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing one by one the names of every male twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "23": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Simeon totaled 59,300.",
      "24": "The male descendants of Gad were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "25": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Gad totaled 45,650.",
      "26": "The male descendants of Judah were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "27": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Judah totaled 74,600.",
      "28": "The male descendants of Issachar were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "29": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Issachar totaled 54,400.",
      "30": "The male descendants of Zebulun were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "31": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Zebulun totaled 57,400.",
      "32": "The male descendants of Joseph who were the descendants of Ephraim were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "33": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Ephraim totaled 40,500.",
      "34": "Those who were male descendants of Manasseh were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "35": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Manasseh totaled 32,200.",
      "36": "The male descendants of Benjamin were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "37": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Benjamin totaled 35,400.",
      "38": "The male descendants of Dan were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "39": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Dan totaled 62,700.",
      "40": "The male descendants of Asher were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "41": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Asher totaled 41,500.",
      "42": "The male descendants of Naphtali were registered from their family records, according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, listing the names of those twenty years old and up, all who were of age to serve in the army.",
      "43": "Those who were registered from the tribe of Naphtali totaled 53,400.",
      "44": "These are the men who were registered by Moses and Aaron and twelve tribal chiefs of Israel, each representing his fathers’ house.",
      "45": "So all of the Israelite men twenty years old and up, who were of age to serve in Israel’s army, were registered according to their fathers’ houses.",
      "46": "Those who were registered totaled 603,550.",
      "47": "But the Levites were not registered along with the others on the basis of their fathers’ tribe,",
      "48": "for the Lord had said to Moses,",
      "49": "“You are not to register the tribe of Levi, neither will you take a census of them along with the other Israelites.",
      "50": "Instead, appoint the Levites over the Dwelling of the Testimony and over all its furnishings and over everything that belongs to it. They are to carry the Dwelling and all its furnishings. They are to take care of it, and they are to camp around it.",
      "51": "Whenever the Dwelling is to move, the Levites will take it down, and whenever the Dwelling is to stop for a new camp, the Levites will set it up. Any unauthorized person who comes near it must be put to death.",
      "52": "The Israelites will set up camp, everyone in his own camp and under his own standard, according to their military divisions.",
      "53": "But the Levites will camp around the Dwelling of the Testimony so that wrath will not fall on the Israelite community. In this way the Levites will perform the duties for the Dwelling of the Testimony.”",
      "54": "So the Israelites did everything that the Lord commanded Moses, exactly as he commanded."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron as follows:",
      "2": "Each of the Israelites will camp under his own standard, with the banners for their fathers’ houses. They will camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance from it.",
      "3": "Those who camp on the east side toward the sunrise will be organized under the standard of Judah’s camp, according to their military units.\nThe tribal chief of Judah’s descendants is Nahshon son of Amminadab.",
      "4": "His unit, as registered, totals 74,600.",
      "5": "The tribe of Issachar will camp next to Judah. The tribal chief of Issachar’s descendants is Nethanel son of Zuar.",
      "6": "His unit, as registered, totals 54,400.",
      "7": "The tribe of Zebulun will be next. The tribal chief of Zebulun’s descendants is Eliab son of Helon.",
      "8": "His unit, as registered, totals 57,400.",
      "9": "All those registered in Judah’s camp are 186,400, according to their military units. They will set out first.",
      "10": "Those who camp on the south side will be organized under the standard of Reuben’s camp, according to their military units.\nThe tribal chief of Reuben’s descendants is Elizur son of Shedeur.",
      "11": "His unit, as registered, totals 46,500.",
      "12": "The tribe of Simeon will camp next to Reuben. The tribal chief of Simeon’s descendants is Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai.",
      "13": "His unit, as registered, totals 59,300.",
      "14": "The tribe of Gad will be next. The tribal chief of Gad’s descendants will be Eliasaph son of Deuel.",
      "15": "His unit, as registered, totals 45,650.",
      "16": "All those registered in Reuben’s camp are 151,450, according to their military units. They will set out second.",
      "17": "Then the Tent of Meeting will set out with the Levites’ camp, which is in the middle of the camps. They are to set out in the same order as they camp, each one in his place, following their standards.",
      "18": "Those who camp on the west side will be organized under the standard of Ephraim’s camp, according to their military units.\nThe tribal chief of Ephraim’s descendants is Elishama son of Ammihud.",
      "19": "His unit, as registered, totals 40,500.",
      "20": "Next to Ephraim will be the tribe of Manasseh. The tribal chief of Manasseh’s descendants is Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.",
      "21": "His unit, as registered, totals 32,200.",
      "22": "The tribe of Benjamin will be next. The tribal chief of Benjamin’s descendants is Abidan son of Gideoni.",
      "23": "His unit, as registered, totals 35,400.",
      "24": "All those registered in Ephraim’s camp are 108,100, according to their military units. They will set out third.",
      "25": "Those who camp on the north side will be organized under the standard of Dan’s camp, according to their military units.\nThe tribal chief of Dan’s descendants is Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.",
      "26": "His unit, as registered, totals 62,700.",
      "27": "Next to Dan will be the tribe of Asher. The tribal chief of Asher’s descendants will be Pagiel son of Ochran.",
      "28": "His unit, as registered, totals 41,500.",
      "29": "The tribe of Naphtali will be next. The tribal chief of Naphtali’s descendants is Ahira son of Enan.",
      "30": "His unit, as registered, totals 53,400.",
      "31": "All those registered in Dan’s camp are 157,600. They will set out last, following their standards.",
      "32": "These were the Israelites who were registered according to their fathers’ houses. All the men in the camps, organized according to their military units, as registered, totaled 603,550.",
      "33": "But the Levites were not registered among the Israelites, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "34": "The Israelites did everything that the Lord commanded Moses. They camped around their standards, and they set out, every one of them by their clans, according to their fathers’ houses."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "This is the family history of Aaron and Moses at the time when the Lord spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai.",
      "2": "These are the names of Aaron’s sons: Nadab the firstborn, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.",
      "3": "These are the names of Aaron’s sons, the anointed priests, whom he ordained to serve as priests.",
      "4": "Nadab and Abihu died in the presence of the Lord when they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord in the Wilderness of Sinai, and they had no sons. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the presence of Aaron their father.",
      "5": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "6": "“Bring the tribe of Levi near and have them stand before Aaron the priest so that they may assist him.",
      "7": "They will perform the duties for him and for the entire congregation in front of the Tent of Meeting by doing the work for the Dwelling.",
      "8": "They will take care of all the furnishings for the Tent of Meeting and perform the duties of the Israelites by doing the work for the Dwelling.",
      "9": "You will give the Levites to Aaron and to his sons. They are completely given to him from among the Israelites.",
      "10": "But you will appoint Aaron and his sons, and they will serve in the priesthood. Any unauthorized person who goes near must be put to death.”",
      "11": "The Lord spoke to Moses,",
      "12": "“See, I have taken the Levites from among the Israelites instead of every firstborn that opens the womb among the Israelites. The Levites are mine,",
      "13": "for all the firstborn are mine. On the day that I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I set apart for myself every firstborn in Israel, both human and animal. They are mine. I am the Lord.”",
      "14": "The Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai,",
      "15": "“Register the Levites according to their fathers’ houses, by their clans. You are to register every male a month old and up.”",
      "16": "So Moses registered them as he was commanded by the word of the Lord.",
      "17": "These were the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.",
      "18": "These were the names of the sons of Gershon according to their clans: Libni and Shimei.",
      "19": "The sons of Kohath according to their clans were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.",
      "20": "The sons of Merari according to their clans were Mahli and Mushi.\nThe following were the clans of the Levites according to their fathers’ houses.",
      "21": "From Gershon came the Libnite clan and the Shimeite clan. These were the Gershonite clans.",
      "22": "Those who were registered, counting all the males who were a month old and up, were 7,500.",
      "23": "The Gershonite clans camped behind the Dwelling on the west side.",
      "24": "The tribal chief of the father’s house for the Gershonites was Eliasaph son of Lael.",
      "25": "The duties of the descendants of Gershon in the Tent of Meeting involved the dwelling and the tent, its coverings, and the screen for the entrance to the Tent of Meeting,",
      "26": "also the hangings of the courtyard, and the screen for the entrance to the courtyard which surrounds the Dwelling and the altar, and its ropes—everything related to this work.",
      "27": "From Kohath came the Amramite clan, the Izharite clan, the Hebronite clan, and the Uzzielite clan. These were the Kohathite clans.",
      "28": "Counting all the males who were a month old and up, there were 8,600 to perform the duties of the sanctuary.",
      "29": "The clans of the descendants of Kohath camped on the south side of the Dwelling.",
      "30": "The tribal chief of the father’s house for the Kohathite clans was Elizaphan son of Uzziel.",
      "31": "Their duties involved the ark, the table, the lampstand, the altars, the sanctuary utensils with which they serve, and the screen—everything related to this work.",
      "32": "The tribal chief over the Levite tribal chiefs was Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest. He was in charge of those performing the duties of the sanctuary.",
      "33": "From Merari came the Mahlite clan and the Mushite clan. These were the Merarite clans.",
      "34": "Those who were registered, counting all the males who were a month old and up, were 6,200.",
      "35": "The tribal chief of the father’s house for the Merarite clans was Zuriel son of Abihail. They camped on the north side of the Dwelling.",
      "36": "The appointed duties for the sons of Merari involved the Dwelling’s boards, its crossbars, its posts, its bases, all its equipment—everything related to this work,",
      "37": "also the posts for the surrounding courtyard, their bases, their tent pegs, and their ropes.",
      "38": "Those who camped in front of the Dwelling on the east side, in front of the Tent of Meeting, toward the sunrise, were Moses and Aaron and Aaron’s sons, who were performing the duties of the sanctuary on behalf of the Israelites. Any unauthorized person who goes near shall be put to death.",
      "39": "All of the Levities who were registered when the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron to register them according to their clans, every male a month old and up, were 22,000.",
      "40": "The Lord said to Moses, “Register all the firstborn males of the Israelites one month old and up, and make a list of their names.",
      "41": "You are to take the Levites for me—I am the Lord—instead of every firstborn among the Israelites, and take the livestock of the Levites instead of every firstborn among the livestock of the Israelites.”",
      "42": "So Moses registered all the firstborn among the Israelites as the Lord commanded.",
      "43": "All the firstborn males listed by name, one month old and up, when registered, totaled 22,273.",
      "44": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "45": "“Take the Levites instead of every firstborn among the Israelites, and the livestock of the Levites instead of their livestock. The Levites will be mine. I am the Lord.",
      "46": "For the redemption of the 273 firstborn Israelites who outnumber the Levites,",
      "47": "you are to collect five shekels apiece for each one, according to the sanctuary shekel (this shekel is twenty gerahs).",
      "48": "You are to give the money, the redemption price for the additional Israelites, to Aaron and his sons.”",
      "49": "Moses collected the redemption money from those who outnumbered the ones redeemed by the Levites who took their place.",
      "50": "He collected the money from the firstborn of the Israelites, 1,365 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel.",
      "51": "Moses gave the redemption money to Aaron and to his sons, in obedience to the word of the Lord, just as the Lord commanded Moses."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses and Aaron",
      "2": "to take a census of the descendants of Kohath among the Levites, by their clans, by their fathers’ houses,",
      "3": "from thirty years old to fifty years old, everyone eligible for the service of performing the tasks at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "4": "This is the work for the descendants of Kohath at the Tent of Meeting: to take care of the most holy things.",
      "5": "When the camp sets out, Aaron and his sons are to go into the Dwelling. They are to take down the veil that screens the ark, cover the Ark of the Testimony with it,",
      "6": "put a covering made from the hides of sea cows over it, spread a solid blue cloth over that, and insert its poles.",
      "7": "Over the table for the Bread of the Presence they are to spread a blue cloth and put the dishes, the small bowls, the larger bowls, and the pitchers for the drink offering on it. The bread that is continually there is to remain on it.",
      "8": "Then they are to spread a scarlet cloth over these things, cover them with a covering made from the hides of sea cows, and insert its poles.",
      "9": "They are to take a blue cloth and cover the lampstand used for light, its lamps, its snuffers, its fire pans, and all the jars of oil used to supply it.",
      "10": "They are to put the lampstand and all its accessories under a cover made from the hides of sea cows and put it on a carrying frame.",
      "11": "Over the golden altar they are to spread a blue cloth, cover it with a covering made from the hides of sea cows, and insert its poles.",
      "12": "They are to take all the utensils which they use in the sanctuary and put them in a blue cloth, cover them with a covering made from the hides of sea cows, and put them on a carrying frame.",
      "13": "They are to remove the fat-soaked ashes from the altar and spread a purple cloth over it.",
      "14": "They are to put on it all the utensils which they use around the altar: the fire pans, the meat hooks, the shovels, and the basins—the utensils of the altar. They will spread a covering made of the hides of sea cows over the altar and insert its poles.",
      "15": "After Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the items of the sanctuary, when the camp sets out, the descendants of Kohath will come to carry them. But they are not to touch the sanctuary or they will die. The descendants of Kohath are to carry these things associated with the Tent of Meeting.",
      "16": "Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, shall be in charge of the lamp oil, the fragrant incense, the daily grain offering, and the anointing oil. He shall be in charge of the entire Dwelling, everything in it, the holy objects, and its furnishings.",
      "17": "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron,",
      "18": "“Do not allow the tribe of the Kohathite clans to be cut off from among the Levites.",
      "19": "Do this for them so that they may live and not die when they come near the most holy things: Aaron and his sons are to go in and assign to each one of them what he is to do and what he is to carry.",
      "20": "But the Kohathites must not go in to see the sanctuary even for a moment or they will die.”",
      "21": "The Lord also told Moses",
      "22": "to take a census of the descendants of Gershon, according to their fathers’ houses, by their clans,",
      "23": "and to register those from thirty years old to fifty years old, everyone eligible for the service of doing the work at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "24": "This is the work for the Gershonite clans: the work of moving the Dwelling.",
      "25": "They are to carry the curtains of the Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting, its covering, and the covering made of sea cow hides that is on top of that, the screen for the entrance to the Tent of Meeting,",
      "26": "the hangings for the courtyard, the screen for the entrance through the gate into the courtyard which surrounds the Dwelling and the altar, the ropes, and all the items related to this work. They are responsible for everything that is to be done with these things.",
      "27": "All the work of the descendants of the Gershonites, everything they are to carry and all the work they are to do, is to be done at the command of Aaron and his sons. You are to assign to each of them everything they are to carry.",
      "28": "This is the work for the clans of the descendants of the Gershonites in regard to the Tent of Meeting. They are to serve under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.",
      "29": "As for the descendants of Merari, register them according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses.",
      "30": "Register all of them who are between thirty years old and fifty years old, everyone eligible for service, to do the work for the Tent of Meeting.",
      "31": "This is what they are responsible for as their entire work at the Tent of Meeting: to carry the Dwelling’s boards, its crossbars, its posts, its bases,",
      "32": "the posts of the surrounding courtyard and their bases, their tent pegs, their ropes with all their equipment, and everything related to this work. You are to specify by name the items that they are responsible to carry.",
      "33": "This is the work for the clans of the descendants of Merari, regarding all their work in regard to the Tent of Meeting, under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.",
      "34": "Moses, Aaron, and the tribal chiefs of the community registered the descendants of the Kohathites according to their clans and their fathers’ houses,",
      "35": "from thirty years old to fifty years old, everyone eligible for service, for work at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "36": "The ones registered according to their clans were 2,750.",
      "37": "These were the ones registered from the clans of the Kohathites, all those who worked at the Tent of Meeting. Moses and Aaron registered them according to the Lord’s command through Moses.",
      "38": "The descendants of Gershon were registered according to their clans and according to their fathers’ houses,",
      "39": "from thirty years old to fifty years old, everyone eligible for service, for work at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "40": "The ones registered according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses, were 2,630.",
      "41": "These were the ones registered from the clans of the descendants of Gershon, all those who worked at the Tent of Meeting. Moses and Aaron registered them according to the Lord’s command.",
      "42": "The clans of the descendants of Merari were registered according to their clans, according to their fathers’ houses,",
      "43": "from thirty years old to fifty years old, everyone eligible for service, for work at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "44": "Those registered by their clans were 3,200.",
      "45": "These were the ones registered from the clans of the descendants of Merari. Moses and Aaron registered them according to the Lord’s command through Moses.",
      "46": "Every one of the Levites was registered. Moses and Aaron and the tribal chiefs of Israel registered them according to their clans and their fathers’ houses,",
      "47": "from thirty years old to fifty years old, everyone who was eligible to perform the work of serving at or carrying the Tent of Meeting.",
      "48": "Those registered totaled 8,580.",
      "49": "According to the Lord’s command, they were registered by Moses, along with what each man was assigned to do and to carry. They were registered just as the Lord commanded Moses."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Command the Israelites to send outside of the camp everyone who has an impure skin disease, everyone who has a bodily discharge, and everyone who is unclean because of contact with a dead body.",
      "3": "You must send them away, male or female. You must send them outside of the camp so that they will not defile their camps, where I dwell in their midst.”",
      "4": "The Israelites did exactly that and sent them outside of the camp. The Israelites did just as the Lord said to Moses.",
      "5": "The Lord spoke to Moses and told him",
      "6": "to tell the Israelites this:\nWhenever a man or a woman commits any wrong against another person and so in this way is unfaithful to the Lord, that person must be held responsible.",
      "7": "Such people are to confess the wrong which they have done. They are to make full restitution for their guilt, then add one fifth of its value on top of that and give it to the person they have wronged.",
      "8": "But if the wronged person has no next-of-kin to receive the restitution, the restitution goes to the Lord for the priest, in addition to the atonement ram, with which the priest will make atonement for him.",
      "9": "Every elevated offering that the Israelites present to the priest will belong to the priest.",
      "10": "Anyone’s holy things are his own, but whatever anyone gives to the priest is the priest’s.",
      "11": "The Lord told Moses to speak to the Israelites and tell them this:",
      "12": "If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him,",
      "13": "and another man lies down with her, but this remains hidden from her husband and she is not found out, she has defiled herself even though there is no witness against her and she was not caught in the act.",
      "14": "If a feeling of jealousy comes over her husband and he becomes jealous of his wife who has defiled herself, or if a feeling of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife, even though she has not defiled herself,",
      "15": "then the man is to bring his wife to the priest. He is also to bring an offering on her behalf: two quarts of barley flour. He is not to pour oil on it or put frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a grain offering for remembrance, to reveal guilt.",
      "16": "The priest is to bring her near and present her before the Lord.",
      "17": "The priest is to take holy water in a clay vessel, take some of the dust that is on the floor of the Dwelling, and put it into the water.",
      "18": "The priest is to present the woman before the Lord, let down the woman’s hair, and put into her hands the grain offering for remembrance, which is the grain offering for jealousy. The priest is to have in his hands the bitter water that brings a curse.",
      "19": "The priest will make her take an oath, and he will tell the woman, “If no man has slept with you, and if you have not gone astray by becoming defiled while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not affect you.",
      "20": "But if you have gone astray while married to your husband, and if you are defiled and another man besides your husband has had sex with you—”",
      "21": "Then the priest will make the woman take an oath with a curse, and the priest will tell the woman, “May the Lord make you an object of cursing and swearing among your people when the Lord allows your thigh to shrivel and your belly to swell.",
      "22": "May this water that brings a curse go inside you and make your belly swell and your thigh shrivel.” The woman will say, “Amen, Amen.”",
      "23": "The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and wipe them off into the bitter water.",
      "24": "He will make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse. The water that brings a curse will enter into her and become bitter.",
      "25": "The priest will take the grain offering for jealousy out of the woman’s hand, wave the grain offering before the Lord, and bring it to the altar.",
      "26": "The priest will take a handful of the grain offering as its memorial portion and burn it on the altar. Afterward he will make the woman drink the water.",
      "27": "When he has made her drink the water, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings a curse will enter into her and become bitter. Her belly will swell, and her thigh will shrivel. The woman will be an object of cursing among her people.",
      "28": "If the woman has not defiled herself but is clean, then she will be unaffected and will be able to conceive children.",
      "29": "This is the law regarding jealousy when a wife, while married to her husband, goes astray and defiles herself,",
      "30": "or when a feeling of jealousy comes over a husband and he is jealous of his wife. Then the man will present the woman before the Lord, and the priest will apply this entire procedure to her.",
      "31": "The man will be free from guilt, but that woman will bear her guilt."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses to speak to the Israelites and tell them these things:",
      "2": "When a man or woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate oneself to the Lord,",
      "3": "he is to abstain from wine and beer. He may not drink vinegar made from wine or beer. He may not drink any grape juice. He may not eat fresh grapes or raisins.",
      "4": "During his entire separation, he is not to eat anything at all that comes from the grapevine, from the seeds to the skins.",
      "5": "During his entire vow of separation no razor is to pass over his head, until the time that he has separated himself to the Lord has been completed. He will be set apart as holy. He is to let the hair of his head grow long.",
      "6": "During the entire time that he separates himself to the Lord he may not go near a dead body.",
      "7": "He may not defile himself even for his father or his mother or for his brother or his sister when they die, because his sign of separation for God is on his head.",
      "8": "During the entire time of his separation he is set apart as holy to the Lord.",
      "9": "If someone near him dies suddenly, thereby defiling the head of hair that marks his separation, he is to shave his head on the day when he is purified. On the seventh day he is to shave it.",
      "10": "On the eighth day he will bring two turtledoves or two pigeons to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "11": "The priest will offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. He will make atonement for him, because he sinned on account of the dead body. On that same day, he is to consecrate his head.",
      "12": "He will establish a new time of separation to the Lord. He will bring a year-old male lamb as a restitution offering. His previous time of separation will not count, because his separation was defiled.",
      "13": "This is the law for the Nazirite when the time of his separation is over: He is to be brought to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "14": "He will bring this as his offering to the Lord: a year-old male lamb without defect as a whole burnt offering, a year-old female lamb without defect as a sin offering, one ram without defect as a fellowship offering,",
      "15": "a basket of unleavened round loaves made with fine flour mixed with oil, unleavened wafers coated with oil, along with the specified grain offerings and drink offerings.",
      "16": "The priest will bring them before the Lord and will offer the Nazirite’s sin offering and burnt offering.",
      "17": "The priest will offer the ram as the sacrifice for the fellowship offering to the Lord, along with the basket of unleavened bread. The priest will also offer the specified grain offering and drink offering.",
      "18": "The Nazirite is to shave the hair on his head, that marks his separation at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. He is to take the hair from his head, that marks his separation, and put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice for the fellowship offering.",
      "19": "The priest will take the boiled shoulder from the ram and one unleavened round loaf out of the basket and one unleavened wafer, and put them into the palms of the Nazirite after he has shaved the head that marks his separation.",
      "20": "The priest will wave them as a wave offering before the Lord. This is the holy portion for the priest, together with the breast that is waved and the thigh that is elevated. After that, the Nazirite may drink wine.",
      "21": "This is the law for the Nazirite who vows his offering to the Lord according to his separation, in addition to whatever else he can afford. Just as he has made this vow, so he must carry it out according to the law governing his separation.",
      "22": "The Lord told Moses",
      "23": "to speak to Aaron and to his sons and to tell them to bless the Israelites with these words:",
      "24": "The Lord bless you and keep you.",
      "25": "The Lord make his face shine on you\nand be gracious to you.",
      "26": "The Lord look on you with favor\nand give you peace.",
      "27": "In this way they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "On the day that Moses finished setting up the Dwelling, he anointed and consecrated it with all of its furnishings and the altar with all of its utensils. He anointed and consecrated them.",
      "2": "The tribal chiefs of Israel, the heads of their fathers’ houses, brought offerings. These were the chiefs of the tribes, who were in charge of the registration.",
      "3": "They brought as their offering before the Lord six covered carts and twelve oxen—a cart for every two tribal chiefs and an ox for every tribal chief. They presented them in front of the Dwelling.",
      "4": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "5": "“Accept these gifts from them so that they may be used for doing the work at the Tent of Meeting. You are to give them to the Levites as each one’s work requires.”",
      "6": "Moses took the carts and the oxen and gave them to the Levites.",
      "7": "He gave two carts and four oxen to the descendants of Gershon as their work required.",
      "8": "He gave four carts and eight oxen to the descendants of Merari, as required for their work under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.",
      "9": "But to the descendants of Kohath he did not give any, because their work was to carry the holy things on their own shoulders.",
      "10": "The tribal chiefs also brought offerings for the dedication of the altar on the day that it was anointed. The tribal chiefs brought their offerings before the altar.",
      "11": "The Lord said to Moses, “Each day one tribal chief will bring his offering for the dedication of the altar.”",
      "12": "On the first day, the one who brought his offering was Nahshon son of Amminadab from the tribe of Judah.",
      "13": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "14": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "15": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "16": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "17": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Nahshon son of Amminadab.",
      "18": "On the second day Nethanel son of Zuar, the tribal chief of Issachar, brought his offering.",
      "19": "He brought for his offering: one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "20": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "21": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "22": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "23": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Nethanel son of Zuar.",
      "24": "On the third day it was the tribal chief of Zebulun’s descendants, Eliab son of Helon.",
      "25": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "26": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "27": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "28": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "29": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Eliab son of Helon.",
      "30": "On the fourth day it was the tribal chief of Reuben’s descendants, Elizur son of Shedeur.",
      "31": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "32": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "33": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "34": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "35": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Elizur son of Shedeur.",
      "36": "On the fifth day it was the tribal chief of Simeon’s descendants, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai.",
      "37": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "38": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "39": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "40": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "41": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai.",
      "42": "On the sixth day it was the tribal chief of Gad’s descendants, Eliasaph son of Deuel.",
      "43": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "44": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "45": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "46": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "47": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Eliasaph son of Deuel.",
      "48": "On the seventh day it was the tribal chief of Ephraim’s descendants, Elishama son of Ammihud.",
      "49": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "50": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "51": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "52": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "53": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Elishama son of Ammihud.",
      "54": "On the eighth day it was the tribal chief of Manasseh’s descendants, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.",
      "55": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "56": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "57": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "58": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "59": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.",
      "60": "On the ninth day it was the tribal chief of Benjamin’s descendants, Abidan son of Gideoni.",
      "61": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "62": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "63": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "64": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "65": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Abidan son of Gideoni.",
      "66": "On the tenth day it was the tribal chief of Dan’s descendants, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.",
      "67": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "68": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "69": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "70": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "71": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.",
      "72": "On the eleventh day it was the tribal chief of Asher’s descendants, Pagiel son of Ochran.",
      "73": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "74": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "75": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "76": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "77": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Pagiel son of Ochran.",
      "78": "On the twelfth day it was the tribal chief of Naphtali’s descendants, Ahira son of Enan.",
      "79": "His offering was one silver dish weighing one hundred thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling basin weighing seventy shekels according to the sanctuary shekel, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;",
      "80": "one small gold bowl weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;",
      "81": "one young bull, one ram, one year-old male lamb for a whole burnt offering;",
      "82": "one male goat for a sin offering;",
      "83": "and for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering: two head of cattle, five rams, five male breeding goats, and five one-year-old male lambs. This was the offering of Ahira son of Enan.",
      "84": "These were the offerings from the tribal chiefs of Israel for the dedication of the altar on the day that it was anointed: twelve silver dishes, twelve silver sprinkling basins, twelve small gold bowls.",
      "85": "Each silver dish weighed one hundred thirty shekels, and each sprinkling basin weighed seventy shekels. All the silver vessels weighed two thousand four hundred shekels according to the sanctuary shekel.",
      "86": "The twelve gold bowls, filled with incense, weighed ten shekels each, according to the sanctuary shekel. All the gold bowls weighed one hundred twenty shekels.",
      "87": "All the cattle for the whole burnt offering were twelve young bulls, twelve rams, twelve one-year-old male lambs, along with their grain offerings. Also there were twelve male breeding goats for a sin offering.",
      "88": "All the cattle for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering were twenty-four young bulls, sixty rams, sixty male breeding goats, and sixty one-year-old male lambs. These were the offerings for the dedication of the altar after it was anointed.",
      "89": "When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the Lord’s voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the atonement seat that was on the Ark of the Covenant. In this way the Lord spoke to him."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Speak to Aaron and tell him, ‘When you set up the lamps, the seven lamps are to give light in front of the lampstand.’”",
      "3": "So that is what Aaron did. He set up the lamps to light the area in front of the lampstand, just as the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "4": "This was how the lampstand was made: It was a work of hammered gold. From its base to its blossoms, it was one hammered piece. So the lampstand was made according to the pattern that the Lord had shown Moses.",
      "5": "The Lord told Moses",
      "6": "to take the Levites from among the Israelites and to do the following to make them ceremonially clean:",
      "7": "This is what you are to do to them to make them ceremonially clean: Sprinkle the water of purification on them. Have them shave their entire body with a razor, wash their clothes, and purify themselves.",
      "8": "Then they are to take a young bull from the herd with its grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil. You are to take another young bull from the herd for a sin offering.",
      "9": "You are to present the Levites in front of the Tent of Meeting. You are to assemble the entire Israelite community.",
      "10": "You are to present the Levites before the Lord. The Israelites will place their hands on the Levites.",
      "11": "Then Aaron will offer the Levites before the Lord as a wave offering on behalf of the Israelites. They are to do the work of the Lord.",
      "12": "The Levites are to place their hands on the heads of the young bulls. You then will offer the one young bull as a sin offering and the other young bull as a whole burnt offering to the Lord to make atonement for the Levites.",
      "13": "You will have the Levites stand in front of Aaron and his sons, and you will offer them as a wave offering to the Lord.",
      "14": "In this way you are to set apart the Levites from the other Israelites, and the Levites will be mine.",
      "15": "After you have purified them and offered them as a wave offering, the Levites will go to work at the Tent of Meeting,",
      "16": "because only they are given to me as servants from among the Israelites. In place of every firstborn from the womb, the firstborn of every Israelite, I have taken the Levites for myself.",
      "17": "For all the firstborn among the Israelites are mine, both human and animal. On the day that I struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I set the firstborn of the Israelites apart for myself.",
      "18": "But I have taken the Levites in place of every firstborn among the Israelites.",
      "19": "From among the Israelites I have given only the Levites to Aaron and his sons to do the work of the people of Israel at the Tent of Meeting and to make atonement for the people of Israel so that there will not be any plague among the Israelites when the Israelites approach the sanctuary.",
      "20": "Moses, Aaron, and the entire community of the people of Israel did for the Levites just as they had been told. The Israelites did for them everything that the Lord commanded Moses in regard to the Levites.",
      "21": "The Levites purified themselves and washed their clothing. Aaron offered them as a wave offering before the Lord and made atonement for them to purify them.",
      "22": "After that, the Levites went to do their work at the Tent of Meeting in the presence of Aaron and his sons. Just as the Lord had commanded Moses about the Levites, that is exactly what they did for them.",
      "23": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "24": "“This applies to the Levites: From twenty-five years of age and up, they are to serve in the work at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "25": "But when they are fifty years old, they are to retire from the service and no longer work.",
      "26": "They may assist their brothers at the Tent of Meeting in performing their duties, but they are not to do the work. This is exactly what you are to do in regard to the Levites and their duties.”"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, during the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt. He said,",
      "2": "“The people of Israel are to observe the Passover at its appointed time.",
      "3": "On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you will observe it at its appointed time. You will observe it according to all its regulations and all its ordinances.”",
      "4": "Moses told the Israelites to observe the Passover.",
      "5": "They observed the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, at twilight, in the Wilderness of Sinai. The Israelites did everything just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "6": "There were some men, however, who were unclean because of contact with a dead body. So they were not able to observe the Passover on that day. They went before Moses and Aaron on that same day.",
      "7": "These men said to him, “We are unclean because of a dead body. Why should we be kept from presenting the offering of the Lord at its appointed time among the people of Israel?”",
      "8": "So Moses said to them, “Wait and let me hear what the Lord commands concerning you.”",
      "9": "The Lord spoke to Moses",
      "10": "and told him to tell the Israelites this:\nIf any one of you or your descendants is unclean because of contact with a dead body or is on a distant journey, he may still observe the Passover to the Lord.",
      "11": "Such people are to observe it during the second month, on the fourteenth day, at twilight. They are to eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.",
      "12": "They must not leave any of it until morning. They are not to break a single one of its bones. They are to observe the Passover according to every regulation for it.",
      "13": "But anyone who is clean and is not on a journey yet fails to observe the Passover will be cut off from his people. He will bear his sin because he did not present the offering of the Lord at its appointed time.",
      "14": "If an alien dwells among you and desires to observe the Passover to the Lord, he is to do so according to the regulation for the Passover and its ordinance. You are to have one regulation, the same for the alien and for the native of the land.",
      "15": "On the day that the Dwelling was set up, the cloud covered the Dwelling, that is, the Tent of the Testimony. The cloud over the Dwelling looked like fire from evening until morning.",
      "16": "It was always like this: The cloud would cover the Dwelling, and at night it looked like fire.",
      "17": "Whenever the cloud above the tent lifted up, the Israelites would set out. Wherever the cloud settled down, the Israelites would camp at that spot.",
      "18": "At the command of the Lord, the Israelites set out, and at the command of the Lord they set up camp. For the entire time that the cloud settled over the Dwelling, they would keep their camp at that place.",
      "19": "When the cloud stayed over the Dwelling for many days, the Israelites would keep the Lord’s order and would not set out.",
      "20": "Sometimes the cloud would be over the Dwelling for only a few days. Then according to the command of the Lord the Israelites would remain camped at that place. Then at the command of the Lord they would set out again.",
      "21": "Sometimes the cloud was over the Dwelling only from evening until morning. So when the cloud lifted up in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, when the cloud lifted up, they set out.",
      "22": "Whether it was two days, a month, or a year that the cloud stayed settled over the Dwelling, the Israelites remained camped at that place and did not set out. But when it lifted up, they set out.",
      "23": "At the command of the Lord they camped, and at the command of the Lord they set out. They kept the Lord’s order, following the command of the Lord given through Moses."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses",
      "2": "to make two trumpets of hammered silver and to use them in this way:\nYou will use them to summon the community and to have the camp set out.",
      "3": "When they blow both trumpets, the entire community will gather to you at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "4": "If they blow just one trumpet, then the tribal chiefs, the heads of the Israelite clans, will gather to you.",
      "5": "When you blow the signal on the trumpets, the camps that are on the east side will set out.",
      "6": "When you blow the signal a second time, the camps that are on the south side will set out. This will be the signal to set out.",
      "7": "When the community is to gather, you will blow the trumpets, but you will not sound the signal for setting out.",
      "8": "Aaron’s sons, the priests, will blow the trumpets. This will be a permanent regulation for you and for your descendants.",
      "9": "When you go out into battle in your own land against an adversary who attacks you, you will sound the signal with the trumpets. Then you will be remembered before the Lord your God, and you will be saved from your enemies.",
      "10": "Also at the times when you rejoice, at your appointed festivals and at the New Moon, you will blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your fellowship offerings. They will serve as a memorial for you before your God. I am the Lord your God.",
      "11": "On the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, the cloud lifted up above the Dwelling of the Testimony.",
      "12": "The Israelites set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sinai. The cloud settled in the Wilderness of Paran.",
      "13": "For the first time, they set out according to the command of the Lord through Moses.",
      "14": "First, the standard for the camp of Judah’s descendants set out according to their military units. Nahshon son of Amminadab was over Judah’s unit.",
      "15": "Nethanel son of Zuar was over the unit for the tribe of Issachar’s descendants.",
      "16": "Eliab son of Helon was over the unit for the tribe of Zebulun’s descendants.",
      "17": "The Dwelling was then taken down. The sons of Gershon and the sons of Merari set out, carrying the Dwelling.",
      "18": "The standard for the camp of Reuben set out according to their military units. Elizur son of Shedeur was over Reuben’s unit.",
      "19": "Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai was over the unit for the tribe of Simeon’s descendants.",
      "20": "Eliasaph son of Deuel was over the unit for the tribe of Gad’s descendants.",
      "21": "The Kohathites then set out, carrying the holy things. The others would set up the Dwelling before they arrived.",
      "22": "The standard for the camp of Ephraim’s descendants set out according to their military units. Elishama son of Ammihud was over Ephraim’s unit.",
      "23": "Gamaliel son of Pedahzur was over the unit for the tribe of Manasseh’s descendants.",
      "24": "Abidan son of Gideoni was over the unit for the tribe of Benjamin’s descendants.",
      "25": "The standard for the camp of Dan’s descendants, serving as the rear guard for the entire camp, set out according to their military units. Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai was over Dan’s unit.",
      "26": "Pagiel son of Ochran was over the unit for the tribe of Asher’s descendants.",
      "27": "Ahira son of Enan was over the unit for the tribe of Naphtali’s descendants.",
      "28": "This was the marching order for the Israelites, according to their military units. This is how they set out.",
      "29": "Moses said to Hobab, the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are setting out to the place about which the Lord promised, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good concerning Israel.”",
      "30": "Hobab said to him, “I will not go, but I will go to my own land and to my own relatives.”",
      "31": "Moses said, “Please do not leave us, because you know where we should camp in the wilderness. You can be our eyes.",
      "32": "If you will go with us, whatever good the Lord does for us, we will do for you.”",
      "33": "They set out from the mountain of the Lord on a three-day journey. The Ark of the Lord’s Covenant set out before them for that three-day journey to find a resting place for them.",
      "34": "The cloud of the Lord was over them by day, when they set out from the camp.",
      "35": "Whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, “Rise up, O Lord, and may your enemies be scattered! May those who hate you flee before you!”",
      "36": "When it came to rest, he would say, “Return, O Lord, to the countless thousands of Israel!”"
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "The people were complaining about their hardships so that the Lord heard it. When the Lord heard it, his anger burned. So the Lord’s fire burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.",
      "2": "The people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord. So the fire died down.",
      "3": "They named that place Taberah, because the Lord’s fire burned among them.",
      "4": "The foreign rabble who were among the Israelites were overcome by their craving. The Israelites also wept once again and said, “Who is going to give us meat to eat?",
      "5": "We remember the fish we ate in Egypt free of charge, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.",
      "6": "But now our lives are wasting away. We have nothing at all to look at except this manna.”",
      "7": "The manna was like coriander seed, and it looked like resin.",
      "8": "The people went around and gathered it up. They would grind it in hand mills or crush it in a mortar. They would boil it in pots or make it into loaves. It tasted like a cake made with oil.",
      "9": "When dew fell on the camp during the night, the manna fell along with it.",
      "10": "Moses heard people from all the clans weeping, each one at the entrance to his own tent. At the same time, the Lord’s anger burned fiercely, and Moses was displeased.",
      "11": "Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your eyes? Why do you put the burden of all these people on me?",
      "12": "Did I conceive all these people by myself? Am I the one who gave birth to them so that you tell me to carry them in my arms to the land which you swore to their fathers, just as a woman who is nursing carries a baby?",
      "13": "Where is there meat for me to give to all these people? Listen, they are weeping to me and saying, ‘Give us meat so that we can eat.’",
      "14": "I am not able to carry all these people by myself, because that is too much for me.",
      "15": "If you are going to treat me this way, please kill me right now. If I have found favor in your eyes, do not let me see my own ruin.”",
      "16": "So the Lord said to Moses, “Gather seventy men from the elders of Israel for me, men whom you know to be elders and officers for the people. Take them to the Tent of Meeting and make them stand there with you.",
      "17": "I will come down and talk with you there. I will take from the Spirit that is on you and will put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it by yourself.",
      "18": "“Say to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves to be ready for tomorrow. You will eat meat because you have wept and the Lord has heard you say, “Who will give us meat to eat? Yes, things were good for us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat.",
      "19": "You will eat not just for one day, for two days, for five days, for ten days, not even just for twenty days,",
      "20": "but for a whole month, until meat comes out of your nostrils, and you begin to loathe it. This will happen because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and you have wept in his presence, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?”’”",
      "21": "Moses said, “I am in the middle of a people with six hundred thousand foot soldiers, and now you say, ‘I will give them meat, and they will eat for a whole month.’",
      "22": "If flocks and herds were slaughtered for them, would that be enough for them? If all the fish of the sea were caught for them, would that be enough for them?”",
      "23": "The Lord said to Moses, “Is the arm of the Lord too short? Now you will see whether what I have said to you will happen or not.”",
      "24": "Moses went out and told the people the Lord’s words. He gathered seventy men from the elders of the people and had them stand all around the tent.",
      "25": "The Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him. He took from the Spirit that was on Moses and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do it again.",
      "26": "Two men, however, remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other was Medad. They were listed among the elders, but they had not gone out to the tent. The Spirit rested on them, and they prophesied back in the camp.",
      "27": "A young man ran and reported this to Moses. He said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!”",
      "28": "Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide from his youth, answered, “My lord Moses, stop them!”",
      "29": "Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? If only all of the Lord’s people were prophets so that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”",
      "30": "Then Moses returned to the camp along with the elders of Israel.",
      "31": "A wind sent out from the Lord brought quail in from the sea. The wind scattered them throughout the camp (and about a day’s journey in any direction around the camp) about three feet deep on the ground.",
      "32": "All that day, all that night, and all the next day, the people got up and gathered the quail. No one gathered fewer than sixty bushels. They spread them out around the camp.",
      "33": "But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the Lord’s anger burned against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very severe plague.",
      "34": "They named that place Kibroth Hatta’avah, because there they buried the people who were overcome by their craving.",
      "35": "From Kibroth Hatta’avah the people traveled to Hazeroth, and they stayed at Hazeroth."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman).",
      "2": "They said, “Has the Lord really spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” The Lord heard this.",
      "3": "(Now the man Moses was very humble, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)",
      "4": "Right then the Lord spoke suddenly to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “You three come out to the Tent of Meeting!”\nThe three of them came out.",
      "5": "The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance to the tent. He called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward.",
      "6": "He said, “Now listen to my words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known to him in a vision. In a dream I will speak with him.",
      "7": "Not so, however, with my servant Moses. He is faithful in my whole household.",
      "8": "With him I speak face-to-face, clearly, and not in riddles. He sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?”",
      "9": "The Lord’s anger burned against them, and he left.",
      "10": "The cloud went up from above the tent, and immediately Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. Aaron turned to Miriam and saw that she was leprous.",
      "11": "Aaron said to Moses, “My lord, please do not hold this sin against us. We have acted foolishly. We have sinned.",
      "12": "Please do not let her be like a stillborn infant that comes out of its mother’s womb with its flesh half-eaten away.”",
      "13": "Moses cried out to the Lord, “God, please heal her, please!”",
      "14": "The Lord said to Moses, “If her father had merely spit in her face, would she not be disgraced for seven days? Have her confined outside of the camp for seven days, and after that she can be brought back in.”",
      "15": "Miriam was confined outside of the camp for seven days, and the people did not set out until Miriam was brought back in.",
      "16": "Afterward the people set out from Hazeroth and camped in the Wilderness of Paran."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Send men to scout the land of Canaan, which I myself am giving to the Israelites. You are to send one man from each ancestral tribe, each one a tribal chief among the people of Israel.”",
      "3": "Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran according to the Lord’s command. All of these men were heads of the Israelites.",
      "4": "These were their names:\nFrom the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur.",
      "5": "From the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori.",
      "6": "From the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh.",
      "7": "From the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph.",
      "8": "From the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun.",
      "9": "From the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu.",
      "10": "From the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi.",
      "11": "From the tribe of Joseph, that is, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi.",
      "12": "From the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli.",
      "13": "From the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael.",
      "14": "From the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi.",
      "15": "From the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi.",
      "16": "These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to scout the land. Moses renamed Hoshea son of Nun “Joshua.”",
      "17": "Moses sent them to scout the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up this way through the Negev and go up into the hill country.",
      "18": "See what the land is like. See if the people who live in the land are strong or weak. See if they are few or many.",
      "19": "See if the land that they live in is good or bad. See what kind of cities they live in. See if the cities are camps or fortified places.",
      "20": "See what the land is like. See if the land is fertile or poor. See if there are trees in the land or not. Be courageous and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” This happened at the season of the first ripe grapes.",
      "21": "So they went up and scouted the land from the Wilderness of Zin to Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath.",
      "22": "They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)",
      "23": "The scouts came to the Valley of Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes. They carried it on a pole between two men, along with some pomegranates and figs.",
      "24": "They named that place the Valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the Israelites had cut down from there.",
      "25": "At the end of forty days, they returned from scouting the land.",
      "26": "They came back to Moses, Aaron, and the entire community of the Israelites at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran. They brought back a report to them and to the entire community. They showed them some of the fruit of the land.",
      "27": "They reported to him and said, “We went to the land where you sent us. It really does flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit.",
      "28": "However, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. We also saw the descendants of Anak there.",
      "29": "The Amalekites are living in the land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites are living in the hill country. The Canaanites are living by the sea and along the Jordan.”",
      "30": "Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should go up now and take possession of it, because we can certainly conquer it!”",
      "31": "But the men who had gone up with Caleb said, “We are not able to go up against the people, because they are stronger than we are.”",
      "32": "So they spread a negative report to the Israelites about the land that they had scouted. They said, “The land that we explored and scouted is a land that eats up its inhabitants. All the people we saw in the land were huge.",
      "33": "We saw there the Nephilim (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). In our own eyes we seemed like grasshoppers. We seemed like grasshoppers in their eyes too.”"
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "The entire community raised a loud cry. The people wept that night.",
      "2": "All of the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The entire community said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! If only we had died in this wilderness!",
      "3": "Why is the Lord bringing us to this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our children will be taken as captives! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”",
      "4": "So they said to one another, “Let’s put someone in charge and return to Egypt.”",
      "5": "Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the entire assembly of the Israelite community.",
      "6": "Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of those who had scouted the land, tore their clothes.",
      "7": "They spoke to the entire Israelite community, “The land that we explored and scouted is a very good land.",
      "8": "If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that is flowing with milk and honey.",
      "9": "Only do not revolt against the Lord. Do not fear the people of the land, for we will eat them up. Their protection is taken away from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”",
      "10": "Still the entire community threatened to stone them to death. The Glory of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites over the Tent of Meeting.",
      "11": "The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? 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 a plague and disown them. Then I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are.”",
      "13": "Moses said to the Lord, “The Egyptians will hear it, since by your own power you brought these people up from the midst of the Egyptians.",
      "14": "They will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have heard that you, the Lord, are in the midst of this people. You, the Lord, are seen face-to-face. Your cloud stands over them. You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.",
      "15": "If you killed these people, leaving no one, then the nations which have heard about your fame will say,",
      "16": "‘Because the Lord was not able to bring these people into the land which he swore to them, he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’",
      "17": "Now please let the power of the Lord be great, just as you have said,",
      "18": "‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in mercy, forgiving guilt and rebellion. He certainly does not leave the guilty unpunished, following up on the guilt of the fathers with the children unto the third and the fourth generation.’",
      "19": "According to your great mercy, please pardon the guilt of these people, just as you have forgiven these people from Egypt until now.”",
      "20": "The Lord said, “I have pardoned them just as you have said.",
      "21": "But as surely as I live, and as surely as the entire earth is filled with the glory of the Lord,",
      "22": "not one of the men who has seen my glory and my signs, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who has tested me these ten times and has not listened to my voice—",
      "23": "I promise that none of them will see the land which I swore to their fathers. None of those who treated me with contempt will see it.",
      "24": "But because my servant Caleb had a different spirit and has followed me completely, I will bring him into the land to which he traveled. His descendants will possess it.",
      "25": "Since the Amalekites and the Canaanites are living in the valleys and lowlands, tomorrow you are to turn back and set out into the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.”",
      "26": "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron,",
      "27": "“How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the Israelites’ constant grumblings against me.",
      "28": "Tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you just as I have heard you say.",
      "29": "In this wilderness your corpses will fall. All of you who were registered in the census, every one of you twenty years old and up who have grumbled against me,",
      "30": "I swear that none of you will go into the land where I promised to settle you, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.",
      "31": "But your children, whom you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they will experience the land which you have rejected.",
      "32": "But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness.",
      "33": "Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years. They will have to endure your prostitution until your corpses perish in the wilderness.",
      "34": "You will bear the consequences of your guilt for forty years, based on the number of days that you scouted the land, forty days, one year for every day. You will experience my opposition.’",
      "35": "I, the Lord, have spoken. I swear that I will do this to this entire wicked community, who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they will perish. There they will die.”",
      "36": "The men whom Moses had sent to scout the land, who returned and made the entire community grumble against him by giving a negative report about the land—",
      "37": "those men who brought the wicked, negative report about the land—died by the plague before the Lord.",
      "38": "Of those men who had gone to scout the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive.",
      "39": "Moses told these things to all the Israelites, and the people mourned bitterly.",
      "40": "They got up early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country. They said, “We are ready. We will go up to the place which the Lord spoke about. We admit we have sinned.”",
      "41": "Moses said, “What is this? Why are you going against the Lord’s command? This will not succeed.",
      "42": "Do not go up, because the Lord is not among you. You will be struck down before your enemies,",
      "43": "because the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there to oppose you. You will fall by the sword because you turned away from following the Lord. Therefore the Lord will not be with you.”",
      "44": "But they dared to go up to the heights of the hill country. Nevertheless, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and Moses did not leave the camp.",
      "45": "Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites, who lived in that hill country, came down, attacked them, and beat them down all the way to Hormah."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses",
      "2": "to speak to the Israelites and tell them this:\nWhen you come into the land where you will live, the land which I am giving to you,",
      "3": "and you make an offering by fire to the Lord from the herd or the flock, to make a pleasing aroma to the Lord (whether it is a burnt offering or a sacrifice, whether it is to fulfill a vow or as a voluntary offering or at your appointed festivals),",
      "4": "the person who presents his offering is to present to the Lord two quarts of fine flour mixed with a quart of oil as a grain offering.",
      "5": "For each lamb, for the burnt offering or the sacrifice, you are to supply a quart of wine as the drink offering.",
      "6": "With a ram you are to supply four quarts of fine flour mixed with a quart and a half of oil as a grain offering,",
      "7": "and you will also present a quart of wine as the drink offering, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "8": "If you are offering a young bull as a burnt offering or a sacrifice, which is to fulfill a vow or to be a fellowship offering to the Lord,",
      "9": "you are to present along with the young bull six quarts of fine flour mixed with two quarts of oil as a grain offering,",
      "10": "and you will present two quarts of wine as the drink offering, as a gift of food with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "11": "This is to be provided for each offering from the cattle, rams, lambs, or goats.",
      "12": "You are to supply these offerings for each sacrifice you prepare.",
      "13": "Everyone who is native-born is to do these things in this way when presenting a gift of food with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "14": "For your generations to come, if an alien resides with you or someone else settles among you, and he wants to present a gift offered by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord, he is to do just as you do.",
      "15": "In the assembly there will be a single regulation for you and for the resident alien, a permanent regulation for your generations to come. You and the alien will be the same before the Lord.",
      "16": "There will be a single law and a single ordinance for you and the alien residing with you.",
      "17": "The Lord told Moses",
      "18": "to speak to the Israelites and tell them this:\nWhen you come to the land to which I am bringing you",
      "19": "and when you eat from the food of the land, you are to present an elevated offering to the Lord.",
      "20": "From the first of your dough you are to present a round loaf as an elevated offering. You are to lift it up just like an elevated offering from the threshing floor.",
      "21": "For your generations to come, you will give to the Lord an elevated offering from the first of your dough.",
      "22": "When you err unintentionally and do not carry out all these commands, which the Lord has spoken to Moses—",
      "23": "everything that the Lord has commanded you through Moses, from the day that the Lord first gave these commands and onward, for your generations to come—",
      "24": "if it was done unintentionally, and the community was not aware of it, the entire community shall offer one young bull as a whole burnt offering, as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the ordinance, and one male goat as a sin offering.",
      "25": "The priest will make atonement for the entire Israelite community, and they will be forgiven, because it was an unintentional error. They are to bring their offering, a gift made by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord for their unintentional error.",
      "26": "The entire Israelite community and the aliens who reside among them will be forgiven, for all the people were involved in this error unintentionally.",
      "27": "If one person errs unintentionally, he must present a year-old female goat for a sin offering.",
      "28": "The priest will make atonement for the person who erred unintentionally, since by that unintentional error he sinned against the Lord. When the priest makes atonement for him, he will be forgiven.",
      "29": "You shall have a single law for anyone who commits an error unintentionally, whether a native-born Israelite or an alien who resides among you.",
      "30": "But a person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native-born or an alien, is blaspheming the Lord. That person must be cut off from among his people.",
      "31": "Because he has despised the Lord’s word and has broken his commands, that person will be completely cut off. His guilt shall remain on him.",
      "32": "While the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day.",
      "33": "The people who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses, Aaron, and the entire community.",
      "34": "They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done with him.",
      "35": "The Lord said to Moses, “The man must certainly be put to death. The entire community is to stone him outside of the camp.”",
      "36": "The entire community brought him outside of the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "37": "The Lord told Moses",
      "38": "to speak to the Israelites and tell them this:\nThroughout their generations to come, they are to make tassels on the corners of their garments. They are to put a blue cord on the tassels on each corner.",
      "39": "These tassels are to be there for you so that when you see them, you will remember all of the Lord’s commands, and you will carry them out. Then you will not prostitute yourselves by chasing after your own heart and your own eyes.",
      "40": "This way you will remember and carry out all of my commands and be holy to your God.",
      "41": "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "Now Korah, who was the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, joined with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and with On, the son of Peleth. These three were descendants of Reuben. They gathered",
      "2": "two hundred fifty well-known Israelites, tribal chiefs of the community, appointed representatives who served on the council, and they rose up against Moses.",
      "3": "They assembled together against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For the entire community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them! Why do you lift yourselves up above the Lord’s assembly?”",
      "4": "When Moses heard this, he fell facedown.",
      "5": "He said to Korah and to all his followers, “In the morning the Lord will reveal which of you are his and which of you are holy, and he will have that person come near to him. The man he chooses, he will have that man come near to him.",
      "6": "Do this, Korah, you and all your followers. Take censers,",
      "7": "put fire in them, and place incense on them in the presence of the Lord tomorrow. The man whom the Lord chooses will be set aside as holy. You have gone too far, you Levites!”",
      "8": "Moses said to Korah, “Listen, you Levites!",
      "9": "Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the Israelite community and brought you near to himself to do the work of the Lord’s Dwelling and to stand before the congregation to minister to them,",
      "10": "and that he has brought you near, along with all your fellow Levites who are with you? Do you seek the priesthood also?",
      "11": "Therefore you and all your followers have gathered together against the Lord! As for Aaron, who is he that you should grumble against him?”",
      "12": "Moses sent to summon Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, but they said, “We will not come!",
      "13": "Isn’t it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to have us die in the wilderness? Must you also make yourself a ruler over us?",
      "14": "Besides this, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey. You have not given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you gouge out the eyes of these men? We will not come up.”",
      "15": "Moses was very angry and said to the Lord, “Do not pay attention to their offering. I have not taken a single donkey from them, nor have I wronged any one of them.”",
      "16": "Moses said to Korah, “Tomorrow, you and all your followers are to appear before the Lord—you and they, and Aaron.",
      "17": "Every one of them is to take his censer and put incense on it, and each man will present his censer before the Lord, two hundred fifty censers. You and Aaron also, each one of you, will present his censer.”",
      "18": "They each took their own censers, put fire in them, placed incense on them, and stood at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting with Moses and Aaron.",
      "19": "Korah assembled the entire community opposite Moses and Aaron at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. The glory of the Lord appeared to the entire assembly.",
      "20": "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron,",
      "21": "“Separate yourselves from this assembly so that I may put an end to them instantly!”",
      "22": "But Moses and Aaron fell facedown and said, “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, will you be angry against the entire community?”",
      "23": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "24": "“Tell the assembly, ‘Move away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram!’”",
      "25": "So Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram. The elders of Israel followed him.",
      "26": "He told the assembly, “Move back from the tents of these wicked men. Do not touch anything that belongs to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins!”",
      "27": "So from every side, they moved away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the entrance to their tents with their wives, children, and little ones.",
      "28": "Moses said, “This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things and that all this was not just my idea.",
      "29": "If these men die a death like everyone else and if they suffer the same fate that everyone does, then the Lord has not sent me.",
      "30": "But if the Lord creates something unheard of and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, you will know that these men have treated the Lord with contempt.”",
      "31": "As soon as he finished speaking all these words, the ground beneath them split open.",
      "32": "The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up everyone who was with Korah, along with their households and all their possessions.",
      "33": "So they and everything that belonged to them went down alive into the grave. The earth closed up over them, and they disappeared from the midst of the assembly.",
      "34": "Hearing their screams, all the Israelites who were around them fled, because they said, “The earth will swallow us up too!”",
      "35": "Fire went out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred fifty men who offered the incense.",
      "36": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "37": "“Tell Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest to remove the censers from the burning debris and scatter the fire far away, for the censers are holy.",
      "38": "Make the censers belonging to those who sinned at the cost of their own lives into hammered sheets for plating the altar, because they presented them before the Lord, and the censers are holy. They will serve as a sign to the Israelites.”",
      "39": "Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which had been presented by those who had been burned up by fire. They hammered them into plating for the altar",
      "40": "as a reminder to the Israelites that no unauthorized person, who is not from the descendants of Aaron, should come near to burn incense before the Lord and become like Korah and his followers. Eleazar the priest did just as the Lord said to him through Moses.",
      "41": "But on the next day the entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. They said, “You have killed the people of the Lord!”",
      "42": "When the community assembled together against Moses and Aaron and turned toward the Tent of Meeting, the cloud covered it, and the Glory of the Lord appeared.",
      "43": "Moses and Aaron went in front of the Tent of Meeting.",
      "44": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "45": "“Get away from this community so that I may put an end to them instantly!” Moses and Aaron fell facedown to the ground.",
      "46": "Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, put fire from the altar in it, place incense on it, go quickly to the community, and make atonement for them, because wrath has gone out from the Lord! The plague has begun.”",
      "47": "Aaron did as Moses said and ran into the middle of the assembly. The plague had already begun among the people. He put the incense on his censer and made atonement for the people.",
      "48": "He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.",
      "49": "Now those who died by the plague totaled 14,700, besides those who died because of the offense of Korah.",
      "50": "Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, and the plague was stopped."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Speak to the Israelites, and collect staffs from them, one from each father’s house, from all their tribal chiefs according to their fathers’ houses, twelve staffs in all. Write each man’s name on his staff.",
      "3": "Write Aaron’s name on the staff of Levi, because there will be one staff for each head of their fathers’ houses.",
      "4": "You are to place them in the Tent of Meeting before the Testimony, where I meet with you.",
      "5": "The staff of the man whom I will choose will sprout. I will rid myself of the Israelites’ constant grumbling against you.”",
      "6": "So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and each one of their tribal chiefs gave him a staff, one staff for each tribal chief according to their fathers’ houses, twelve staffs in all. Aaron’s staff was among their staffs.",
      "7": "Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the Tent of the Testimony.",
      "8": "On the next day Moses went into the Tent of the Testimony and discovered that Aaron’s staff representing the house of Levi had sprouted, budded, blossomed, and produced almonds.",
      "9": "Moses brought out all the staffs from the Lord’s presence to all the Israelites. They looked, and each man took his staff.",
      "10": "The Lord said to Moses, “Put Aaron’s staff back in front of the Testimony to be kept as a sign against the rebellious. In this way you will put an end to their grumblings against me, so that they do not die.”",
      "11": "That is what Moses did. He did just as the Lord commanded him.",
      "12": "The Israelites said to Moses, “Look, we are perishing! We are lost! We are all lost!",
      "13": "Everyone who approaches the Lord’s Dwelling dies! Must we all perish?”"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "The Lord gave these directions to Aaron:\nYou, your sons, and your father’s house with you will bear the guilt for any sins in connection with the sanctuary. You and your sons with you will bear the guilt for any sins in connection with your priesthood.",
      "2": "Also have your brothers from the tribe of Levi, your father’s tribe, come forward with you so that they may join you and assist you when you and your sons along with you are on duty in front of the Tent of the Testimony.",
      "3": "They will perform the duties for you and for the entire tent. However, they are not to go close to the furnishings in the sanctuary or to the altar, so that they and you will not die.",
      "4": "They are to join you and perform the duties for the Tent of Meeting, to do all the work at the tent. No unauthorized person is to go near you.",
      "5": "You are to perform the duties for the sanctuary and for the altar so that there will not be any more wrath on the Israelites.",
      "6": "See, I myself have taken your brothers, the Levites, from among the Israelites. They are a gift to you, given by the Lord, to do the work at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "7": "But you and your sons with you will keep watch over your priesthood in connection with everything at the altar and inside the veil. You are to do this work. I am giving you your priesthood as a gift. Any unauthorized person who comes near must be put to death.",
      "8": "The Lord spoke to Aaron. This is what he said:\nSee, I myself have put you in charge of the elevated offerings made to me. All of the holy things from the Israelites I have given to you as an allotment and to your sons as a permanent right.",
      "9": "Part of the most holy things that are not burned in the fire will be yours. Every one of their offerings which they give to me—every one of their grain offerings, every one of their sin offerings, and every one of their restitution offerings—will be most holy for you and your sons.",
      "10": "You will eat it as a most holy thing. Every male may eat of it. It will be holy for you.",
      "11": "This is yours too: the elevated offerings from their gifts, including all the wave offerings from the Israelites. I have given them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a permanent right. Everyone who is ceremonially clean in your house may eat it.",
      "12": "All the best oil, all the best wine and grain, the Israelites’ firstfruits which they give to the Lord, I have given them all to you.",
      "13": "The first ripe produce from everything that is in their land, all that they bring to the Lord, will be yours. Everyone who is ceremonially clean in your house may eat it.",
      "14": "Everything permanently devoted by the Israelites will be yours.",
      "15": "The firstborn from every living thing, human or animal, whatever they present to the Lord, will be yours. However, you must redeem the firstborn of any human. You must also redeem the firstborn of an unclean animal.",
      "16": "When they are one month old, you must redeem them at the set redemption price, five shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs.",
      "17": "However, you may not redeem the firstborn of the cattle, sheep, or goats. They are set aside as holy. You will splash their blood on the altar and turn their fat into smoke as an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "18": "Their meat will be yours. It will be yours just like the breast of the wave offering and the right thigh.",
      "19": "All the elevated offerings of holy things, which the Israelites lift up to the Lord, I have given to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a permanent allotment. It is a permanent covenant of salt before the Lord for you and your descendants with you.",
      "20": "The Lord also said these things to Aaron:\nYou will not have any allotment of land among them in the land, and you will not have any share among them. I am your share and your possession among the people of Israel.",
      "21": "See, I have given all the tithes in Israel to the Levites as a possession in return for their work which they are doing, the work at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "22": "The Israelites will never again come near the Tent of Meeting. If they do, they will become responsible for sin and die.",
      "23": "But the Levites are to do the work at the Tent of Meeting, and they will bear their guilt. It will be a permanent regulation throughout your generations to come: They will not have any possession among the Israelites.",
      "24": "For the tithe from the Israelites, which they lift up as an elevated offering for the Lord, I have given to the Levites as a possession. Therefore I have said to them, “They will not have any possession among the Israelites.”",
      "25": "The Lord told Moses",
      "26": "to speak to the Levites and tell them this:\nWhen you receive from the Israelites the tithe, which I have given to you as your possession, you will lift up an elevated offering from it for the Lord, a tenth of the tithe.",
      "27": "Your elevated offering will be credited to you, as if it were grain from the threshing floor and abundance from the winepress.",
      "28": "In this way you also are to lift up an elevated offering for the Lord from every one of the tithes which you receive from the Israelites. From the tithes, you will give the elevated offering for the Lord to Aaron the priest.",
      "29": "You will lift up every elevated offering for the Lord from the things given to you, from all the best, the holiest part of it.",
      "30": "Tell the Levites this:\nWhen you lift up the best part of the offering, it will be credited to the Levites as if it were produce from the threshing floor and the winepress.",
      "31": "You may eat it anywhere, with your household, for it is your wages in return for your work at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "32": "You will not become responsible for sin in regard to it when you lift up the best part of it. You will not defile the holy things from the Israelites, and you will not die."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron:",
      "2": "These are requirements of the law which the Lord has commanded.\nTell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without blemish, one that has no defect and that has never been under a yoke.",
      "3": "You are to give it to Eleazar the priest. He is to have it taken outside of the camp and slaughtered in his presence.",
      "4": "With his finger Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting.",
      "5": "The heifer is to be burned in his sight. Its hide, flesh, and blood are to be burned along with its manure.",
      "6": "The priest will take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet yarn and throw them onto the burning heifer.",
      "7": "Then the priest will wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in water. Afterward he will come into the camp, and the priest will be unclean until evening.",
      "8": "The one who burns the heifer is to wash his clothing in water and bathe his flesh in water. He will remain unclean until evening.",
      "9": "A man who is ceremonially clean is to gather up the heifer’s ashes and place them outside of the camp in a clean place. They will be kept for the Israelite congregation to use to make the water for removing impurity. It is a sin offering.",
      "10": "The one who gathers the heifer’s ashes is to wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. This will be a permanent regulation for the Israelites and the aliens residing among them.",
      "11": "Whoever touches the body of a dead person will be unclean for seven days.",
      "12": "He is to purify himself with the water on the third day, and he will become clean on the seventh day. But if he does not purify himself on the third day, then he will not become clean on the seventh day.",
      "13": "Anyone who touches a dead human body but does not purify himself defiles the Lord’s Dwelling. That person must be cut off from Israel. He is unclean, because he has not sprinkled himself with the water for removing impurity. His uncleanness is still on him.",
      "14": "This is the law when someone dies in a tent: Everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent will be unclean for seven days.",
      "15": "Every open container without a lid on it is unclean.",
      "16": "Anyone in the open countryside who touches someone killed by a sword or someone who has died, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.",
      "17": "For the unclean person, take some of the ashes from the burnt sin offering, put them into a vessel, and add water from a flowing source to the ashes.",
      "18": "A ceremonially clean person is to take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the water on the tent, on all the items, and on the people who were there. He is also to sprinkle it on anyone who has touched someone who was killed or someone who has died and on anyone who has touched a grave or a human bone.",
      "19": "The ceremonially clean person will sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day. On the seventh day, after the ceremonially clean person has purified the unclean person, that person will wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and he will be clean at evening.",
      "20": "But anyone who is unclean and refuses to purify himself will be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water for removing impurity was not sprinkled on him, so he remains unclean.",
      "21": "This will be a permanent regulation for them. The one who sprinkles the water for removing impurity shall wash his clothing, and whoever touches the water for removing impurity will be unclean until evening.",
      "22": "Everything that the unclean person touches will be unclean, and the person who touches those things will be unclean until evening."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "The people of Israel, the entire community, came to the Wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.",
      "2": "There was no water for the community, so they assembled together against Moses and Aaron.",
      "3": "The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord!",
      "4": "Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here?",
      "5": "Why have you taken us up out of Egypt to bring us into this horrible place? This place does not have grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates. There is no water to drink!”",
      "6": "Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. They fell facedown. The Glory of the Lord appeared to them.",
      "7": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "8": "“Take the staff and assemble the community. You and Aaron, your brother, speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will pour out its water. You will bring water for them from the rock and provide water for the community and their livestock.”",
      "9": "Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence just as the Lord commanded him.",
      "10": "Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Listen now, you rebels! Must we bring water out of this rock for you?”",
      "11": "Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff two times, and a great amount of water gushed out. The congregation and their livestock drank.",
      "12": "Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough to honor me as holy in the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this assembly into this land which I have given to them.”",
      "13": "These are the waters of Meribah, because there the Israelites quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself to be holy.",
      "14": "Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom to say, “This is what your brother Israel says: You know all the hardship that has come upon us.",
      "15": "Our ancestors went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt for a long time. The Egyptians mistreated us and our ancestors.",
      "16": "When we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice, sent an angel, and brought us out of Egypt. So look, here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory.",
      "17": "Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through any field or vineyard. We will not drink water from any well. We will go on the King’s Highway. We will not turn to the right or to the left until we have passed through your territory.”",
      "18": "Edom said to him, “You must not pass through our territory, or we will go out to meet you with the sword.”",
      "19": "The Israelites said to them, “We will go up on the main road. If we drink your water, we and our herds of livestock, then we will pay for it. Just let us pass through on foot, nothing else.”",
      "20": "Edom said, “You will not pass through.” Edom went out to meet them with a large force of many people.",
      "21": "Edom refused to give Israel passage through their territory, so Israel turned away from them.",
      "22": "The entire community of the Israelites set out from Kadesh and came to Mount Hor.",
      "23": "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor along the border of Edom’s territory. He said,",
      "24": "“Aaron will be gathered to his people, because he cannot enter into the land which I have given to the Israelites, because you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah.",
      "25": "Take Aaron and Eleazar his son and bring them up to the top of Mount Hor.",
      "26": "Remove Aaron’s garments and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron will be gathered to his fathers and die there.”",
      "27": "Moses did just as the Lord commanded. They went up to the top of Mount Hor in the sight of the entire community.",
      "28": "Moses removed Aaron’s garments and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron died there on the top of the mountain, and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.",
      "29": "When the entire community saw that Aaron had passed away, the entire house of Israel wept for Aaron for thirty days."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "The Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming on the road to Atharim. He fought against Israel and captured some of them.",
      "2": "Israel made this vow to the Lord: “If you will indeed give these people into our hands, then we will totally destroy their cities.”",
      "3": "The Lord listened to Israel’s voice and gave the Canaanites into their hands. The Israelites totally destroyed them and their cities. They named the place Hormah.",
      "4": "They set out from Mount Hor along the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, but the people became very impatient along the way.",
      "5": "The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? Look, there is no food! There is no water! And we are disgusted by this worthless food!”",
      "6": "The Lord sent venomous snakes among the people, and the snakes bit the people. As a result many people from Israel died.",
      "7": "The people went to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord to take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed on behalf of the people.",
      "8": "The Lord said to Moses, “Make a venomous snake and put it on a pole. If anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.”",
      "9": "Moses made a bronze snake and put it on the pole. If a snake had bitten anyone, if that person looked at the bronze snake, he lived.",
      "10": "The Israelites set out and camped at Oboth.",
      "11": "They set out from Oboth and camped at Iye Abarim, in the wilderness that faces Moab, toward the sunrise.",
      "12": "From there they set out and camped at the Zered Canyon.",
      "13": "From there they set out and camped on the other side of the Arnon, in the wilderness that extends from the Amorite border. (The Arnon is the border between Moab and the Amorites.)",
      "14": "For this reason it says in the Book of the Wars of the Lord:\nWaheb in Suphah, the ravines of the Arnon,",
      "15": "the sloping ravines that bend toward the settlement of Ar and lie on the border of Moab.",
      "16": "From there they continued to Be’er. That is the well which the Lord spoke about to Moses: “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.”",
      "17": "Then Israel sang this song:\nSpring up, O well! Sing about it.",
      "18": "Sing about the well which the officials dug,\nwhich the nobles of the people hollowed out\n    with their scepters and their staffs.\nFrom the wilderness they continued to Mattanah,",
      "19": "from Mattanah to Nahaliel, from Nahaliel to Bamoth,",
      "20": "from Bamoth to the valley in the region of Moab by the top of Pisgah that overlooks the wasteland.",
      "21": "Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites to say,",
      "22": "“Permit us to pass through your land. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard. We will not drink the water from any well. We will stay on the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.”",
      "23": "Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. Instead Sihon gathered all his people together and went out into the wilderness to confront Israel. When he came to Jahaz, he fought against Israel.",
      "24": "Israel struck him with the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only as far as the Ammonites, because the Ammonite border was strong.",
      "25": "Israel took all these cities. Israel began living in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon and in all its villages.",
      "26": "Because Heshbon had been the city of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken from him all his land as far as the Arnon,",
      "27": "therefore the poets say,\nCome to Heshbon.\nLet the city of Sihon be built and established,",
      "28": "for a fire has gone out of Heshbon,\na flame from the town of Sihon.\nIt has consumed Ar of Moab\nand engulfed the heights of the Arnon.",
      "29": "Woe to you, Moab!\nYou are destroyed, people of Chemosh!\nHe has given up his sons as refugees,\nand his daughters go into captivity\nto Sihon king of the Amorites.",
      "30": "We overthrew them.\nHeshbon is destroyed as far as Dibon.\nWe have laid waste as far as Nophah.\nFire reaches as far as Medeba.",
      "31": "So Israel lived in the land of the Amorites.",
      "32": "Moses sent spies to Jazer. They took its towns and drove out the Amorites who were there.",
      "33": "They turned and went up on the road to Bashan. Og king of Bashan came out with all his people to confront Israel in battle at Edrei.",
      "34": "The Lord said to Moses, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have delivered him into your hand along with all his people and his land. You will do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”",
      "35": "So they struck him down along with his sons and all his people until there were no survivors. Then they took possession of his land."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "The Israelites set out and camped on the Plains of Moab along the Jordan across from Jericho.",
      "2": "Balak son of Zippor saw everything that Israel had done to the Amorites.",
      "3": "So Moab was afraid of the people, because they were so numerous. Moab was terrified because of the Israelites.",
      "4": "Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this assembly will eat up everything around us, just as cattle eat up the grass in the field.”\nBalak son of Zippor was king of Moab at that time.",
      "5": "He sent messengers to summon Balaam, the son of Beor, from Pethor by the Euphrates River, in the land of his own people.\nHe said, “Look, a people came out of Egypt. They cover the surface of the land, and they are settling right across from me.",
      "6": "Please come now. Curse this people for me, for they are more powerful than I am. Perhaps I will succeed and strike them down, driving them out of the land, for I know that whomever you bless is blessed, and whomever you curse is cursed.”",
      "7": "The elders of Moab and the elders of Midian went with payments for his occult practices in their hand. They came to Balaam and told him what Balak said.",
      "8": "Balaam said to them, “Spend the night here, and I will report to you what the Lord says to me.” So the Moabite officials stayed with Balaam.",
      "9": "God came to Balaam and said, “Who are these men with you?”",
      "10": "Balaam said to God, “Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, sent messengers to me, who said,",
      "11": "‘Look, the people that has come out of Egypt covers the surface of the land. Now, come, curse them for me. Perhaps I will be able to fight against them and drive them out.’”",
      "12": "God said to Balaam, “You are not to go with them. You are not to curse the people, for they are blessed.”",
      "13": "Balaam got up in the morning and said to Balak’s officials, “Go back to your land, because the Lord has refused to let me go with you.”",
      "14": "The officials of Moab got up and went back to Balak. They said, “Balaam refuses to come with us.”",
      "15": "So Balak again sent other officials, more numerous and more prestigious than the others.",
      "16": "They went to Balaam and said to him, “This is what Balak son of Zippor says, ‘Do not let anything prevent you from coming to me,",
      "17": "for I will reward you very richly. Also I will do whatever you tell me. Just come and curse this people for me.’”",
      "18": "Balaam responded to Balak’s servants, “Even if Balak would give to me his house full of silver and gold, I would not be able to go against the command of the Lord my God to do anything small or great.",
      "19": "But please, stay and spend the night here, and I will find out what else the Lord might say to me.”",
      "20": "God came to Balaam at night and said to him, “If the men have come to summon you, get up and go with them. However, do only what I tell you.”",
      "21": "Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went with the officials of Moab.",
      "22": "But God’s anger burned because Balaam was going with them. So the Angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.",
      "23": "The donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the road, with his drawn sword in his hand. So the donkey turned off the road and went into the field. Balaam struck the donkey to make it turn back to the road.",
      "24": "Then the Angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards with walls on both sides.",
      "25": "The donkey saw the Angel of the Lord and pressed against the wall and squeezed Balaam’s foot against the wall. Balaam struck the donkey again.",
      "26": "Then the Angel of the Lord went ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn to the right or to the left.",
      "27": "The donkey saw the Angel of the Lord and lay down under Balaam. Balaam’s anger burned, and he struck the donkey with his staff.",
      "28": "The Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, which said to Balaam, “What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?”",
      "29": "Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a fool of me! If only there was a sword in my hand, I would kill you now!”",
      "30": "The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, the one you have always ridden to this day? Is this what I usually do to you?”\nHe said, “No.”",
      "31": "Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the road, with his drawn sword in his hand. Balaam knelt and bowed with his face to the ground.",
      "32": "The Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Look, I myself have come out to oppose you, because your way is reckless before me.",
      "33": "The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away from me, I would have surely killed you by now and let the donkey live.”",
      "34": "Balaam said to the Angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I didn’t know that you stood in the road to confront me. Now if this is displeasing to you, I will go back.”",
      "35": "The Angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but you will speak only the words that I speak to you.” So Balaam went with Balak’s officials.",
      "36": "When Balak heard that Balaam had come, he went out to meet him at the Moabite town on the Arnon border at the edge of his territory.",
      "37": "Balak said to Balaam, “Didn’t I send for you urgently when I summoned you? Why didn’t you come to me? Don’t you know that I can really reward you?”",
      "38": "Balaam said to Balak, “Look, I have come to you now. But am I really able to say anything? I will speak only the words that God puts in my mouth.”",
      "39": "Balaam went with Balak, and they came to Kiriath Huzoth.",
      "40": "Balak sacrificed cattle and sheep and sent for Balaam and the officials who were with him.",
      "41": "In the morning, Balak took Balaam and brought him up to Bamoth Baal. From there, he saw the outskirts of the people."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.”",
      "2": "Balak did just as Balaam had said. Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.",
      "3": "Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering, while I go off by myself. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” ⎣So Balak went and stood by his burnt offering, and Balaam called to God⎦ and then he went off to a barren hill.",
      "4": "God met Balaam, and Balaam said to him, “I have set up seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.”",
      "5": "The Lord put a message into Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and you are to deliver this message.”",
      "6": "Balaam returned to Balak and found him standing by his burnt offering, along with all the officials of Moab.",
      "7": "Balaam took up his oracle. He said:\nFrom Aram, Balak has brought me.\nBalak, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains, said,\n“Come, curse Jacob for me.\nCome, denounce Israel.”",
      "8": "How can I curse someone God has not cursed?\nHow can I denounce someone the Lord has not denounced?",
      "9": "Yes, from the rocky peaks I see him.\nFrom the hills I look at him.\nLook! A people that dwells apart,\nthat does not consider itself to be one of the nations.",
      "10": "Who can count the dust of Jacob,\nor number even a fourth of Israel?\nMay I die the death of the righteous!\nMay my final end be like his!",
      "11": "Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have just blessed them.”",
      "12": "Balaam answered, “Don’t I have to speak accurately whatever the Lord puts in my mouth?”",
      "13": "Balak said to Balaam, “Please come with me to another place where you can see them. You will see only their outskirts. You will not see all of them. From there curse them for me.”",
      "14": "Balak took Balaam into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah. Balak built seven altars and offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.",
      "15": "Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering, while I meet the Lord over there.”",
      "16": "The Lord met with Balaam and put a message in his mouth. The Lord said, “Return to Balak, and you are to deliver this message.”",
      "17": "Balaam came back to Balak and found him standing by his burnt offering, and the officials of Moab were with him. Balak said to him, “What did the Lord say?”",
      "18": "Balaam took up his oracle and said:\nGet up, Balak, and listen!\nGive ear to me, son of Zippor.",
      "19": "God is not a man, that he should lie,\nnor a son of man, that he changes his mind.\nDoes he say something, and then not carry it out?\nDoes he speak, and then not bring it about?",
      "20": "Look, I have received a command to bless.\nHe has blessed, and I cannot change that.",
      "21": "No disaster is in sight for Jacob.\nNo suffering is seen in Israel.\nThe Lord his God is with him.\nThe shout for the King is among them.\nHe rejoices in his King.",
      "22": "God brings them out of Egypt.\nGod is like the horns of a wild ox for him.",
      "23": "Surely there is no occult power against Jacob,\nno omen against Israel.\nThey will say about Jacob and Israel,\n“What great things God has done!”",
      "24": "Look, the people rise up like a lioness.\nLike a lion they lift themselves up.\nHe will not lie down until he eats the prey,\nuntil he drinks the blood of the slain.",
      "25": "Then Balak said to Balaam, “Do not curse them at all! Do not bless them at all!”",
      "26": "But Balaam answered Balak, “Didn’t I say to you that I must do everything the Lord says?”",
      "27": "Balak said to Balaam, “Come on, I will take you to another place. Maybe God will agree to let you curse them for me from there.”",
      "28": "Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the wasteland.",
      "29": "Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.”",
      "30": "Balak did just as Balaam had said and offered up a bull and a ram on every altar."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not go to look for omens as he had done at the other times, but he set his face toward the wilderness.",
      "2": "When Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel dwelling according to their tribes, the Spirit of God was upon him.",
      "3": "He took up his oracle and said:\nThe declaration of Balaam son of Beor,\nthe declaration of the man whose eye is open,",
      "4": "the declaration of the one who hears the words of God,\nwho sees the vision of the Almighty,\nwho is falling down, but his eyes are wide open:",
      "5": "How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob,\n        and your dwelling places, O Israel!",
      "6": "Like rows of palm trees they stretch out,\n        like gardens by the riverside,\n        like aloes which the Lord has planted,\n        like cedar trees beside the waters.",
      "7": "Water will flow from his buckets.\n        His seed will have abundant waters.\n        His king will be higher than Agag.\n        His kingdom will be lifted up.",
      "8": "God brings him out of Egypt.\n        God is like the horns of a wild ox for him.\n        He will eat up the nations who are his adversaries.\n        He will gnaw on their bones.\n        He will pierce them through with his arrows.",
      "9": "He crouches like a lion.\n        He lies down like a lioness.\n        Who will rouse him?\n        The one who blesses you is blessed.\n        The one who curses you is cursed.",
      "10": "Balak’s anger burned against Balaam, and he slapped his hands together. Balak said to Balaam, “I summoned you to curse my enemies, but look, all you have done is bless them these three times.",
      "11": "Now get out of here. Go to your own place! I said I would really reward you, but look, the Lord has denied you a reward.”",
      "12": "Balaam said to Balak, “Didn’t I tell the messengers you sent to me, ‘I will say what the Lord says.",
      "13": "Even if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can’t go against the command of the Lord by doing anything good or bad of my own will’?",
      "14": "Yes, I am going back to my people, but pay attention now—I will tell you what this people will do to your people in days to come.”",
      "15": "Balaam took up his oracle and said:\nThe declaration of Balaam son of Beor,\nthe declaration of the man whose eye is open,",
      "16": "the declaration of the one who hears the words of God,\nwho receives knowledge from the Most High,\nwho sees the vision of the Almighty,\nwho is falling down, but his eyes are wide open:",
      "17": "I see him, but not now.\n        I behold him, but not near.\n        A star will come out of Jacob.\n        A scepter will rise up out of Israel.\n        It will smash the foreheads of Moab\n        and the skulls of all the people of Sheth.",
      "18": "Edom will lose its territory to others.\n        Seir, Israel’s enemy, also will become a possession,\n        but Israel will display its power.",
      "19": "One who comes from Jacob will rule,\n        and he will destroy the survivors of the city.",
      "20": "He looked at Amalek, took up his oracle, and said:\nFirst among the nations was Amalek,\nbut his end will come to destruction.",
      "21": "He looked at the Kenites, took up his oracle, and said:\nPermanent is your dwelling place.\nSet in stone is your nest.",
      "22": "However, you Kenites will be destroyed,\n    when Ashshur takes you captive.",
      "23": "He took up his oracle and said:\nAh, who will live when God does this?",
      "24": "But ships will come from the coast of Kittim.\nThey will oppress Ashshur.\nThey will oppress Eber.\nBut they also will come to destruction.",
      "25": "Balaam got up and left to return to his place. Balak also went on his way."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "While Israel stayed in Shittim, the people started to commit sexual immorality with the women of Moab.",
      "2": "The women invited the people to the sacrifices for their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods.",
      "3": "The Israelites attached themselves to the Baal of Peor. The Lord’s anger burned against Israel.",
      "4": "The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the heads of the people and impale them before the Lord in broad daylight so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.”",
      "5": "Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you must kill any of his men who have attached themselves to the Baal of Peor.”",
      "6": "Just then, an Israelite man came and brought a Midianite woman to his brothers in the sight of Moses and the entire Israelite community, while the people were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "7": "When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he rose up from the middle of the assembly and took a spear in his hand.",
      "8": "He followed the Israelite man into the large tent and ran both of them through, the Israelite man and the woman, right through her belly. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped.",
      "9": "Those who died by the plague were 24,000.",
      "10": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "11": "“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the Israelites, because he was very zealous for me among you. So I did not put an end to the Israelites in my zeal.",
      "12": "Therefore say, ‘Look, I myself will give to him my covenant of peace.",
      "13": "He and his descendants after him will have the covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites.’”",
      "14": "The name of the Israelite man who was struck dead, who was struck dead with the Midianite woman, was Zimri son of Salu, a tribal chief of the father’s house for the Simeonites.",
      "15": "The name of the Midianite woman who was struck dead was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, who was a tribal head of a father’s house in Midian.",
      "16": "The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ⎣“Speak to the Israelites, saying,⎦",
      "17": "‘Treat the Midianites as enemies and strike them dead.",
      "18": "For they treated you as enemies when they deceived you with their treachery in the incident involving Peor and Cozbi, the daughter of the Midianite tribal chief, their sister, who was struck dead on the day of the plague in the Peor incident.’”"
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "After the plague, the Lord spoke to Moses and Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest. He said,",
      "2": "“Take a census of the entire Israelite community, twenty years old and up, according to their fathers’ houses, all who are of age to serve in Israel’s army.”",
      "3": "Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them on the Plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. They said,",
      "4": "“Take a census of the men twenty years old and up, just as the Lord commanded Moses.”\nThese are the Israelites who came out from the land of Egypt:",
      "5": "Reuben was Israel’s firstborn. The male descendants of Reuben were: from Hanok, the Hanokite clan; from Pallu, the Palluite clan;",
      "6": "from Hezron, the Hezronite clan; from Karmi, the Karmite clan.",
      "7": "These were the Reubenite clans. Those who were registered totaled 43,730.",
      "8": "The son of Pallu was Eliab.",
      "9": "The sons of Eliab were Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram.\n(These were the same Dathan and Abiram who were chosen leaders of the community who fought against Moses and Aaron along with the followers of Korah, when they fought against the Lord.",
      "10": "The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up together with Korah, when his followers died and when the fire consumed the two hundred fifty men. So they became a warning sign.",
      "11": "However, the sons of Korah did not die out.)",
      "12": "The male descendants of Simeon according to their clans were: from Nemuel, the Nemuelite clan; from Jamin, the Jaminite clan; from Jakin, the Jakinite clan;",
      "13": "from Zerah, the Zerahite clan; from Shaul, the Shaulite clan.",
      "14": "These Simeonite clans totaled 22,200.",
      "15": "The male descendants of Gad according to their clans were: from Zephon, the Zephonite clan; from Haggi, the Haggite clan; from Shuni, the Shunite clan;",
      "16": "from Ozni, the Oznite clan; from Eri, the Erite clan;",
      "17": "from Arodi, the Arodite clan; from Areli, the Arelite clan.",
      "18": "These clans of the descendants of Gad who were registered totaled 40,500.",
      "19": "Er and Onan were sons of Judah. Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.",
      "20": "The male descendants of Judah according to their clans were: from Shelah, the Shelanite clan; from Perez, the Perezite clan; from Zerah, the Zerahite clan.",
      "21": "The male descendants of Perez were: from Hezron, the Hezronite clan; from Hamul, the Hamulite clan.",
      "22": "These clans of Judah who were registered totaled 76,500.",
      "23": "The male descendants of Issachar according to their clans were: from Tola, the Tolaite clan; from Puah, the Puite clan;",
      "24": "from Jashub, the Jashubite clan; from Shimron, the Shimronite clan.",
      "25": "These clans of Issachar who were registered totaled 64,300.",
      "26": "The male descendants of Zebulun according to their clans were: from Sered, the Seredite clan; from Elon, the Elonite clan; from Jahle’el, the Jahle’elite clan.",
      "27": "These Zebulunite clans who were registered totaled 60,500.",
      "28": "The sons of Joseph who established clans were Manasseh and Ephraim.",
      "29": "The male descendants of Manasseh were: from Makir, the Makirite clan (Makir was the father of Gilead); from Gilead, the Gileadite clan.",
      "30": "These were the male descendants of Gilead: from Iezer, the Iezerite clan; from Helek, the Helekite clan;",
      "31": "from Asriel, the Asrielite clan; from Shechem, the Shechemite clan;",
      "32": "from Shemida, the Shemidaite clan; and from Hepher, the Hepherite clan.",
      "33": "Zelophehad the son of Hepher had no sons, only daughters. The names of Zelophehad’s daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah, and Tirzah.",
      "34": "These were the clans of Manasseh. Those who were registered totaled 52,700.",
      "35": "These were the male descendants of Ephraim according to their clans: from Shuthelah, the Shuthelahite clan; from Beker, the Bekerite clan; from Tahan, the Tahanite clan.",
      "36": "These were the male descendants of Shuthelah: from Eran, the Eranite clan.",
      "37": "These clans from the descendants of Ephraim who were registered totaled 32,500.\nThese were the male descendants of Joseph according to their clans.",
      "38": "The male descendants of Benjamin according to their clans were: from Bela, the Belaite clan; from Ashbel, the Ashbelite clan; from Ahiram, the Ahiramite clan;",
      "39": "from Shupham, the Shuphamite clan; from Hupham, the Huphamite clan.",
      "40": "The sons of Bela were Ard and Na’aman: from Ard, the Ardite clan; from Na’aman, the Na’amanite clan.",
      "41": "These were the male descendants of Benjamin according to their clans. Those who were registered totaled 45,600.",
      "42": "These were the male descendants of Dan according to their clans: from Shuham, the Shuhamite clan. These were the clans of Dan according to their clans.",
      "43": "All the Shuhamite clans who were registered totaled 64,400.",
      "44": "The male descendants of Asher according to their clans were: from Imnah, the Imnite clan; from Ishvi, the Ishvite clan; from Beriah, the Beriite clan.",
      "45": "From the male descendants of Beriah: from Heber, the Heberite clan; from Malkiel, the Malkielite clan.",
      "46": "The name of Asher’s daughter was Serah.",
      "47": "These clans for the descendants of Asher who were registered totaled 53,400.",
      "48": "The male descendants of Naphtali according to their clans were: from Jahze’el, the Jahze’elite clan; from Guni, the Gunite clan;",
      "49": "from Jezer, the Jezerite clan; from Shillem, the Shillemite clan.",
      "50": "These were the clans of Naphtali according to their clans. Those who were registered totaled 45,400.",
      "51": "Those who were registered from the Israelites totaled 601,730.",
      "52": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "53": "“The land is to be divided among these tribes, with the size of the possession for each tribe based on the number of names.",
      "54": "For a larger tribe, increase its possession. For a smaller tribe, decrease its possession. Each tribe is to be given its inheritance based on the total of those registered.",
      "55": "The land must be divided by lot. They will receive their possession according to the names of their father’s tribes.",
      "56": "Their possession is to be divided between the larger and the smaller tribes as the lots determine.”",
      "57": "Those who were registered from the Levites according to their clans were: from Gershon, the Gershonite clan; from Kohath, the Kohathite clan; from Merari, the Merarite clan.",
      "58": "These were the Levite clans: the Libnite clan, the Hebronite clan, the Mahlite clan, the Mushite clan, the Korahite clan.\n(Kohath was the forefather of Amram.",
      "59": "The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, a descendant of Levi, who was born to the Levites in Egypt. For Amram she bore Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam.",
      "60": "Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar were born to Aaron.",
      "61": "Nadab and Abihu died when they presented unauthorized fire before the Lord.)",
      "62": "Those who were registered totaled 23,000, every male a month old and up. But they were not registered with the other Israelites, because they were not given a possession among the Israelites.",
      "63": "These were the men who were registered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, when they registered the Israelites on the Plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.",
      "64": "But among them there was not even one man left from those who had been registered by Moses and Aaron the priest, when they registered the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sinai.",
      "65": "For the Lord had said about them, “They will surely die in the wilderness.” There was not even one man left from them except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "Then the daughters of Zelophehad came forward. (Zelophehad was the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, from the clans of Manasseh the son of Joseph.) These were the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah, and Tirzah.",
      "2": "They stood at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before Moses and Eleazar the priest, before the tribal chiefs and the entire community. They said,",
      "3": "“Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered together against the Lord along with the followers of Korah, but he died in his own sin. He had no sons.",
      "4": "Why should the name of our father be taken away from a place among his clan, because he had no son? Give us property among our father’s brothers.”",
      "5": "Moses brought their case before the Lord.",
      "6": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "7": "“What the daughters of Zelophehad say is correct. You must give them property as an inheritance among their father’s brothers. You are to allow their father’s inheritance to be passed down to them.",
      "8": "You are to tell the Israelites, ‘If a man dies and has no son, then you are to have his inheritance pass down to his daughter.",
      "9": "If he has no daughter, then you will give his inheritance to his brothers.",
      "10": "If he has no brothers, then you will give his inheritance to his father’s brothers.",
      "11": "If his father has no brothers, then you will give his inheritance to his closest relative from his clan, and he will take possession of it. This will be a legal statute for the Israelites, just as the Lord commanded Moses.’”",
      "12": "The Lord said to Moses, “Go up onto this mountain in the Abarim range and see the land which I have given to the Israelites.",
      "13": "After you have seen it, you yourself will also be gathered to your people just as Aaron your brother was gathered.",
      "14": "For when the community quarreled in the Wilderness of Zin, you both rebelled against my command to honor me as holy in their sight at the waters.” (This refers to the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin.)",
      "15": "Moses spoke to the Lord,",
      "16": "“May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the community,",
      "17": "who will go out before them and come in before them, who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the community of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”",
      "18": "The Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and place your hand on him.",
      "19": "Have him stand in front of Eleazar the priest and the entire community. You will commission him in their sight.",
      "20": "You will give some of your authority to him so that the entire Israelite community will listen to him.",
      "21": "He will stand before Eleazar the priest, who will inquire for him before the Lord with the decision of the Urim. He and all the Israelites with him, the entire community, will go out at his command and come in at his command.”",
      "22": "Moses did just as the Lord commanded him. He took Joshua and had him stand in front of Eleazar the priest and the entire community.",
      "23": "He placed his hands on him and commissioned him, just as the Lord spoke through Moses."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses",
      "2": "to deliver this command to the Israelites:\nMake sure that you present my offering at its appointed time. Present it as my food, an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to me.",
      "3": "Say to them, “This is the offering made by fire that you shall present to the Lord each day: two one-year-old male lambs without defect as a regular burnt offering.",
      "4": "You are to offer one lamb in the morning, and you are to offer the other lamb at twilight,",
      "5": "along with two quarts of fine flour as a grain offering, mixed with one quart of oil from beaten olives.”",
      "6": "It is the regular burnt offering put into effect at Mount Sinai for a pleasing aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "7": "The drink offering with it is to be one quart for one lamb. You are to pour out the drink offering of beer to the Lord at the sanctuary.",
      "8": "You are to prepare the other lamb at twilight. You are to prepare it along with the same kind of grain offering and drink offering as in the morning, an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.",
      "9": "On the Sabbath day, you shall present two one-year-old male lambs without defect, four quarts of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering, and its drink offering.",
      "10": "This is the whole burnt offering for every Sabbath, in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.",
      "11": "At the beginning of each of your months, you shall present as a whole burnt offering to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven one-year-old male lambs without defect,",
      "12": "along with six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering for each bull; four quarts of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering for the one ram;",
      "13": "and two quarts of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering for every lamb—as a burnt offering with a pleasing aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "14": "Their drink offerings will be two quarts of wine for a bull, a quart and a half for a ram, and one quart for a lamb. This is the monthly burnt offering for each month of the year.",
      "15": "One male goat is to be presented as a sin offering to the Lord in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.",
      "16": "In the first month, the fourteenth day of the month is the Passover for the Lord.",
      "17": "On the fifteenth day of this month there is to be a festival. Unleavened bread is to be eaten for seven days.",
      "18": "The first day is to be a holy convocation. You are not to do any regular work.",
      "19": "You are to present an offering made by fire, a burnt offering to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "20": "along with their grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil: six quarts for a bull and four quarts for the ram.",
      "21": "You will prepare two quarts for each of the seven lambs,",
      "22": "and one male goat as a sin offering to make atonement for yourselves.",
      "23": "You will prepare these things in addition to the morning burnt offering that is part of the regular burnt offering.",
      "24": "In this way for seven days you will prepare food daily as an offering made by fire with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. It is to be prepared in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.",
      "25": "On the seventh day there is to be a holy convocation. You shall not do any of your regular work.",
      "26": "On the day of the firstfruits when you present an offering of new grain to the Lord during the Festival of Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any of your regular work.",
      "27": "You are to present as a whole burnt offering for a pleasing aroma to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven one-year-old male lambs",
      "28": "along with their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: six quarts for each bull, four quarts for the one ram,",
      "29": "and two quarts for each of the seven lambs;",
      "30": "also present one male goat to make atonement for yourselves.",
      "31": "You are to offer these and their drink offerings in addition to the regular burnt offering and its grain offering. Your animals are to be without defect."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any of your regular work. For you it is to be a day of loud blasts on the ram’s horn.",
      "2": "You are to prepare a whole burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord: one young bull, one ram, and seven one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "3": "along with their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: six quarts for the bull, four quarts for the ram,",
      "4": "and two quarts for each of the seven lambs;",
      "5": "also prepare one male goat for a sin offering to make atonement for yourselves.",
      "6": "This is in addition to the monthly burnt offering and its grain offering, the regular burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings, just as specified, for a pleasing aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord.",
      "7": "On the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall humble yourselves. You are not to do any kind of work.",
      "8": "You are to present a whole burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma: one young bull, one ram, seven one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "9": "along with their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: six quarts for the bull, four quarts for the one ram,",
      "10": "two quarts for each of the seven lambs;",
      "11": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the sin offering of atonement, the regular burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings.",
      "12": "On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You are not to do any of your regular work. You shall celebrate a pilgrimage festival to the Lord for seven days.",
      "13": "You are to present a whole burnt offering, an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord: thirteen young bulls, two rams, fourteen one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "14": "along with their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: six quarts for each of the thirteen bulls, four quarts for each of the two rams,",
      "15": "and two quarts for each of the fourteen lambs;",
      "16": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain and drink offerings.",
      "17": "On the second day you are to present twelve young bulls, two rams, fourteen one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "18": "along with their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, the rams, and the lambs, according to the amount specified for each of them;",
      "19": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain and drink offerings.",
      "20": "On the third day you are to present eleven bulls, two rams, fourteen one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "21": "along with their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, the rams, and the lambs, according to the amount specified for each of them;",
      "22": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain and drink offerings.",
      "23": "On the fourth day you are to present ten bulls, two rams, fourteen one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "24": "along with their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, the rams, and the lambs, according to the amount specified for each of them;",
      "25": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain and drink offerings.",
      "26": "On the fifth day you are to present nine bulls, two rams, fourteen one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "27": "along with their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, the rams, and the lambs, according to the amount specified for each of them;",
      "28": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain and drink offerings.",
      "29": "On the sixth day you are to present eight bulls, two rams, fourteen one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "30": "along with their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, the rams, and the lambs, according to the amount specified for each of them;",
      "31": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain and drink offerings.",
      "32": "On the seventh day you are to present seven bulls, two rams, fourteen one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "33": "along with their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, the rams, and the lambs, according to the amount specified for each of them;",
      "34": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain and drink offerings.",
      "35": "On the eighth day you shall hold a closing ceremony. You shall not do any of your regular work.",
      "36": "You are to present a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord: one bull, one ram, seven one-year-old male lambs—all without defect—",
      "37": "along with their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bull, the ram, and the lambs, according to the amount specified for each of them;",
      "38": "also present one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain and drink offerings.",
      "39": "In addition to your offerings to fulfill a vow and freewill offerings, you shall prepare these for the Lord at your appointed times as your burnt offerings, your grain offerings, your drink offerings, and your fellowship offerings.",
      "40": "Moses told the Israelites everything that the Lord commanded Moses."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "Moses also gave the heads of the Israelite tribes these commands from the Lord:",
      "2": "When a man makes a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to put himself under an obligation, he must not break his word. He must do everything that has come out of his mouth.",
      "3": "When a woman, while living in her father’s house during her youth, makes a vow to the Lord and puts herself under an obligation,",
      "4": "and her father hears about her vow and her obligation which she has undertaken, but her father says nothing to her, then all her vows will stand, and every obligation which she has undertaken will stand.",
      "5": "But if her father forbids her on the same day that he hears about them, none of her vows nor her obligations which she has undertaken will stand. The Lord will forgive her, because her father has forbidden her.",
      "6": "If she marries a husband while she is obligated by a vow or something she spoke rashly,",
      "7": "and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her on the same day that he hears about it, then her vows will stand, and her obligations which she has undertaken will be binding.",
      "8": "But if her husband forbids her on the same day that he hears about it, he will nullify her vow which obligates her and her responsibility for the things she spoke rashly. The Lord will forgive her.",
      "9": "But the vow of a widow or a divorced woman, every obligation which she put herself under, will be binding on her.",
      "10": "If, while she is still in her husband’s house, she took a vow or put herself under an obligation with an oath,",
      "11": "and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her and does not forbid her, then all her vows will stand, and every obligation under which she has put herself will stand.",
      "12": "But if her husband does indeed nullify them on the same day that he hears about them, then whatever came from her lips concerning her vows or her obligation will not stand. Her husband has nullified them. The Lord will forgive her.",
      "13": "Her husband may allow or nullify every vow or every oath in which she undertakes an obligation to deny herself.",
      "14": "But if her husband indeed says nothing to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all her obligations, which are binding on her. He has allowed them, because he said nothing to her on the day that he hears about them.",
      "15": "But if he nullifies them later than the day he hears about them, then he will bear her responsibility.",
      "16": "These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses about vows pertaining to a husband and his wife, or a father and his daughter during her youth while she still lives at her father’s house."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "2": "“Take vengeance against the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”",
      "3": "Moses spoke to the people, “Equip some of your men for combat. They will go against Midian to carry out the Lord’s vengeance on Midian.",
      "4": "Send one thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel into combat.”",
      "5": "So out of all the thousands of Israel, a military unit of a thousand was selected from each tribe—a total of twelve thousand men armed for battle.",
      "6": "Moses sent them into combat, one thousand from each tribe. Moses sent them and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, into combat. Things from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling were in his hand.",
      "7": "They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and they killed every male.",
      "8": "Along with the others who were slain, they killed the kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.",
      "9": "The Israelites took the women of Midian and their children captive. They plundered all their animals, property, and possessions.",
      "10": "They burned all their cities where they settled and all their camps.",
      "11": "They took all the plunder and all the spoils of war, both people and animals.",
      "12": "They brought the captives, the spoils of war, and the plunder to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the Israelite community at the camp on the Plains of Moab, which was by the Jordan across from Jericho.",
      "13": "Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the tribal chiefs of the community went out to meet them outside of the camp.",
      "14": "Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds—who were coming back from the military campaign.",
      "15": "Moses said to them, “Have you allowed every woman to live?",
      "16": "Look, following Balaam’s advice, these women were the ones who incited the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, and so the plague came upon the community of the Lord.",
      "17": "Now, kill every male among the children, and kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man.",
      "18": "But you may keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not had sexual relations with a man.",
      "19": "“All of you who have killed a person or touched a slain body shall stay outside of the camp for seven days. Purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day.",
      "20": "Also purify every garment, every leather item, everything made of goat hair, and every item of wood.”",
      "21": "Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, “These are the regulations which the Lord has commanded Moses:",
      "22": "The gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead",
      "23": "(everything that can withstand fire) you must be sure to pass through the fire, and it will be clean. It also is to be purified with the water for removing impurity. Everything that cannot withstand fire, you are to pass through the water.",
      "24": "You shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and you will be clean. After that, you may come into the camp.”",
      "25": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "26": "“You, Eleazar the priest, and the leading fathers of the community are to count the spoils of war—the captives, both people and animals—",
      "27": "and divide the spoils of war into two equal parts: one part for the troops who went out for combat and one for all the rest of the community.",
      "28": "Raise a tribute to the Lord to be given by the fighting men who went out for battle. Take one out of every five hundred from the people, the cattle, the donkeys, and the flocks.",
      "29": "Take it from the fighting men’s half, and give it to Eleazar the priest as an elevated offering to the Lord.",
      "30": "Also from the Israelites’ half, you will take one out of every fifty from the people, the cattle, the donkeys, the flocks, and all the animals, and give them to the Levites, who attend to the duties at the Lord’s Dwelling.”",
      "31": "Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "32": "Now the spoils of war remaining from the plunder that the army took was 675,000 animals from the flocks,",
      "33": "72,000 cattle,",
      "34": "61,000 donkeys,",
      "35": "and 32,000 people in all, that is, the women who had not had sexual relations with a man.",
      "36": "The half share for those who went out into combat numbered 337,500 animals from the flocks,",
      "37": "and the tribute for the Lord from the flocks was 675.",
      "38": "The cattle numbered 36,000; the tribute for the Lord was 72.",
      "39": "The donkeys numbered 30,500; the tribute for the Lord was 61.",
      "40": "The people numbered 16,000; the tribute for the Lord was 32 people.",
      "41": "Moses gave the tribute, the elevated offering to the Lord, to Eleazar the priest as the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "42": "From the Israelites’ half, which Moses set aside from the share of the men who fought,",
      "43": "the community’s half share was 337,500 animals from the flocks,",
      "44": "36,000 cattle,",
      "45": "30,500 donkeys,",
      "46": "and 16,000 people.",
      "47": "From the Israelites’ half share Moses took one out of every fifty from the people and the animals and gave them to the Levites, who attended to the duties at the Lord’s Dwelling, as the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "48": "The officers who were over the units of a thousand in the army—the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds—approached Moses.",
      "49": "They said to Moses, “Your servants have taken a head count of the fighting men who were under our command, and not one of them is missing.",
      "50": "So we have brought as an offering to the Lord the gold items which every man acquired—armlets, bracelets, signet rings, earrings, and necklaces—to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord.”",
      "51": "Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gold from them, all the crafted items.",
      "52": "All the gold from the elevated offering that the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds lifted up to the Lord amounted to 16,750 shekels.",
      "53": "Each of the soldiers had taken plunder for himself.",
      "54": "Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gold from the commanders of thousands and hundreds and brought it into the Tent of Meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "The descendants of Reuben and Gad had very large flocks and herds of livestock. They saw that the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead was ideal for livestock.",
      "2": "The descendants of Gad and Reuben came and spoke to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the tribal chiefs of the community. They said,",
      "3": "“Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon—",
      "4": "the land which the Lord struck down before the community of Israel—is an ideal land for livestock. We, your servants, have livestock.”",
      "5": "They continued, “If we have found favor in your eyes, let this land be given to your servants as a possession. Do not require us to cross the Jordan.”",
      "6": "Moses said to the descendants of Gad and Reuben, “Do you expect your brothers to go into battle while you live here?",
      "7": "Why are you disheartening the Israelites from crossing over into the land which the Lord has given to them?",
      "8": "Your fathers did that same thing when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.",
      "9": "They had gone up as far as the Valley of Eshcol and had seen the land. Then they disheartened the Israelites so that they would not go into the land which the Lord had given them.",
      "10": "The Lord’s anger burned on that day, and he swore an oath,",
      "11": "‘Surely none of the men twenty years old and up who came up from Egypt will see the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not followed me completely,",
      "12": "except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, because they have followed the Lord completely.’",
      "13": "The Lord’s anger burned against Israel so he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until the entire generation that had done evil in the Lord’s sight was gone.”",
      "14": "He continued, “See, here you are, a band of sinners standing in your fathers’ place, adding still more to the Lord’s fierce anger against Israel.",
      "15": "If you turn away from following him, he will once again leave these people in the wilderness, and you will have destroyed all these people.”",
      "16": "They approached him and said, “We will build sheep pens here for our livestock and cities for our children,",
      "17": "but we will be quick to arm ourselves to go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their own places. Our children will live in our fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land,",
      "18": "but we will not return to our houses until the Israelites have each taken possession of their inheritance.",
      "19": "We certainly will not have any claim to an inheritance with them on the other side of the Jordan, because our inheritance has come to us here on the east side of the Jordan, toward the sunrise.”",
      "20": "Moses said to them, “If you will do what you have said, if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for battle,",
      "21": "and if every one of you who is armed will cross over the Jordan before the Lord until he has driven out his enemies before him,",
      "22": "and until the land has been subdued before the Lord, then after that you may return home. You will be guiltless toward the Lord and Israel. This land will be a possession for you in the presence of the Lord.",
      "23": "“But if you will not do this, look, you will have sinned against the Lord. Know that your sin will find you out.",
      "24": "Build cities for your children, and pens for your flocks, but keep the promises that have come out of your mouth.”",
      "25": "The descendants of Gad and Reuben spoke to Moses: “We, your servants, will do as my lord commands.",
      "26": "Our children, our wives, our livestock, and all our animals will stay here by the cities of Gilead,",
      "27": "but your servants, every man who is armed for war, will cross over before the Lord for battle, as my lord says.”",
      "28": "So Moses gave a command concerning them to Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leading fathers of the Israelite tribes.",
      "29": "Moses said to them, “If the descendants of Gad and Reuben, everyone who is armed for battle, will cross over the Jordan with you before the Lord, and the land is subdued before you, then you will give them the land of Gilead as a possession.",
      "30": "But if they are not willing to cross over with you armed, they will have an inheritance among you in the land of Canaan.”",
      "31": "The descendants of Gad and Reuben answered, “We will do what the Lord has said to us, your servants.",
      "32": "We will cross over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, but the property that comes to us as our inheritance will be east of the Jordan.”",
      "33": "Moses gave the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan to the descendants of Gad, to the descendants of Reuben, and to half of the tribe descended from Manasseh, the son of Joseph—the land including its cities with the territories surrounding them.",
      "34": "The descendants of Gad rebuilt Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer,",
      "35": "Atroth Shophan, Jazer, Jogbehah,",
      "36": "Beth Nimrah, and Beth Haran as fortified cities and built sheep pens there.",
      "37": "The descendants of Reuben built up Heshbon, Elealeh, Kiriathaim,",
      "38": "Nebo and Baal Meon (their names were changed), and Sibmah. They gave names to the cities they rebuilt.",
      "39": "The descendants of Makir, the son of Manasseh, went to Gilead, captured it, and drove out the Amorites who were there.",
      "40": "Moses gave Gilead to the clan of Makir, the descendants of Manasseh, and they lived there.",
      "41": "Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, went and captured their villages and called them Havvoth Jair.",
      "42": "Nobah went and captured Kenath and its settlements. He renamed it Nobah after himself."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "These were the stages in the Israelites’ journey when they went out from the land of Egypt, lined up according to their military units, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron.",
      "2": "At the command of the Lord, Moses recorded their departure locations according to the stages in their journey. These were the stages in their journey listed by their departure locations:",
      "3": "They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover. The Israelites went out defiantly in the sight of all the Egyptians,",
      "4": "while the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had struck down among them. The Lord also brought judgment on their gods.",
      "5": "The Israelites set out from Rameses and camped at Sukkoth.",
      "6": "They set out from Sukkoth and camped at Etham, which is on the edge of the wilderness.",
      "7": "They set out from Etham and turned back to Pi Hahiroth, which faces Baal Zephon. They camped in front of Migdol.",
      "8": "They set out from Pi Hahiroth and crossed through the middle of the sea into the wilderness. They traveled for three days in the Wilderness of Etham and camped at Marah.",
      "9": "They set out from Marah and came to Elim. At Elim there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees. They camped there.",
      "10": "They set out from Elim and camped by the Red Sea.",
      "11": "They set out from the Red Sea and camped in the Wilderness of Sin.",
      "12": "They set out from the Wilderness of Sin and camped at Dophkah.",
      "13": "They set out from Dophkah and camped at Alush.",
      "14": "They set out from Alush and camped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.",
      "15": "They set out from Rephidim and camped in the Wilderness of Sinai.",
      "16": "They set out from the Wilderness of Sinai and camped at Kibroth Hatta’avah.",
      "17": "They set out from Kibroth Hatta’avah and camped at Hazeroth.",
      "18": "They set out from Hazeroth and camped at Rithmah.",
      "19": "They set out from Rithmah and camped at Rimmon Perez.",
      "20": "They set out from Rimmon Perez and camped at Libnah.",
      "21": "They set out from Libnah and camped at Rissah.",
      "22": "They set out from Rissah and camped at Kehelathah.",
      "23": "They set out from Kehelathah and camped at Mount Shepher.",
      "24": "They set out from Mount Shepher and camped at Haradah.",
      "25": "They set out from Haradah and camped at Makheloth.",
      "26": "They set out from Makheloth and camped at Tahath.",
      "27": "They set out from Tahath and camped at Terah.",
      "28": "They set out from Terah and camped at Mithkah.",
      "29": "They set out from Mithkah and camped at Hashmonah.",
      "30": "They set out from Hashmonah and camped at Moseroth.",
      "31": "They set out from Moseroth and camped at Bene Ja’akan.",
      "32": "They set out from Bene Ja’akan and camped at Hor Haggidgad.",
      "33": "They set out from Hor Haggidgad and camped at Jotbathah.",
      "34": "They set out from Jotbathah and camped at Abronah.",
      "35": "They set out from Abronah and camped at Ezion Geber.",
      "36": "They set out from Ezion Geber and camped in the Wilderness of Zin, that is, at Kadesh.",
      "37": "They set out from Kadesh and camped at Mount Hor, on the edge of the land of Edom.",
      "38": "Aaron the priest went up onto Mount Hor at the Lord’s command and died there in the fortieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fifth month, on the first day of the month.",
      "39": "Aaron was one hundred twenty-three years old when he died at Mount Hor.",
      "40": "The Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev in the land of Canaan, heard that the Israelites were coming.",
      "41": "They set out from Mount Hor and camped at Zalmonah.",
      "42": "They set out from Zalmonah and camped at Punon.",
      "43": "They set out from Punon and camped at Oboth.",
      "44": "They set out from Oboth and camped at Iye Abarim, on the border of Moab.",
      "45": "They set out from Iyim and camped at Dibon Gad.",
      "46": "They set out from Dibon Gad and camped at Almon Diblathaim.",
      "47": "They set out from Almon Diblathaim and camped by the mountains of the Abarim range, near Nebo.",
      "48": "They set out from the mountains of Abarim and camped on the Plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.",
      "49": "They camped by the Jordan, from Beth Jeshimoth to Abel Shittim, on the Plains of Moab.",
      "50": "On the Plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, the Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "51": "“Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,",
      "52": "you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you, destroy all their carved images and all their cast idols, and destroy all their high places.",
      "53": "You shall take possession of the land and settle in it, because I have given the land to you to possess it.",
      "54": "You shall distribute the land as a possession by lot according to your clans. For a larger clan you shall increase its inheritance. For a smaller clan you shall decrease its inheritance. Wherever the lot falls for that clan, that will be its portion. You will distribute the land as a possession according to the tribes of your fathers.",
      "55": "But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, then those that you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will cause trouble for you in the land where you will settle.",
      "56": "Then I will do to you what I planned to do to them.’”"
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "The Lord told Moses",
      "2": "to deliver these commands to the Israelites:\nWhen you come into the land of Canaan (this is the land that will fall to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its boundaries),",
      "3": "your southern border will extend from the Wilderness of Zin along the border of Edom. Your southern border on the east will start from the south end of the Dead Sea.",
      "4": "Your border will turn south of the Ascent of Akrabbim, pass through to Zin, and it will end south of Kadesh Barnea. Then it will go out to Hazar Adda and pass through to Azmon.",
      "5": "The border will turn from Azmon to the Stream of Egypt, and it will end at the Mediterranean Sea.",
      "6": "For the western border, you will have the Mediterranean Sea as your border. This will be your western border.",
      "7": "This will be your northern border: From the Mediterranean Sea you will draw a line for yourselves to Mount Hor.",
      "8": "From Mount Hor you will draw a line to Lebo Hamath. The end of the border will be at Zedad.",
      "9": "Then the border will go to Ziphron, and it will end at Hazar Enan. This will be your northern border.",
      "10": "You will draw a line to serve as your eastern border from Hazar Enan to Shepham.",
      "11": "The border will go down from Shepham to Riblah, on the east side of Ain. The border will go down and meet the eastern slope of the Sea of Galilee.",
      "12": "The border will go down to the Jordan and end at the Dead Sea. This will be your land according to its boundaries on all sides.",
      "13": "Moses commanded the Israelites, “This is the land which you will assign as a possession by lot, which the Lord has commanded you to give to the nine and a half tribes.",
      "14": "The tribe of Reuben’s descendants according to their fathers’ houses and the tribe of Gad’s descendants according to their fathers’ houses have already received their possession. Also half of the tribe of Manasseh has received its possession.",
      "15": "The two and a half tribes have received their possession east of the Jordan across from Jericho, toward the sunrise.”",
      "16": "The Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "17": "These are the names of the men who will assign the land as a possession for you:\nEleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun.",
      "18": "You will take one tribal chief from every tribe to assign the land as a possession.",
      "19": "These are the names of the men:\nCaleb son of Jephunneh from the tribe of Judah;",
      "20": "Shemuel son of Ammihud from the tribe of Simeon’s descendants;",
      "21": "Elidad son of Kislon from the tribe of Benjamin;",
      "22": "Bukki son of Jogli, a tribal chief from the tribe of Dan’s descendants;",
      "23": "from the sons of Joseph: Hanniel son of Ephod, a tribal chief from the tribe of Manasseh’s descendants;",
      "24": "Kemuel son of Shiphtan, a tribal chief from the tribe of Ephraim’s descendants;",
      "25": "Elizaphan son of Parnak, a tribal chief from the tribe of Zebulun’s descendants;",
      "26": "Paltiel son of Azzan, a tribal chief from the tribe of Issachar’s descendants;",
      "27": "Ahihud son of Shelomi, a tribal chief from the tribe of Asher’s descendants;",
      "28": "Pedahel son of Ammihud, a tribal chief from the tribe of Naphtali’s descendants.",
      "29": "These were the men whom the Lord commanded to assign the areas of possession for the Israelites in the land of Canaan."
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "The Lord spoke to Moses on the Plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho:",
      "2": "Command the people of Israel to give the Levites cities to live in from the territory assigned to them as their possession. They will also give the Levites the pasturelands around those cities.",
      "3": "The Levites will then have cities to live in. Their pasturelands will be for their cattle, their flocks and herds, and all their other animals.",
      "4": "The pasturelands of the cities, which you will give to the Levites, will extend out from the wall of the city 500 yards in all directions.",
      "5": "As the eastern boundary you will measure 1000 yards in addition to the size of the city, 1000 yards as the southern boundary, 1000 yards as the western boundary, and 1000 yards as the northern boundary. The city is in the middle. This area will serve as the pasturelands of their cities.",
      "6": "The cities which you will give to the Levites will include six cities of refuge, which you will provide so that a person who has killed someone may flee there. In addition to these six cities, you will give them forty-two other cities.",
      "7": "All the cities which you are to give to the Levites will total forty-eight cities along with their pasturelands.",
      "8": "For the cities which you will transfer to the Levites from the property of the Israelites, you will take more cities from a larger tribe and fewer from a smaller tribe. Every tribe will give some of its cities to the Levites in proportion to the amount of assigned territory it has received.",
      "9": "The Lord told Moses",
      "10": "to speak to the Israelites and tell them this:\nWhen you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,",
      "11": "you are to designate some cities to be cities of refuge for yourselves, so that a person who has killed someone by taking someone’s life unintentionally may flee there.",
      "12": "The cities will serve as a refuge for you from the avenger, so that a person who has killed someone will not die until he stands trial before the community.",
      "13": "The cities which you will set aside will serve as the six cities of refuge for you.",
      "14": "You are to set aside three cities east of the Jordan and three cities in the land of Canaan. They will serve as cities of refuge.",
      "15": "These six cities will serve as a refuge for Israelites, for resident aliens, and for temporary residents living among them so that everyone who has taken someone’s life unintentionally may flee there.",
      "16": "But if a person strikes someone with an iron object so that he dies, that person is a murderer. The murderer must certainly be put to death.",
      "17": "If a person strikes someone with a stone in his hand that could kill someone, and the victim dies, that person is a murderer. The murderer must certainly be put to death.",
      "18": "Or if a person strikes someone with a wooden object in his hand that could kill someone, and the victim dies, that person is a murderer. The murderer must certainly be put to death.",
      "19": "The avenger of blood himself will put the murderer to death. When he apprehends him, he is to put him to death.",
      "20": "If a person pushes someone out of hatred or throws something at him with malicious intent so that he dies,",
      "21": "or in hostility strikes him with his hand so that he dies, that person who struck him must certainly be put to death. He is a murderer. The avenger of blood is to put the murderer to death when he apprehends him.",
      "22": "But if a person pushes someone suddenly without hostility or throws any object at him without malicious intent,",
      "23": "or if without looking he drops a stone on someone big enough to kill him and that person dies, since that person was not his enemy, and he did not seek to harm him,",
      "24": "the community will judge between the killer and the avenger of blood according to these ordinances.",
      "25": "The community will deliver the person who has killed someone from the hand of the avenger of blood. Then the community will take him back to his city of refuge, to which he had fled. He must live there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.",
      "26": "But if the person who has killed someone ever goes outside of the border of the city of refuge to which he has fled,",
      "27": "and the avenger of blood finds him outside of the border of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the person who has killed someone, the avenger will not be guilty of bloodshed,",
      "28": "because the person who has killed someone should have stayed in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the death of the high priest he may return to the land that is his possession.",
      "29": "These things will be a legal statute for you throughout your generations wherever you live.",
      "30": "Everyone who has taken someone’s life is to be put to death as a murderer on the testimony of witnesses, but no one is to die on the testimony of only one witness.",
      "31": "You are not to accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, because he must certainly be put to death.",
      "32": "You are not to accept a ransom for the one who has fled to a city of refuge in order to allow him to return to live in his land before the death of the priest.",
      "33": "So you are not to pollute the land where you are, because bloodshed pollutes the land. No atonement can be made for the land where blood has been shed except by the blood of the one who shed it.",
      "34": "You are not to defile the land in which you are living, where I am dwelling in its midst, for I, the Lord, am dwelling in the midst of the people of Israel."
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "The leading fathers of the clan of the descendants of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, from the clans of the sons of Joseph, approached Moses and spoke to Moses and the tribal chiefs, the heads of the fathers’ houses of the people of Israel.",
      "2": "They said, “The Lord commanded my lord to assign the land for the Israelites’ inheritance by lot. My lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters.",
      "3": "Now, if they marry any of the men from the other Israelite tribes, then their inheritance would be taken away from our ancestral inheritance and would be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they married. So part of our allotted inheritance would be taken away.",
      "4": "When the Jubilee occurs for the Israelites, that inheritance would be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they married. Therefore that inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe.”",
      "5": "Then at the Lord’s word, Moses commanded the Israelites, “What the tribe of Joseph’s descendants is saying is right.",
      "6": "This is what the Lord commands for Zelophehad’s daughters: They may be married to whomever they wish, but they are to be married within the clan of their father’s tribe.",
      "7": "In that way no inheritance for the Israelites will transfer from tribe to tribe, for each of the Israelites is to keep the inheritance of his ancestral tribe.",
      "8": "Every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any of the Israelite tribes is to be married to someone from the clan of her father’s tribe, so that each of the Israelites will retain possession of the inheritance of his fathers.",
      "9": "So no inheritance will transfer from one tribe to another tribe, for each of the Israelite tribes will keep its own inheritance.”",
      "10": "So Zelophehad’s daughters did as the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "11": "Zelophehad’s daughters—Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah—were married to cousins on their father’s side.",
      "12": "They were married to men from the clans of the descendants of Manasseh the son of Joseph. Their inheritance remained within the tribe of their father’s clan.",
      "13": "These are the commands and the ordinances which the Lord commanded through Moses for the Israelites on the Plains of Moab near the Jordan across from Jericho."
    }
  },
  "Deuteronomy": {
    "1": {
      "1": "These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel in the area beyond the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran on one side and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di Zahab on the other.",
      "2": "(It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.)",
      "3": "In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first of the month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel everything that the Lord had commanded him concerning them.",
      "4": "This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and he had defeated Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth, at Edrei.",
      "5": "In the area east of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses took on the task of explaining clearly this law as follows. This is what he said:",
      "6": "The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb. He said, “You have stayed at this mountain long enough.",
      "7": "Turn in the other direction, start traveling, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all the people living in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the Shephelah, and in the Negev, and in the coastland by the sea (the land of the Canaanites) and the Lebanon range, up to the Great River (the River Euphrates).",
      "8": "Look now, I have given you the land that is ahead of you. Go and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promising to give it to them and to their descendants after them.”",
      "9": "So I said to you at that time, “I am not able to carry you by myself.",
      "10": "The Lord your God has increased your number, and here you are today, as numerous as the stars in the heavens.",
      "11": "May the Lord, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousand times as many as you are now, and may he bless you, just as he promised you.",
      "12": "But how can I manage by myself to carry the burden that you have become and the load that you are—especially your disputes?",
      "13": "Provide for yourselves, tribe by tribe, men who are wise and perceptive and with known ability, and I will appoint them as your leaders.”",
      "14": "Then you answered me, “What you propose to do is good.”",
      "15": "So I took the heads of your tribes, men who were wise and of known ability, and I appointed them as heads over you, commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds and commanders of fifties and commanders of tens, as well as officers for your tribes.",
      "16": "I gave these orders to your judges at that time: “Listen to disputes among your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother Israelite, as well as with the alien who resides with him.",
      "17": "Do not show partiality in judgment. Provide a hearing for the small and the great alike. Do not be motivated by fear of any person, because judgment belongs to God. Any case that is too difficult for you, bring it before me and I will hear it.”",
      "18": "So I gave you orders at that time about everything that you should do.",
      "19": "Then we journeyed from Horeb, and we walked through that whole vast and terrifying wilderness that you saw on the road to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God had commanded us to do. When we came to Kadesh Barnea,",
      "20": "I said to you, “You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.",
      "21": "Look now, the Lord your God has given you the land ahead of you. Go up, take possession of it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said to you. Do not be afraid and do not be overwhelmed.”",
      "22": "Then all of you approached me and said, “Let us send out some of our men so that they can scout the land for us and bring us a report about the route that we should take and the cities that we will reach.”",
      "23": "The plan seemed good to me, so I selected from you twelve men, one man from each tribe.",
      "24": "They set out and went up to the hill country and came to the area of the Valley of Eshcol and spied on it.",
      "25": "They took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it back to us and brought us a report that said, “The land that the Lord our God is giving us is good.”",
      "26": "Still you were not willing to go up, and you rebelled against the order of the Lord your God.",
      "27": "You complained in your tents and said, “Because the Lord hates us, he brought us out of the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites so they could destroy us.",
      "28": "Where are we going? Our brothers have made our hearts melt by saying, ‘People there are stronger and taller than we are! There are large cities with fortified walls up to the skies! Also, we have seen the descendants of Anak there!’”",
      "29": "So I said to you, “Do not be overwhelmed and do not be afraid of them.",
      "30": "The Lord your God, who is going ahead of you, will fight for you, exactly as he did for you in Egypt, right before your very eyes,",
      "31": "and just as he did in the wilderness, where you saw that the Lord your God carried you as a man carries his son, on the entire way that you walked until you came to this place.”",
      "32": "Yet even with this, you did not believe the Lord your God,",
      "33": "who went ahead of you on the journey to search out a place for you to camp. He showed you the way that you should travel, by fire during the night and by a cloud during the day.",
      "34": "When the Lord heard the tone of your words, he was angry, and he swore an oath:",
      "35": "“Not one of these people from this evil generation will see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers,",
      "36": "except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give the land on which he walked to him and his children, because he has fully followed the Lord.”",
      "37": "The Lord was angry with me too because of you. He said, “You also will not enter there.",
      "38": "Joshua son of Nun, who is standing before you, will enter there. Strengthen him, because he will lead Israel to possess it.",
      "39": "Your toddlers, who you said would become plunder of war, and your children, who today do not yet know good and evil, will enter there. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.",
      "40": "But you, turn around and travel into the wilderness toward the Red Sea.”",
      "41": "Then you answered me, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us to do.” So each man among you strapped on his weapons of war, and you thought it would be easy to go up to the hill country.",
      "42": "But the Lord instructed me: “Say to them, ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be among you to keep you from being struck down by your enemies.’”",
      "43": "So I spoke to you, but you did not listen. You rebelled against the command of the Lord and acted presumptuously by going up to the hill country anyway.",
      "44": "Then the Amorites living in the hill country went out to meet you. They pursued you like bees, and they struck you down in Seir all the way to Hormah.",
      "45": "Then you returned and you cried out before the Lord, but the Lord did not pay attention to the noise you made. He did not listen to you.",
      "46": "So you stayed in Kadesh many days—those well-known days that you stayed there."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Then we turned and traveled toward the wilderness on the road to the Red Sea, as the Lord had told me, and we traveled for many days to get around the area of Mount Seir.",
      "2": "Then the Lord said to me,",
      "3": "“You have been traveling around this mountainous region long enough. Turn north",
      "4": "and command the people, ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who are living in Seir, and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful.",
      "5": "Do not wage war against them because I am not going to give you any of their land, not even an area the size of a footprint, because I have given the Mount Seir region to Esau as a possession.",
      "6": "You may buy food from them with money so you can eat, and you may purchase water from them with money so you can drink.",
      "7": "For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your trek through this vast wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have not lacked anything.’”",
      "8": "So we passed by the territory of our brothers, the people of Esau, who were living in Seir. After leaving the Arabah Road, Elat, and Ezion Geber behind us, we turned and we traveled along the road of the Wilderness of Moab.",
      "9": "Then the Lord said to me, “Do not be hostile toward Moab and do not wage war against them in battle, because I am not going to give you any of their land as a possession, since I have given Ar to the people of Lot as a possession.”",
      "10": "(The Emites formerly lived in it, a strong, numerous people and tall like the Anakites.",
      "11": "They, like the Anakites, are also considered to be Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emites.",
      "12": "The Horites also lived in Seir formerly, but the people of Esau took possession of their land and destroyed them from their midst. They settled there in their place, just as Israel did in the land that the Lord gave to them as their possession.)",
      "13": "Then the Lord told us: “Now get ready and cross the Zered Canyon.” So we crossed over the Zered Canyon.",
      "14": "The time that we traveled from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over the Zered Canyon was thirty-eight years, until that whole generation of fighting men were eliminated from the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them.",
      "15": "Yes indeed, the hand of the Lord was against them to destroy them from the camp until they were eliminated.",
      "16": "Just as soon as all those fighting men were eliminated from the people by their death,",
      "17": "the Lord spoke to me:",
      "18": "“Today you are going to cross the border of Moab at Ar.",
      "19": "When you come near the people of Ammon, do not be hostile toward them and do not wage war against them, because I am not going to give any of the land of the people of Ammon to you as a possession, since I have given it to the people of Lot as a possession.”",
      "20": "(It also is considered to be the land of the Rephaim. The Rephaim lived in it formerly, but the Ammonites call them Zamzumites.",
      "21": "They are a strong and numerous people and as tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed the Rephaim from among the Ammonites. The Ammonites took possession of their land and lived there in their place.",
      "22": "The Lord had done the same things for the people of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites before them, and they took possession of their land and settled there in their place and remain there to this day.",
      "23": "Now the Caphtorites, who came out of Caphtor, destroyed the Avvites who were living in villages as far as Gaza and settled in their place.)",
      "24": "Then the Lord told us: “Get ready to travel and cross over the Arnon Canyon. See, I have given into your hands Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Start to take possession of it and wage war against him.",
      "25": "This very day I will begin to put dread and fear of you on the faces of the people everywhere under heaven, so that they will hear reports about you and they will tremble, and they will be shaking because of you.”",
      "26": "So I sent messengers from the Wilderness of Kedmoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with an offer of peace. I said,",
      "27": "“Let us pass through your land. We will proceed only on the road. We will not turn aside to the right or to the left.",
      "28": "You can sell us food in exchange for money so we can eat, and you can give us water in exchange for money so we can drink. Only let us pass through on foot,",
      "29": "as did the people of Esau living in Seir and the Moabites living in Ar, until we can cross over the Jordan into the land that the Lord our God is giving us.”",
      "30": "But Sihon king of the Amorites was not willing to let us pass through on the road, because the Lord your God gave him a stubborn attitude by making his heart obstinate, in order to give him over into your hands, as is now the case today.",
      "31": "Then the Lord said to me, “Look now, I have begun to give you Sihon and his land. Start taking action to take possession of his land.”",
      "32": "Then Sihon and all of his people went out to meet us in battle at Jahaz.",
      "33": "The Lord our God gave him to us, and we struck him down, as well as his sons and all his people.",
      "34": "So we captured each of his cities at that time. We devoted each city to destruction, with the men, women, and children. We did not leave a survivor.",
      "35": "We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves, as well as the spoils of war from the cities that we captured.",
      "36": "From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Canyon, from the city that is in the canyon, all the way up to Gilead, there was not a city that was out of reach for us. The Lord our God gave us everything.",
      "37": "But it was only the land of the people of Ammon that you did not approach: the land along both sides of the Jabbok Canyon, the cities of the hill country, and everything that the Lord our God had forbidden us to take."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Then we turned and went up on the road to Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan came out to confront us. He and all his people came for war at Edrei.",
      "2": "But the Lord said to me, “Do not be afraid of him, because I have given him into your hands, as well as all of his people and his land. Do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”",
      "3": "So the Lord our God gave into our hands also Og king of Bashan and all his people. We struck them down until they had no survivor remaining.",
      "4": "So we took all of his cities at that time. There was not a city that we did not take from them—sixty cities, the whole area of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.",
      "5": "All of these were fortified cities with high walls, gates, and bars, besides very many small unwalled towns.",
      "6": "We devoted them to destruction, just as we had done to Sihon king of Heshbon. There was a total destruction of every city, of men, women, and children,",
      "7": "but all of the cattle and the plunder of the cities we took as spoils for ourselves.",
      "8": "So at that time we took the land out of the hands of the two kings of the Amorites who were east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Canyon to Mount Hermon.",
      "9": "(The Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, but the Amorites call it Senir.)",
      "10": "We took all the cities of the tableland and all of Gilead and all of Bashan, up to Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.",
      "11": "(Only Og king of Bashan had remained from what was left of the Rephaim. His bed, a bed of iron, is it not in Rabbah of the people of Ammon? Its length is thirteen feet, and its width is six feet, according to the standard measure.)",
      "12": "So we took possession of this land at that time. I gave to Reuben and to Gad the land starting at Aroer, which is at the Arnon Canyon, and half of the hill country of Gilead, as well as its cities.",
      "13": "I gave to the half tribe of Manasseh the remainder of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, all the territory of Argob (all that part of Bashan is called the land of the Rephaim).",
      "14": "Jair, the descendant of Manasseh, took all the territory of Argob up to the border of the Geshurites and the Ma’acathites, and he named the villages of Bashan after himself, Havvoth Jair, as they are called to this day.",
      "15": "I gave Gilead to Makir.",
      "16": "To the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave the land of Gilead from the Arnon Canyon (that is, from the middle of the canyon), which served as one of their borders, up to the Jabbok Canyon, which served as their border with the people of Ammon.",
      "17": "Also the Arabah and the Jordan served as their border from the Sea of Kinneret to the Sea of the Arabah, that is, the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the east.",
      "18": "I gave you a command at that time: “The Lord your God gave you this land as a possession. All of your soldiers, armed for battle, are to cross over before your brother Israelites.",
      "19": "Only your wives and your children and your livestock (I know that you have a lot of livestock) may stay in your cities that I have given you,",
      "20": "until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also have taken possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them on the other side of the Jordan. After that you may return, each man to his possession that I have given you.”",
      "21": "I also gave a command to Joshua at that time: “With your own eyes you have been observing everything that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. The Lord will do the same to all the kingdoms to which you are crossing.",
      "22": "Do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God himself is fighting for you.”",
      "23": "I also begged the favor of the Lord at that time:",
      "24": "“My Lord God, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong hand. Indeed, what god in heaven or on earth is there that has done anything like your works and your mighty deeds?",
      "25": "Let me cross over, please, and let me see the good land on the other side of the Jordan—this good hill country and the mountains of Lebanon.”",
      "26": "But the Lord was furious with me because of you, and he did not listen to me but said to me, “Enough from you! Do not continue to speak to me anymore about this matter.",
      "27": "Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes toward the west and the north and the south and the east. Take a good look, because you will not be crossing over this Jordan.",
      "28": "But commission Joshua for duty and strengthen him and encourage him, because he will cross over in front of these people, and he will enable them to take possession of the land that you will only see.”",
      "29": "So we stayed in the valley opposite Beth Peor."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "So now, Israel, listen to the statutes and the ordinances that I am teaching you, and carry them out so that you may live and so that you may enter the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving to you and take possession of it.",
      "2": "Do not add to the word that I am commanding you, and do not subtract from it, so that you keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you.",
      "3": "With your own eyes you have been observing what the Lord did at Baal Peor. Indeed, the Lord your God destroyed from among you every man who followed the Baal of Peor.",
      "4": "But all of you, who are clinging to the Lord your God, are still alive today.",
      "5": "Note well now, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may carry them out also in the land that you are entering to take as a possession.",
      "6": "Keep them and put them into practice, because in this way your wisdom and your understanding will be recognized by all the people who hear about all these statutes; and they will say, “This great nation is certainly a wise and understanding people,”",
      "7": "because what other great nation is there that has a god as close to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call on him?",
      "8": "What other great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances as righteous as this entire law that I am presenting to you today?",
      "9": "But guard yourselves and guard your whole being diligently, so that you do not forget the things that your eyes have seen and so that those things do not disappear from your heart all the rest of the days of your life. Make them known to your children and to your children’s children.",
      "10": "Tell about the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb when the Lord said to me, “Bring the people near to me and I will make sure that they hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they are living in the land, and so that they may teach their children.”",
      "11": "So you drew near and you stood under the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire up to the very heavens. There was darkness, a thick cloud, and gloom.",
      "12": "Then the Lord your God spoke to you from the middle of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but you did not see a form. You only heard the sound.",
      "13": "He declared to you his covenant that he commanded you to carry out, namely, the Ten Commandments. Then he wrote them on two tablets of stone.",
      "14": "At that time the Lord commanded me to teach you the statutes and ordinances for you to carry out in the land that you are entering in order to occupy it.",
      "15": "So guard your hearts very carefully, because you did not see any form on the day that the Lord your God spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire.",
      "16": "Do this so that you do not act corruptly and make for yourselves an idol of any form. Do not make an image of a male or female,",
      "17": "an image of any animal that walks on the earth, an image of any bird that flies in the sky,",
      "18": "an image of anything that creeps on the ground, or an image of any fish that swims in the water below the earth.",
      "19": "Beware so that you do not lift up your eyes to the heavens and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the vast army of the heavens, and you are lured away, and you bow down to them and worship them—things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the nations under all the heavens.",
      "20": "But you are the ones that the Lord has chosen and has brought out of the iron furnace of Egypt, to be a nation that is his possession, as is the case today.",
      "21": "But the Lord was angry with me because of your words, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan and would not come into the good land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.",
      "22": "I will die in this land without crossing over the Jordan, but you will cross over and take possession of this good land.",
      "23": "Be on guard so that you do not forget the covenant that the Lord your God made with you and so that you do not make an idol for yourselves in the form of anything that the Lord your God prohibited.",
      "24": "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.",
      "25": "But when you become the father of children, and you have grandchildren, and you have grown old in the land, if you then act corruptly by making an idol of any form, and you do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, provoking him to anger,",
      "26": "I today call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you, that you will most certainly perish quickly from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live many days in it, because you will most certainly be destroyed.",
      "27": "The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left as a people that are few in number among the nations where the Lord your God will force you to go.",
      "28": "There you will worship gods, the work of human hands, made of wood and stone—things that do not see or hear or eat or smell.",
      "29": "But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him when you search for him with all your heart and with all your soul.",
      "30": "When you experience misery and all these things have happened to you in future days, then you will return to the Lord your God, and you will be obedient to his voice.",
      "31": "For the Lord your God is a compassionate God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant that he promised to your fathers with an oath.",
      "32": "So ask now about the former days, long before your time, beginning from the day when God created man on the earth. Search from one end of the heavens to the other. Has there ever been anything like this great event, or has anything like it ever been heard?",
      "33": "Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire as you heard and yet continued to live?",
      "34": "Or has a god ever tried to go and take for himself a nation from inside another nation by tests, signs, and warnings, or by war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great awe-inspiring acts like all those that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt in front of your very eyes?",
      "35": "You yourselves were shown this so that you could know that the Lord—he is God! There is none except him alone.",
      "36": "He let you hear his voice from the heavens to discipline you, and on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words from the middle of the fire.",
      "37": "Yes, because he loved your fathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by the great power of his Presence,",
      "38": "driving out from your presence nations greater and stronger than you are, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day.",
      "39": "Therefore know this today and again take it to heart that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below. There is no other.",
      "40": "Keep his statutes and his commandments that I am commanding you today, so that it may go well for you and for your children after you, and so that you may live long on the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.",
      "41": "Then Moses set aside three cities in the region east of the Jordan, the place where the sun rises,",
      "42": "so that someone who killed a man could flee to them, that is, someone who killed his neighbor unintentionally and who did not previously hate him—he could flee to one of these cities and remain alive:",
      "43": "Bezer in the wilderness in the tableland belonging to the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead belonging to the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan belonging to the Manassites.",
      "44": "This is the Law that Moses set before the people of Israel.",
      "45": "These are the testimonies and statutes and ordinances that Moses spoke to the people of Israel when they went out of Egypt,",
      "46": "in the region east of the Jordan opposite Beth Peor in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck down when they came out of Egypt.",
      "47": "So they took possession of his land as well as the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were in the region east of the Jordan, where the sun rises.",
      "48": "They took possession from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Canyon, all the way to Mount Siyon, that is, Mount Hermon,",
      "49": "including all of the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan, up to the Sea of the Arabah below the slopes of Pisgah."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Moses called together all Israel and said this to them: Listen, Israel, to the statutes and ordinances that I am speaking in your hearing today so that you learn them and are conscientious about carrying them out.",
      "2": "The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.",
      "3": "The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with those who are here today, all of us who are living today.",
      "4": "Face-to-face the Lord spoke with you at the mountain from the middle of the fire.",
      "5": "At that time I was standing between the Lord and you to relate to you the word of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and you did not go up on the mountain.\nThen the Lord said:",
      "6": "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.",
      "7": "You shall have no other gods beside me.",
      "8": "You shall not make any carved image for yourself or a likeness of anything in heaven above, on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.",
      "9": "Do not bow down to them or be subservient to them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. I follow up on the guilt of the fathers with their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren if they also hate me.",
      "10": "But I show mercy to thousands who love me and keep my commandments.",
      "11": "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not permit anyone who misuses his name to escape unpunished.",
      "12": "Observe the Sabbath day by setting it apart as holy, just as the Lord your God commanded you.",
      "13": "Six days you are to serve and perform all of your regular work,",
      "14": "but the seventh day is a sabbath rest to the Lord your God. You are not to do any regular work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the alien who resides inside your gates, in order that your male servant and your female servant may rest like you.",
      "15": "Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the day of rest.",
      "16": "Honor your father and your mother, just as the Lord your God commanded you, so that you may prolong your days and so that it may go well for you on the land that the Lord your God is giving you.",
      "17": "You shall not commit murder.",
      "18": "You shall not commit adultery.",
      "19": "You shall not steal.",
      "20": "You shall not give lying testimony against your neighbor.",
      "21": "You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house or his field, his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.",
      "22": "These are the words the Lord spoke to your whole assembly at the mountain from the middle of the fire, the thick cloud, and the gloom, with a loud voice, and he did not add anything. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.",
      "23": "When you heard the voice from the middle of the darkness while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me—all the heads of your tribes and your elders.",
      "24": "Then you said, “See how the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the middle of the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even though God has spoken to him.",
      "25": "But now, why should we die, because this great fire will consume us? If we continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, we will die.",
      "26": "For who of all flesh has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking from the middle of fire as we have and has lived?",
      "27": "You go near and listen to everything that the Lord our God says, and then you speak to us everything that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it.”",
      "28": "The Lord heard what you said when you spoke to me. So the Lord said to me, “I heard what these people said when they spoke to you. Everything that they spoke to you is good.",
      "29": "If only this would be in their hearts—to fear me and to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well for them and for their children continually.",
      "30": "Go and say to them, ‘Go back to your tents.’",
      "31": "As for you, stand here with me and I will speak to you all the commands and the statutes and the ordinances that you are to teach them and that they are to do in the land that I am giving them as a possession.",
      "32": "Tell them: ‘Be conscientious about doing just as the Lord your God commanded you. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left.",
      "33": "Walk in every way the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and it may be good for you and you may live long in the land that you will possess.’”"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Moses spoke as follows:\nNow this is the body of commands, and these are the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, so you may carry them out in the land to which you are crossing over to receive as a possession,",
      "2": "so that you may fear the Lord your God by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I am commanding to you, as well as to your children and grandchildren, all the days of your life, and so that your days may be long.",
      "3": "Listen, O Israel, and be conscientious about doing those things, so it may go well for you and so you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you.",
      "4": "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is one!",
      "5": "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.",
      "6": "These words that I am commanding you today are to be on your heart.",
      "7": "Teach them diligently to your children, and speak about them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you get up.",
      "8": "Tie them as a sign on your wrists, and they will serve as symbols on your forehead.",
      "9": "Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.",
      "10": "When the Lord your God brings you to the land about which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give it to you, he will bring you to great and good cities that you did not build,",
      "11": "to houses full of all kinds of good things that you did not fill, to wells that you did not dig, and to vineyards and olives that you did not plant. Then, when you eat and are full,",
      "12": "watch yourself, so that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.",
      "13": "Fear the Lord your God, serve him, and swear by his name.",
      "14": "Do not go after other gods from among the gods of the peoples around you.",
      "15": "If you do, the Lord your God will be a jealous God in your midst, and the anger of the Lord your God will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the earth.",
      "16": "Do not put the Lord your God to the test the way you tested him at Massah.",
      "17": "Be very conscientious about keeping the commandments of the Lord your God and his testimonies and his statutes, which he commanded you.",
      "18": "Do what is right and good in the eyes of the Lord, so that it may go well for you and you may go and take possession of the good land that the Lord promised to your fathers with an oath,",
      "19": "driving out all your enemies from your presence, as the Lord promised.",
      "20": "When your son asks you in the future, “What are these testimonies and statutes and ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded for you?”",
      "21": "then you are to say to your son, “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand.",
      "22": "Right before our eyes the Lord gave great, devastating signs and wonders in Egypt against Pharaoh and against his whole household.",
      "23": "Then he brought us out of there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised to our fathers with an oath.”",
      "24": "Then the Lord commanded us to carry out all of these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our own lasting good, to keep us alive, even as we are today.",
      "25": "Righteousness will be ours when we are conscientious about carrying out this entire set of commands in the presence of the Lord our God as he commanded us."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take as a possession, and when he 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 stronger than you),",
      "2": "and when the Lord your God has given them over to you and he has struck them down, you are to devote them to destruction. Do not make a treaty with them, and do not show mercy to them.",
      "3": "Do not form marriage alliances with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons, and do not take their daughters for your sons,",
      "4": "because they will turn your sons away from following me, and they will serve other gods. The anger of the Lord will burn against you, and then he will destroy you quickly.",
      "5": "Instead, this is the way you must deal with them: Break down their altars. Smash their sacred memorial stones. Cut down their Asherah poles. Burn their idols with fire.",
      "6": "For you are a people that is holy to the Lord your God, because the Lord your God has chosen you to belong to him as a people that is his treasured possession, chosen from all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.",
      "7": "The Lord became attached to you by love and has chosen you, not because you were more numerous than all the peoples. Actually you were the fewest of all the peoples.",
      "8": "But because of the Lord’s love for you and because he was keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that is why the Lord brought you out by a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.",
      "9": "He did this so that you would know that the Lord your God, yes, he is God, the faithful God who maintains both his covenant and his mercy for those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.",
      "10": "But he also repays the ones who hate him to their face by destroying them. He will not delay repaying anyone who hates him. To his face he will fully repay him.",
      "11": "So you are to be careful to keep the set of commandments and the statutes and the ordinances that I am commanding you today.",
      "12": "When you obey these ordinances and are careful to keep them, the Lord your God will keep for your benefit the covenant and the mercy that he promised to your fathers with an oath.",
      "13": "He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit from your womb and the fruit from your soil, your grain and your new wine and your fresh olive oil, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your flock upon the land that he swore to your fathers that he would give you.",
      "14": "You will be blessed beyond all the peoples. There will not be an infertile male or infertile female among you or among your livestock.",
      "15": "The Lord will remove from you all sickness, and he will not place on you all of the diseases of Egypt, the calamities that you experienced. Instead he will put them on all those who hate you.",
      "16": "You will consume all the peoples that the Lord your God is giving to you. Your eye is not to look with compassion on them. You are not to serve their gods, because that would be a snare to you.",
      "17": "If you say in your heart, “These nations are more numerous than we are. How are we able to take possession of their land?”",
      "18": "do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all the Egyptians.",
      "19": "The great test which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the strong hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out—that is what the Lord your God will do to all the peoples that you fear.",
      "20": "The Lord your God will also send the hornet against them until those who are left and are hiding from you have been destroyed.",
      "21": "Do not be overwhelmed before them, because the Lord your God is right among you, a great and awe-inspiring God.",
      "22": "The Lord your God, the God before you, will clear away the nations little by little. You will not succeed in finishing them off too quickly, so that the wild animals do not become too numerous for you.",
      "23": "But the Lord your God will give them over to you, and he will throw these peoples into complete confusion until they are destroyed.",
      "24": "He will give their kings into your hands, and he will cause their names to die out under the heavens, because none of them will be able to hold their ground against you until you have destroyed them.",
      "25": "Burn the images of their gods with fire, and do not covet the silver and gold on them or take it for yourself, so that you are not snared by it, because it is an abomination to the Lord your God.",
      "26": "Do not bring a detestable thing to your house and in that way become devoted to destruction just like it. Detest it and regard it as an utterly disgusting thing, because it is devoted to destruction."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Be conscientious about carrying out the entire body of commands that I am giving you today so that you may thrive and increase and you may go in and possess the land that the Lord promised by oath to give to your fathers.",
      "2": "Remember the whole journey on which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you and to test you, in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.",
      "3": "So he humbled you and allowed you to be hungry. Then he fed you manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known before, in order to teach you that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.",
      "4": "The clothes you wore did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these forty years.",
      "5": "So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.",
      "6": "Therefore you are to keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by revering him.",
      "7": "For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of gullies filled with water, a land with springs and groundwater that flows out into the valleys and down the mountains,",
      "8": "a land with wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees for oil, and honey,",
      "9": "a land where you can eat bread and not be poor, where you will not lack anything, a land whose rocks are iron and from whose mountains you can mine copper.",
      "10": "Then you will eat, and you will be filled, and you will praise the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.",
      "11": "Be very careful so that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and ordinances and his statutes that I am commanding you today.",
      "12": "When you eat and are satisfied, and you build nice houses and move into them,",
      "13": "and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and everything that you have prospers,",
      "14": "watch out so that your heart does not become arrogant and forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.",
      "15": "Do not forget the Lord, who led you in the great and terrifying wilderness, where there were venomous snakes and scorpions, where the thirsty ground had no water, but the Lord made water come out of a flint rock for you.",
      "16": "Do not forget the Lord, who in the wilderness fed you manna, which your fathers had not known before, to humble you and to test you so that it would be good for you later on.",
      "17": "You might say in your heart, “My ability and the power of my hand have earned this wealth for me.”",
      "18": "But then you are to remember that the Lord your God is the one who gives you the ability to produce wealth, to confirm his covenant that he promised to your fathers with an oath, as he does to this day.",
      "19": "But if you ever do forget the Lord your God and you follow other gods, and if you serve them and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will certainly perish.",
      "20": "Just like the nations that the Lord is about to destroy in front of you, you also will perish, because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Listen, Israel, today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and to take possession of nations larger and stronger than you, nations with large cities that have fortified walls reaching up to the skies,",
      "2": "with people strong and tall, the Anakites, whom you know and about whom you have heard it said: “Who can stand up against the descendants of Anak?”",
      "3": "So know today that the Lord your God himself is crossing over in front of you. Like a consuming fire he will destroy them, and he will subdue them before you. You will take possession of their land and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord promised you.",
      "4": "When the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say in your heart, “Because of my righteousness the Lord brought me in to take possession of this land,” when actually it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is handing over their land to you.",
      "5": "You are not entering to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart, but because of the wickedness of these nations. The Lord your God is handing over their land to you, in order to confirm the promise that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.",
      "6": "Know, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, because a stiff-necked people is what you are.",
      "7": "Remember and do not forget how you made the Lord your God angry in the wilderness. From the day that you went out of the land of Egypt until your arrival at this place, you have been rebels against the Lord.",
      "8": "Even at Horeb you made the Lord angry. Yes, the Lord was angry enough at you to destroy you.",
      "9": "When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread and I did not drink water.",
      "10": "Then the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you from the middle of the fire on the mountain, on the day of the assembly.",
      "11": "At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.",
      "12": "Then the Lord said to me, “Get moving and go down quickly from here because your people, whom you led out of Egypt, have acted corruptly. They have turned away quickly from the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a thing of molten metal.”",
      "13": "The Lord also said to me, “I have seen these people, and what a stiff-necked people they are!",
      "14": "Leave me alone, and I will destroy them. I will blot out their name from under the heavens, and I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.”",
      "15": "So I turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in my two hands, while the mountain was burning with fire.",
      "16": "I saw how you were sinning against the Lord your God by making for yourselves a calf from molten metal and by quickly turning aside from the way that the Lord your God had commanded you to go.",
      "17": "I grabbed the two tablets and I threw them from my two hands and I shattered them right before your eyes.",
      "18": "Then I lay facedown before the Lord forty days and forty nights like the first time. I did not eat bread and I did not drink water, because of all the sin that you committed by doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and making him angry.",
      "19": "I was afraid of the heated anger of the Lord, who was angry enough at you to destroy you, but the Lord listened to me again at that time.",
      "20": "The Lord was even angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. So I prayed also for Aaron at that time.",
      "21": "Then I took that wicked thing that you had made, the calf. I burned it with fire and crushed it by grinding it until it was as fine as dust. Then I threw its dust into the gully that goes down from the mountain.",
      "22": "Again and again, at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth Hatta’avah, you made the Lord angry.",
      "23": "Then, when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, and he said, “Go up and take possession of the land that I have given to you,” you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not put your faith in him, and you did not obey him.",
      "24": "You have been rebels against the Lord ever since I have known you.",
      "25": "So I lay facedown before the Lord for forty days and forty nights. I lay facedown because the Lord said he would destroy you.",
      "26": "So I prayed to the Lord and said, “Lord God, do not destroy your people, your inheritance that you have redeemed by your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a strong hand.",
      "27": "“Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look at the stubbornness of these people and at their wickedness and their sin.",
      "28": "Otherwise the land out of which you brought us will say, ‘This happened because the Lord did not have the power to bring them to the land that he had promised to them, or this happened because he hated them and brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’",
      "29": "“But they are your people and your possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "At that time the Lord said to me, “Cut out two tablets of stone like the first ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark out of wood.",
      "2": "Then I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the first ones that you shattered, and you are to put them in the ark.”",
      "3": "So I made an ark of acacia wood and I cut out two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands.",
      "4": "He wrote on the tablets the same writing as on the first tablets, the Ten Commandments that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the middle of the fire, on the day of the assembly. Then the Lord gave them to me.",
      "5": "I turned and came back down the mountain, and I put the tablets in the ark that I had made. There they are kept, as the Lord commanded me to do.",
      "6": "The people of Israel traveled from Be’eroth Bene Ja’akan to Moserah. Aaron died there, and he was buried there, and Eleazar his son served as priest in his place.",
      "7": "From there they traveled to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of gullies filled with water.",
      "8": "At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord and to serve him, and to pronounce a blessing in his name, as they do to this day.",
      "9": "That is why Levi did not have an allotment of land and an inheritance with his brothers. The Lord himself is their inheritance, as the Lord your God promised him.",
      "10": "I had stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights like the first time, and the Lord listened to me again on this second occasion. The Lord agreed not to destroy you.",
      "11": "So the Lord said to me, “Set out and continue the journey at the head of the people, and they will enter and take possession of the land that I promised to give them with an oath to their fathers.”",
      "12": "So now, Israel, what is the Lord your God asking of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,",
      "13": "to keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes that I am commanding you today for your own good.",
      "14": "Indeed, the heavens and the heaven of heavens, the earth and everything that is on it—these belong to the Lord your God.",
      "15": "Still, the Lord attached himself to your fathers, loved them, and he chose their descendants after them (that’s you!) from all peoples, as it is today.",
      "16": "So cut away the tough shell of your sinful nature, and do not be stubborn any longer.",
      "17": "The Lord your God is God of Gods and Lord of Lords, the great God, the mighty one and the awesome one, who does not show favoritism and does not take a bribe.",
      "18": "He carries out justice for the fatherless and widows. He loves the alien who dwells among you and gives him food and clothing.",
      "19": "So you are to love the alien, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.",
      "20": "Fear the Lord your God, serve him, cling to him, and take your oaths in his name.",
      "21": "He is your glory. He is your God, who performed for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen.",
      "22": "When your fathers went down to Egypt, they numbered seventy people, but now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Love the Lord your God and always carry out his requirements, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments.",
      "2": "Know this today! I am not addressing your children, who have not known and seen all these things:\nthe discipline of the Lord your God;\nhis greatness, his strong hand, and his outstretched arm;",
      "3": "his signs and his deeds that he performed in Egypt\n    against Pharaoh king of Egypt and against all his land;",
      "4": "what he did to the army of Egypt and its horses and chariots;\nhow he caused the water of the Red Sea to flow over their heads\n    when they pursued you;\nhow the Lord has destroyed them to this day;",
      "5": "what he did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place;",
      "6": "what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab son of Reuben;\nhow the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them\nwith their households, their tents,\nand every living thing that was at their feet,\nin the middle of all Israel.",
      "7": "Know today it is your own eyes that have seen every deed that the Lord your God performed.",
      "8": "Therefore, keep the whole set of commands that I am giving you today so that you may have the strength to enter and take possession of the land that you are about to cross into and possess,",
      "9": "and so that you may live for a long time on the land that the Lord your God swore to give to your fathers and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.",
      "10": "The land that you are about to enter and possess is not like that land of Egypt that you left, where you were accustomed to sow your seed and water it by hand like a vegetable garden.",
      "11": "But the land you are entering to possess is a land of mountains and valleys. It drinks water provided by rain from the heavens.",
      "12": "It is a land that the Lord your God takes care of. The eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it, from the start to the end of the year.",
      "13": "If you faithfully listen to my commandments that I am giving you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,",
      "14": "then I will provide rain for your land in season, early fall rain and late spring rain, and you will gather your grain and your new wine and your fresh oil.",
      "15": "I will provide grass in your field for your livestock, and you will eat and be satisfied.",
      "16": "Be careful, or your heart will be deceived and you will turn away and serve other gods and bow down to them.",
      "17": "Then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and he will close up the heavens. There will be no rain, the ground will not produce crops, and you will perish quickly from the good land that the Lord is giving you.",
      "18": "Put these words of mine in your hearts and in your soul, and tie them on your wrists as signs and as symbols on your forehead.",
      "19": "Teach them to your children by talking about them when you sit in your house and when you travel on the road, when you lie down and when you get up.",
      "20": "Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,",
      "21": "so that your days and the days of your children may be many on the land that the Lord promised to your fathers with an oath, as many as the days that the heavens remain over the earth.",
      "22": "If you carefully keep the whole set of commandments that I am giving you, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and clinging to him,",
      "23": "then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will take possession of nations larger and stronger than you.",
      "24": "Every place where the sole of your foot walks will be yours. From the Wilderness to Lebanon, from the River—the River Euphrates—to the Mediterranean Sea, all of it will be your territory.",
      "25": "No one will be able to stand up to you. The Lord your God will put the fear and dread of you over the whole land on which you walk, just as he promised you.",
      "26": "You see, I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse:",
      "27": "the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today,",
      "28": "or the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God and you turn away from the path that I am commanding you today by walking after other gods whom you did not know.",
      "29": "When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and possess, you are to pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.",
      "30": "As you know, they are on the other side of the Jordan, beyond the west road, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites that live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, by the oaks of Moreh.",
      "31": "You are about to cross over the Jordan to go in and take the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You will take it and live in it.",
      "32": "But be careful to carry out all the statutes and the ordinances that I am giving you today."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "These are the statutes and the ordinances that you are to be conscientious about keeping in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given to you to possess all the days that you live in the land:",
      "2": "Completely destroy all the places where the nations that you are driving out serve their gods, whether on the high mountains or on the hills or under every beautiful green tree.",
      "3": "Tear down their altars! Smash their sacred memorial stones! Burn their Asherah poles with fire, and cut down the carved images of their gods! In this way you will destroy their names from those places.",
      "4": "Do not serve the Lord your God in the way that they worship,",
      "5": "but seek out and go to the site that the Lord your God will choose from within all your tribes to place his name and his dwelling place.",
      "6": "There you are to bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the elevated offerings from your hands, your offerings to fulfill a vow, your voluntary offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock.",
      "7": "Eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, and rejoice in everything you do, you and your household, because the Lord your God has blessed you.",
      "8": "Do not in any way do what we are doing here today, that is, each person doing whatever is right in his own eyes,",
      "9": "because you have not yet come to your place of rest, the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving to you.",
      "10": "But you will cross over the Jordan and settle in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies all around you, so that you will live in safety.",
      "11": "Then go to the place that the Lord your God chooses as the place to establish his name. There you are to bring everything that I am commanding you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes, the offerings from your hands, and all the best voluntary offerings that you vow to the Lord.",
      "12": "You will rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your male servants and your female servants, and the Levites who live within the gates of your cities, because they do not have an allotted inheritance among you.",
      "13": "Be careful that you do not offer up your burnt offering in just any place that you see fit,",
      "14": "but only in the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes. That is where you are to offer up your burnt offerings and where you are to do everything that I am commanding you.",
      "15": "But in any town you may butcher and eat meat to your heart’s content, as the Lord your God has blessed you. The unclean and the clean person alike may eat it as they would a gazelle or a deer,",
      "16": "but you must never eat the blood. Pour it on the ground like water.",
      "17": "You are not to eat the tithe from your grain, your new wine, or your fresh oil in your towns. The same applies to the firstborn of your herd and your flock, or anything you vow, or your voluntary offerings, or your special elevated offerings.",
      "18": "Eat those things before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose—you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levites within your cities. Rejoice before the Lord your God in everything that you are doing.",
      "19": "Be careful that you do not neglect the Levites as long as you live on your land.",
      "20": "When the Lord your God expands your territory as he promised you, and you say, “I would like to eat meat,” because you are hungry for meat, then you may eat it to your heart’s content.",
      "21": "If the place that the Lord your God will choose to establish his name is too far away for you, then you may slaughter animals from your herd and flock which the Lord has given you, just as I commanded you, and you may eat within your cities as you desire.",
      "22": "Yes, just as gazelle and deer are eaten, you may eat it. The unclean and the clean person alike may eat it.",
      "23": "Only be very sure not to eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life together with the flesh.",
      "24": "Do not eat it. Pour it out on the ground like water.",
      "25": "Do not eat it, so that it may go well for you and for your children after you when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "26": "But as for the holy things that you have and your voluntary offerings, gather them up and take them to the place that the Lord will choose.",
      "27": "Offer your burnt offerings, both the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of the sacrifice is to be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the meat you may eat.",
      "28": "Be careful that you obey all these words that I am commanding you so that it may go well for you and for your children after you in the distant future when you do what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God.",
      "29": "When the Lord your God cuts off the nations where you are going and drives them out before you, and when you take possession of their land and settle in it,",
      "30": "be careful that you are not snared after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods and ask, “How did these people serve their gods? I also want to do the same thing.”",
      "31": "Do not serve the Lord your God in the way that they worship, because they do for their gods every detestable thing that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in fire for their gods.",
      "32": "Be careful to do everything that I am commanding you. Do not add to it, and do not subtract from it."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "If a prophet or an interpreter of dreams arises among you, and he predicts a sign or wonder for you,",
      "2": "and the sign or wonder that he promised you comes true, and he says, “Let’s go after other gods that you do not know, and let’s serve them,”",
      "3": "do not listen to the words of that prophet or that interpreter of dreams, because the Lord your God is testing you to see whether you really love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.",
      "4": "Follow the Lord your God, fear him, keep his commandments, listen to his voice, serve him, and cling to him.",
      "5": "That prophet or that interpreter of dreams is to be put to death because he advised you to turn against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, in order to draw you away from the path on which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. Purge the evil from among you.",
      "6": "If your full brother or your mother’s son, your son or your daughter, the wife you embrace, or your closest friend tempts you by saying secretly, “Let’s go and serve other gods,”—gods that neither you nor your fathers have known,",
      "7": "from among the gods of the peoples around you, either near or far from you, anywhere from one end of the land to the other—",
      "8": "do not be influenced by him and do not listen to him. Your eye is not to look on him with compassion. Do not spare him and do not pardon him,",
      "9": "but kill him. Your hand is to be the first one on him when putting him to death, and afterward the hands of all the other people.",
      "10": "Stone him to death, because he tried to pull you away from the Lord your God, who led you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.",
      "11": "Then all of Israel will hear and fear, and such an evil thing as this will not be done among you again.",
      "12": "If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you so that you can live in them,",
      "13": "men of worthless character have gone out from among you and have pulled the inhabitants of their city away from the Lord, saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods,” gods whom you have not known,",
      "14": "then investigate, search out the truth, and inquire diligently. If it becomes established truth that this abomination has been done among you,",
      "15": "you are to strike down the inhabitants of that city with the blade of the sword. Devote it and everything in it to complete destruction by the blade of the sword, including its cattle.",
      "16": "Gather all its plunder at the center of its town square. Then burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It is to be a permanent mound of ruins, never to be rebuilt.",
      "17": "Let nothing that has been devoted to destruction stick to your hands, so that the Lord will turn away from his anger and show you compassion. In his compassion he will increase your population, as he swore to your fathers,",
      "18": "if you obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping all of his commandments that I am commanding you today, by doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "You are the children of the Lord your God.\nDo not cut yourselves or make a bald spot on your forehead for a dead person,",
      "2": "because you are set apart as holy people for the Lord your God, and the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the people that are on the face of the earth, to be his people that are his treasured possession.",
      "3": "Do not eat any detestable thing.",
      "4": "These are the animals that you may eat: cattle, sheep, and goats;",
      "5": "deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep.",
      "6": "Every animal that has divided hoofs with splits in the middle and that rechews its food among the animals—you may eat them.",
      "7": "But these you are not to eat from among those that either rechew their food or have divided hoofs with splits in the middle: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because even though they rechew their food, their hoofs are not divided. They are unclean for you.",
      "8": "The pig, because it has divided hoofs but does not rechew its food, is unclean for you. You are not to eat their flesh and you are not to touch their carcasses.",
      "9": "These you may eat of all the creatures that live in the water: Any that have fins and scales you may eat.",
      "10": "Any that do not have fins and scales you are not to eat. They are unclean for you.",
      "11": "Any clean bird you may eat.",
      "12": "But you are not to eat the following: the eagle, the black vulture, and the bearded vulture,",
      "13": "the red kite, the black kite, and falcons of every kind,",
      "14": "ravens and crows of every kind,",
      "15": "the eagle owl, the short-eared owl, the long-eared owl, all species of hawks,",
      "16": "the tawny owl, the fisher owl, the screech owl,",
      "17": "the white owl, and the scops owl, the osprey,",
      "18": "the stork and herons of every kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.",
      "19": "Any swarming insect that flies is unclean for you. None of them are to be eaten.",
      "20": "Any clean winged creature you may eat.",
      "21": "Do not eat the carcass of any animal that is found dead. You may give it to the alien who resides in your town, and he may eat it or sell it to a foreigner, but you are a people who are set apart as holy for the Lord your God.\nDo not boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk.",
      "22": "Give a tenth of all the yield from your seed that comes out of the field every year.",
      "23": "Eat the tithe in the presence of the Lord your God in the place that he will choose to establish his name—the tenth of your grain, your new wine, and your fresh oil, as well as the firstborn of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.",
      "24": "When the Lord your God blesses you, if the distance of your journey is so long that you cannot carry the tithe with you, because the place that the Lord your God will choose to establish his name is far away from you,",
      "25": "then you may exchange the tithe for silver and take the silver in your hand and travel to the place that the Lord your God will choose for himself.",
      "26": "There exchange the silver for anything that you desire—animals from the herd or the flock, or wine or beer, or anything that you may want. Then eat it there before the Lord your God and rejoice, both you and your household.",
      "27": "But you must not neglect the Levites who reside within the gates of your cities, because they do not have an allotted inheritance among you.",
      "28": "At the end of every third year, bring out the entire tithe of your produce from that year and store it in your towns.",
      "29": "Then the Levites may come, because they do not have an allotted inheritance among you, and also the aliens and the fatherless and the widows within your towns, and they may eat and be satisfied, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that your hands perform."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "At the end of seven years grant a release.",
      "2": "This is how the release is to be done: Every creditor is to release what he has loaned to his neighbor. He must not exact it from his neighbor or from his brother Israelite, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed.",
      "3": "You may exact it from a foreigner, but your hand is to release whatever your brother Israelite owes you.",
      "4": "However, there should be no poor people among you, because the Lord will greatly bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance for you to possess,",
      "5": "if you obey the voice of the Lord your God by carefully carrying out all of this command that I am giving you today.",
      "6": "For the Lord your God will bless you, just as he has promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.",
      "7": "However, if there is a poor person among you, any one of your fellow Israelites within the gates of your towns in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your poor brother.",
      "8": "Rather, open up your hand to him and freely lend him enough of whatever he needs for himself.",
      "9": "Be careful that you do not harbor this wicked thought: Year seven, the year of release, is near! So as a result you have a harsh attitude toward your poor brother and do not give him anything. Then he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.",
      "10": "Give freely to him, and do not feel resentful about giving to him, because on account of your giving, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and whatever you put your hand to.",
      "11": "Since there will never cease to be poor people in the land, I command you, open up your hand to your brother in your land, to the afflicted and the poor among you.",
      "12": "If your brother, that is, a Hebrew man or woman, sells himself to you, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year you are to set him free.",
      "13": "When you set him free, do not send him out empty-handed.",
      "14": "Provide for him generously from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your winepress. Give to him from the blessings that the Lord your God has given to you.",
      "15": "You should remember that you yourself were a slave in the land of Egypt, but the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore I am commanding this procedure to you today.",
      "16": "But he might say to you, “I don’t want to leave you,” because he loves you and your household, and he is well off with you.",
      "17": "In that case you are to take an awl and bore through his ear into the door, and he will be a slave to you permanently. Do the same in the case of your female slave.",
      "18": "When you do set a servant free, it should not seem like a hardship to you, because for six years he has earned for you double the income that a hired worker would. The Lord your God will bless you in everything that you do.",
      "19": "Set apart for the Lord your God every firstborn male from your herd and your flock. Do not work the firstborn of your oxen, and do not shear the firstborn of your flock.",
      "20": "You and your household are to eat the firstborn in the presence of the Lord each year, in the place that the Lord will choose.",
      "21": "But if it has a defect (if it is lame or blind, or if it has any other serious defect), you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.",
      "22": "You may eat it within the gates of your towns. The unclean and the clean person alike may eat it, as you would a gazelle or a deer.",
      "23": "But you must not eat its blood. You are to pour it out on the ground like water."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover for the Lord your God, because it was in the month of Abib that the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt at night.",
      "2": "As a Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, slaughter an animal from the flock or herd at the place where the Lord will choose to establish his name.",
      "3": "Do not eat leavened bread with it. For seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you went out of the land of Egypt in a hurry. Do this so that you may remember the day that you went out from the land of Egypt for all the days of your life.",
      "4": "No yeast or leaven is to be found among you for seven days, and none of the meat that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day is to be left until morning.",
      "5": "You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover inside the gates of any of the cities that the Lord your God is giving you.",
      "6": "Rather, it is at the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish his name that you are to sacrifice the Passover, in the evening at the setting of the sun, the time of day that you went out of Egypt.",
      "7": "Cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. In the morning return to your tents.",
      "8": "Six days you are to eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there is to be a special convocation to the Lord your God. Do not do any regular work.",
      "9": "Count off seven weeks. As the starting point of the seven weeks, mark the time that the sickle first strikes the standing grain.",
      "10": "Then observe the Festival of Weeks for the Lord your God and give a voluntary offering of as much as you can afford, in keeping with how much the Lord has blessed you.",
      "11": "Rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within the gates of your city, and the alien and the fatherless and the widow who are among you. Do this in the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish his name.",
      "12": "Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, so you are to be careful to carry out these statutes.",
      "13": "After you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress, celebrate the Festival of Shelters for seven days.",
      "14": "Rejoice in your festival, you and your son and your daughter, and your male servant and your female servant, and the alien and the orphan and the widow within your gates.",
      "15": "For seven days celebrate to the Lord your God in the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all of your crops and in all the work of your hands, and you will most certainly be joyful.",
      "16": "Three times a year all of your males are to present themselves before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, at the Festival of Weeks, and at the Festival of Shelters. They are not to present themselves before the Lord empty-handed,",
      "17": "but each person is to have in his hand a gift that is in keeping with the blessing that the Lord your God has given you.",
      "18": "Appoint judges and officers for your tribes to serve at the gates of all the cities that the Lord your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.",
      "19": "Do not distort justice. Do not show partiality. Do not take a bribe, because a bribe blinds the eyes of wise people and twists the actions of righteous people.",
      "20": "Justice! You are to pursue justice, so that you may live and possess the land that the Lord your God is giving you!",
      "21": "Do not set up any kind of wooden Asherah pole beside the altar of the Lord your God that you have made for yourself.",
      "22": "Do not set up for yourself a sacred memorial stone, which is something that the Lord your God hates."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Do not sacrifice to the Lord your God any ox or sheep that has any kind of defect or serious flaw, because that is something detestable to the Lord your God.",
      "2": "If there is found among you (within the gates of one of your cities that the Lord your God is giving you) a man or a woman who is doing something that is evil in the eyes of the Lord your God by transgressing his covenant,",
      "3": "or a man or a woman who is going and serving other gods and bowing down to them or to the sun or to the moon or to any of the army of the heavens, something that I have not commanded,",
      "4": "and you are told about it and you listen and investigate diligently, and it is established that the charge is true and that this abomination has been committed in Israel,",
      "5": "then you are to bring that man or that woman who has committed this evil out to your city gate, and you are to stone that person to death, whether man or woman.",
      "6": "A person is to be put to death on the basis of the testimony of two or three witnesses. No one is to be put to death based on the testimony of one witness.",
      "7": "The hands of the witnesses are to be the first ones raised against him when putting him to death, and after that the hands of all the other people. In that way you are to purge the evil from among you.",
      "8": "If a case is too difficult for you to make a decision, whether it involves a homicide, a lawsuit, or an assault, or any matters of controversy within the gates of your cities, then proceed by going up to the place that the Lord your God will choose.",
      "9": "Go to the priests, who are from the tribe of Levi, and to the presiding judge at that time and lay out the case. They will declare the verdict to you.",
      "10": "Then you are to act according to the verdict that they will declare to you from the place that the Lord will choose, and you are to be careful to carry out everything that they instruct you to do.",
      "11": "Act according to the instructions they give you and according to the judgment that they speak to you. Do not turn to the right or to the left from the word that they declare to you.",
      "12": "Any man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest, who presides and serves the Lord your God there, or by not listening to the judge, that man is condemned to die. In that way you will purge the evil from Israel.",
      "13": "Then all the people will hear and fear and not act presumptuously anymore.",
      "14": "When you have entered the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I am determined to set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,”",
      "15": "you may set a king over yourself, one whom the Lord your God will choose. You may set over yourself a king who is from among your brother Israelites. You must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your brother.",
      "16": "But the king must not accumulate more and more horses for himself, and he must not send people back to Egypt in order to accumulate more horses, because the Lord has said to you, “You must not go back that way again.”",
      "17": "He must not accumulate more and more wives for himself, or his heart may go astray. He must not accumulate excessive silver and gold for himself.",
      "18": "When he sits on his royal throne, he is to have a copy of this law written for him on a scroll in the presence of the priests, who are from the tribe of Levi.",
      "19": "It is to remain with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he learns to fear the Lord his God by being careful to carry out all the words of this law and these statutes,",
      "20": "so that his heart does not grow haughty toward his brothers and turn away from this set of commands, either to the right or the left, so that the days of his royal reign in Israel, as well as that of his sons, may be many."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "The priests, who are Levites, as well as the whole tribe of Levi, will not have any allotted inheritance with Israel. They will eat from the offerings made to the Lord by fire, which is their inheritance.",
      "2": "So they will not have an inheritance among their brothers. The Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.",
      "3": "This then will be the prescribed allotment for the priests from the people who offer sacrifices, whether an ox or a sheep: They are to give to the priests the shoulder, both cheeks, and the stomach.",
      "4": "You are also to give them the firstfruits from your grain, your new wine, your fresh oil, and the first fleece from your flock.",
      "5": "For the Lord your God has chosen them from all of your tribes to stand in service in the name of the Lord—them and their sons for all time.",
      "6": "When a Levite comes from any of your towns throughout Israel where he resides, and whenever he follows his heart’s desire and comes to the place that the Lord will choose,",
      "7": "and he serves in the name of the Lord your God, standing there before the Lord like all of his fellow Levites,",
      "8": "then he may eat the same portion, regardless of any income he received from selling family property.",
      "9": "When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to practice anything like the abominations of those nations.",
      "10": "Let no one be found among you who makes his son or his daughter pass through fire, or who uses divination, or who engages in fortune telling, or who observes omens, or who practices witchcraft,",
      "11": "or who casts a magic spell, or who consults a ghost or a familiar spirit, or who inquires of the dead.",
      "12": "Anyone doing these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you.",
      "13": "You are to be blameless with the Lord your God.",
      "14": "It is true that those nations whose land you are taking listen to fortune tellers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not permitted you to do things like that.",
      "15": "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brother Israelites. Listen to him.",
      "16": "That is exactly what you asked from the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly. You said, “Do not let me hear the voice of the Lord my God anymore, and do not let me see this great fire again, or I will die.”",
      "17": "Then the Lord said to me, “They have done well by saying what they said.",
      "18": "I will raise up a prophet for them from among their brothers, like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them everything that I command him.",
      "19": "Anyone who will not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.",
      "20": "Any prophet who presumes to speak something in my name that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks something in the name of other gods—that prophet shall die.”",
      "21": "What if you ask yourselves, “How can we know that the Lord has not spoken that word?”",
      "22": "If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not come about and does not come true, the Lord has not spoken that word. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "When the Lord your God has cut down the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you have taken possession of their land and settled in their cities and houses,",
      "2": "set aside three cities within the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.",
      "3": "Prepare roads for yourselves, and divide the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance into three parts, so that anyone who has killed a person will be able to flee to one of these cities.",
      "4": "Now this is an example of a person who has killed someone who may flee there and live: someone who has struck down his friend unintentionally, without being hateful toward him beforehand.",
      "5": "For instance, someone goes with his friend into the forest to cut down trees, and when his hand swings the ax to cut down the tree, the iron ax head slips off the wooden handle and strikes his friend, who then dies—that person may flee to one of these cities and live.",
      "6": "Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue the one who has killed someone, because the avenger is hot with anger. Then because of the long distance to the city of refuge, the avenger may overtake the man and strike him down fatally. His death would not be just, because he had not been hateful toward the other one beforehand.",
      "7": "Therefore I am commanding you this: Set aside for yourselves three cities.",
      "8": "When the Lord your God expands your territory, as he swore to your fathers, and he gives you the entire land that he promised to give your fathers,",
      "9": "if you carefully keep this whole set of commands that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God and by walking in his ways always, then add for yourselves three more cities in addition to these three.",
      "10": "Then innocent blood will not be poured out within your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, nor will you be guilty of bloodshed.",
      "11": "But if there is a person who is hateful toward another, and he lies in ambush for him and springs up on him and strikes him so he dies, and the killer flees to one of the cities of God,",
      "12": "then the elders of his home city are to send for him and take him from there. They are to hand him over to the avenger of blood, and he is to be put to death.",
      "13": "Your eye is not to look with compassion on him. You are to purge the blood of the innocent person from Israel so that it may go well for you.",
      "14": "Do not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, which the first generation of occupants set up as a boundary for your inherited property in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.",
      "15": "A single witness does not have legal standing to convict a person of any guilt or sin in connection with any wrongful action he may have committed. A case is to have standing only on the testimony of two or three witnesses.",
      "16": "If a malicious witness rises up against a person to testify against him about a legal offense,",
      "17": "and if the two people involved in the dispute stand before the Lord and before the priests and the judges who preside at that time,",
      "18": "the judges are to investigate diligently. If the person is a dishonest witness because he has falsely accused his brother,",
      "19": "then you are to do to him just as he had plotted to do to his brother. So you will purge the evil from among you.",
      "20": "The rest of the people will hear, and they will fear, and they will not do an evil thing like this among you again.",
      "21": "Your eye is not to look with compassion. The principle is life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "When you go out for battle against your enemies, and you see the horses and chariots of a people more numerous than you are, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you.",
      "2": "When you are approaching the battle, the priest is to come forward and speak to the people.",
      "3": "He will say to them, “Listen, Israel, you are approaching the battle against your enemies. Do not let your heart become weak. Do not be afraid. Do not tremble. Do not dread them,",
      "4": "because the Lord your God is going with you to do battle for you against your enemies, to save you.”",
      "5": "The officers also are to speak to the people and say, “Whoever has built a new house but has not dedicated it, let him go and return to his house so that he does not die in the battle and another man dedicates it.",
      "6": "“Whoever has planted a vineyard but has not yet removed it from sacred status, let him go and return to his house so that he does not die in the battle and another man is the first to eat from it.",
      "7": "“Whoever is pledged in marriage to a woman but has not consummated the marriage, let him go and return to his house so that he does not die in the battle and another man takes her in marriage.”",
      "8": "Then the officers are to speak again to the people and say, “Whoever is afraid and fainthearted may go and return to his house, so that the hearts of his brother Israelites do not melt in cowardice like his heart.”",
      "9": "When the officers finish speaking to the people, they are to appoint army commanders at the head of the people.",
      "10": "When you approach a city to fight against it, call out to it, asking for a peaceful surrender.",
      "11": "If the city answers you, “Peace,” and it opens up its gates for you, then all the people found in it will become forced labor for you and they will serve you.",
      "12": "But if it does not make peace with you, and it makes war against you, then lay siege against it.",
      "13": "The Lord your God will deliver it into your hands, and you will strike down all the males with the edge of the sword.",
      "14": "But the women and the children, and the cattle and everything that is in the city—all its plunder—take as spoils of war for yourself. You may make use of the plunder of your enemies that the Lord your God gives you.",
      "15": "Do this to all the cities that are very far away from you, which are not cities of the nations around here.",
      "16": "However, from the cities of these people that the Lord your God is giving to you as your inheritance, do not keep alive anything that breathes.",
      "17": "Devote them completely to destruction—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded you,",
      "18": "so that they do not teach you to commit all of the abominations that they commit for their gods, with the result that you sin against the Lord your God.",
      "19": "When you lay siege against a city for a long time, as you fight against it in order to capture it, do not destroy its trees by swinging axes against them, because you will be able to eat what the trees bear, so do not cut them down. For is a tree in the field something human that you should besiege it?",
      "20": "Only trees that you know are not food-producing trees may be destroyed. You may cut them down to build siege works against the city that makes war against you, until it falls."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "In the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess, if a person who has been killed is found lying in the open country and it is not known who struck him down,",
      "2": "then your elders and your judges are to go out and measure the distance from the person who was killed to each of the surrounding towns.",
      "3": "The elders of the city that is closest to the person who was killed are to take a heifer that has not been worked and has not pulled with a yoke.",
      "4": "The elders of that city are to bring the heifer down to a gully that has a flowing stream and that has not been plowed and sown, and they are to break the neck of the heifer there in the gully.",
      "5": "Then the priests, the descendants of Levi, are to come near, because the Lord your God has chosen them to serve and to bless you in the name of the Lord, and every dispute and every case of assault is to be decided according to their ruling.",
      "6": "Then all the elders of the city closest to the person who was killed are to wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the gully.",
      "7": "Then they are to testify by saying, “Our hands did not pour out this blood, and our eyes did not observe it.",
      "8": "Atone, Lord, for your people whom you have redeemed, and do not charge us with taking innocent life among your people Israel.” Then their bloodguilt will be atoned for.",
      "9": "In this way you will purge away from among you the guilt of shedding the blood of an innocent person by doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "10": "When you go out for battle against your enemies and the Lord your God gives them into your hands, if you take some of them as captives,",
      "11": "and you see in that group of captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her and would like to take her as your wife,",
      "12": "then you will bring her into your house. She is to shave her head and trim her nails.",
      "13": "She also is to remove the clothing she wore when she was captured and to stay in your house and weep for her father and her mother for a month. After that you may come to her and become her husband and she will become your wife.",
      "14": "Then if you are no longer pleased with her, you are to let her go as she desires. You must not sell her for money. You are not to deal with her as a slave, because you have humiliated her.",
      "15": "If a man has two wives, and one is loved and one is not loved, and both the loved one and the unloved one have borne children for him, and the firstborn son belongs to the unloved wife,",
      "16": "then on the day that he bequeaths what he owns to his sons, he cannot declare the son of the loved wife as his firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved wife, who is the true firstborn.",
      "17": "He must acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of everything that is recognized as his. Because that son is the beginning of his father’s virility, the legal right of the firstborn belongs to him.",
      "18": "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey the voice of his father and his mother, and they discipline him, but he will not listen to them,",
      "19": "then his father and his mother are to take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his hometown.",
      "20": "Then they will say to the elders of his city, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He does not obey us. He is a worthless glutton and a drunkard.”",
      "21": "Then all the men of his city are to stone him to death, and so you will purge the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear and fear.",
      "22": "If there is a man whose sin justly deserves a death sentence, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,",
      "23": "his dead body is not to remain on the tree overnight. You must bury him on the same day, because a person left hanging on a tree is cursed by God. You are not to defile your ground that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "If you see an ox or a sheep that belongs to your brother Israelite going astray, do not ignore it. Return it to your brother.",
      "2": "If your brother Israelite does not live nearby and you are not acquainted with him, bring it to your own house and keep it with you until your brother comes looking for it. Then return it to him.",
      "3": "Do the same with his donkey, the same with his clothing, and the same with anything your brother has lost and you have found. You are not allowed to do nothing.",
      "4": "If you see the donkey or ox that belongs to your brother Israelite and it has fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help him lift it up.",
      "5": "A woman must not wear the attire of a man, and a man is not to put on the clothing of a woman, because anyone doing these things is detestable to the Lord your God.",
      "6": "If you happen to see a bird’s nest along the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and it has young ones or eggs in it, and the mother is sitting over the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother along with the young birds.",
      "7": "You may take the young birds for yourself, but be sure to set the mother free, so that it may go well for you and you may have a long life.",
      "8": "When you build a new house, you are to make a railing for your roof so you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if someone should fall from it.",
      "9": "Do not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed. If you do, the whole yield becomes unusable—both the seed that you sow and the produce from the vineyard.",
      "10": "Do not plow with an ox and a donkey together.",
      "11": "Do not wear fabric that is a mixture of wool and linen.",
      "12": "Make tassels on the four corners of your clothing that you use to cover yourself.",
      "13": "If a man marries a woman and goes to her, and afterward he hates her",
      "14": "and accuses her with unfounded charges and defames her and says, “I married this woman, but when I approached her I found that she did not have evidence of virginity,”",
      "15": "then the father and mother of the girl are to produce evidence of the girl’s virginity and bring it to the elders of the city at the gate.",
      "16": "The father of the girl shall say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, and afterward he hated her,",
      "17": "so he has accused her with unfounded charges by saying, ‘I have found that your daughter does not have evidence of virginity,’ but here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.” Then they are to spread out the bed covering in front of the elders of the city.",
      "18": "Then the elders of that city will take the man and discipline him.",
      "19": "They will fine him a hundred pieces of silver and give them to the father of the girl because the man defamed a virgin of Israel. She shall continue to be his wife. He is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives.",
      "20": "But if the accusation proves to be the truth because evidence of the girl’s virginity was not found,",
      "21": "then they will bring the girl out to the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her city will pelt her with stones until she dies, because she did a disgraceful thing in Israel by shaming the house of her father with her sexual immorality. In this way you will purge the evil from among you.",
      "22": "If a man is found lying down with a married woman, both of them are to die: the man lying with the woman, and also the woman. In that way you will purge the evil from Israel.",
      "23": "If there is a virgin pledged in marriage to a man, and another man comes upon her in the city and lies down with her,",
      "24": "take both of them out to the gate of that city and pelt them with stones until they die—the girl, because she did not cry out for help in the city, and the man, because he violated the wife of another man. In that way you will purge the evil from your midst.",
      "25": "But if a man comes upon a girl who has been pledged in marriage and they are out in the countryside, and he grabs her and lies down with her, then only the man that lay with her must die.",
      "26": "Do not do anything to the girl. There is no sin worthy of death on her part, because this is like a case in which a man attacks another person and kills him.",
      "27": "He came upon her in the open country, and the girl who was pledged in marriage cried out for help, but she had no one to rescue her.",
      "28": "If a man finds a virgin who is not pledged in marriage and he grabs her and lies down with her and they are caught,",
      "29": "the man lying down with her must give the father of the girl fifty pieces of silver, and she will become his wife. Because he violated her, he is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives.",
      "30": "A man must not marry the wife of his father; that is, he is not to remove the skirt that is reserved for his father."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "No man whose testicles are crushed or who has a severed penis is to come within the assembly of the Lord.",
      "2": "A child born of an incestuous relationship is not to come within the assembly of the Lord. Even in the tenth generation his descendant is not to come within the assembly of the Lord.",
      "3": "An Ammonite or a Moabite is not to come within the assembly. Even in the tenth generation their descendants may never come within the assembly of the Lord,",
      "4": "because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey after you came out of Egypt, and because they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor of Aram Naharaim to curse you.",
      "5": "But the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, and the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you.",
      "6": "Do not seek their peace and prosperity as long as you live.",
      "7": "Do not detest an Edomite, because he is your brother. Do not detest an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land.",
      "8": "Their children may come within the assembly of the Lord in the third generation.",
      "9": "When you go out on a campaign against your enemies, you must guard yourselves against anything evil.",
      "10": "If there is a man among you who is unclean because of an emission during the night, he must go outside the camp. He must not come inside the camp.",
      "11": "Toward evening he is to bathe himself in water, and when the sun sets, he may re-enter the camp.",
      "12": "You are to have a designated area outside the camp where you can go.",
      "13": "In addition to your weapon, you must have a scraper with you so that when you squat out there, you can dig a hole with it and then proceed to cover up what comes out.",
      "14": "Since the Lord your God is moving within your camp to save you and to defeat your enemies before you, your camp is to be holy. Do not let him see anything indecent among you so that he turns away from you.",
      "15": "Do not return a slave who escaped to you from his master.",
      "16": "Let him live with you, among your people, in the place he chooses within one of your cities that he thinks is good for him. Do not mistreat him.",
      "17": "The daughters of Israel must not become female temple prostitutes, and neither are the sons of Israel to become male temple prostitutes.",
      "18": "Do not bring the fee earned by a whore or the pay earned by a “dog” to the house of the Lord your God to fulfill any vow, because it is an abomination to the Lord. Yes, both of them are.",
      "19": "Do not make your brother Israelite pay interest, whether interest of money or of food, or of anything that may be loaned out for interest.",
      "20": "You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your brother you are not to charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you do in the land that you are coming to possess.",
      "21": "When you make a vow to the Lord your God, do not delay fulfilling it, because the Lord your God will require it of you and you will be guilty.",
      "22": "But if you do not make a vow at all, you will not be guilty.",
      "23": "Whatever has passed from your lips you must be careful to do, because with your own mouth you vowed to make an offering to the Lord your God with your mouth.",
      "24": "When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat grapes to satisfy your appetite, but you must not put any into your container.",
      "25": "When you come into a field of standing grain belonging to your neighbor and you pluck the heads of grain with your hand, you are not allowed to use a sickle to cut his standing grain."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "When a man takes a woman and marries her, if she is not pleasing to him because he has found something indecent about her, and he writes her a divorce document and hands it to her and sends her out of his house,",
      "2": "and she leaves and moves on and becomes the wife of another man,",
      "3": "and then that second man hates her and writes her a divorce document and hands it to her and sends her out of his house, or perhaps the second man that took her as a wife dies,",
      "4": "in these circumstances her first husband, who sent her away, cannot take her again as his wife after she was stigmatized as impure, because that would be detestable to the Lord. You must not attach guilt to the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.",
      "5": "When a man takes a new wife, he must not go out with the army, and no one is to impose any duty on him. He is to be freed from duty for one year for the sake of his homelife so that he may make the woman whom he has married happy.",
      "6": "No person is to hold as security a mill or an upper millstone, because he would be holding someone’s livelihood as security.",
      "7": "If a man is caught kidnapping a fellow Israelite and enslaving him or selling him, that kidnapper must die, and you will purge the evil from among you.",
      "8": "Be careful during an outbreak of an impure skin disease by being very conscientious about doing everything that the priests, who are Levites, instruct you to do. Take care to do exactly as I have commanded them.",
      "9": "Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on your journey after coming out of Egypt.",
      "10": "When you make a loan to your neighbor, a loan of any kind, do not go into his house to take his security pledge.",
      "11": "Stand outside, and the man to whom you are making the loan will bring the pledged object out to you.",
      "12": "If he is a poor man, do not sleep in a garment he has pledged as security.",
      "13": "You are certainly to return the pledged object to him at sundown so he can sleep in his garment and bless you. Righteousness will be yours before the Lord your God.",
      "14": "Do not oppress a hired person who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brother Israelites or one of the aliens who reside in your land inside your gates.",
      "15": "Each day, before the sun goes down, pay him his wages, because he is poor and his life depends on it. If you do not, he will cry out against you, and you will be guilty of sin.",
      "16": "Fathers are not to be put to death because of their sons, and sons are not to be put to death because of their fathers. Each man is to be put to death because of his own crime.",
      "17": "Do not neglect justice for an alien who lives among you or for a fatherless child, and do not take the clothing of a widow as a pledge.",
      "18": "Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, but the Lord your God redeemed you from there. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.",
      "19": "When you harvest the crops in your field and you forget a bundle in the field, do not return to get it. It will be for the benefit of the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything your hands do.",
      "20": "When you beat your olives off the tree, do not strip the boughs clean of olives. Some are to be left for the benefit of the alien, the fatherless, and the widow.",
      "21": "When you cut grapes from your vineyard, do not go over it again. Leave some for the benefit of the alien, the fatherless, and the widow.",
      "22": "Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. That is why I am commanding you to do this."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "When there is a dispute between men and they go to court and a verdict is reached, and they have acquitted the innocent person and convicted the guilty one,",
      "2": "if the guilty one is to be flogged, the judge is to make him lie down, and he will order him to be flogged in his presence with the number of blows that is proportionate to his guilt.",
      "3": "He may have him struck forty times, but no more, so that your brother does not become degraded in your eyes by receiving a severe beating that goes beyond this number.",
      "4": "You are not to muzzle an ox when it is threshing.",
      "5": "When brothers live together and one of them dies without having children, the wife of the deceased brother is not to marry a stranger from outside the family. Her brother-in-law is to come and take her as his wife and perform for her the duty of a brother-in-law.",
      "6": "The firstborn that she bears will be recognized as a son who carries on the name of his deceased brother, so his name will not be erased from Israel.",
      "7": "But if a man does not want to marry his sister-in-law, his sister-in-law is to go to the city gate where the elders preside and say, “My brother-in-law refuses to establish a name in Israel for his brother. He does not want to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.”",
      "8": "Then the elders of his city are to call him and talk to him. If he stands firm and says, “I do not want to marry her,”",
      "9": "his sister-in-law is to approach him in the sight of the elders. She is to pull the sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and testify by saying, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up the house of his brother!”",
      "10": "Then the name that he will go by in Israel is “the house of a man whose sandal was pulled off.”",
      "11": "If two men are fighting each other, a man and his neighbor, and the wife of one comes up to rescue her husband from the hands of the one striking him, and she reaches out her hand and she grabs hold of his testicles,",
      "12": "you are to cut off her hand. Your eye is not to look on her with compassion.",
      "13": "Do not have two alternate sets of stone weights in your bag, larger and smaller.",
      "14": "Do not have alternate measures in your house, larger and smaller.",
      "15": "You must have a full and honest set of weights. You must have a full and honest set of measures, so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.",
      "16": "For anyone doing such things, anyone who acts dishonestly, is detestable to the Lord your God.",
      "17": "Remember what the Amalekites, without any fear of God, did to you on your journey after you came out of Egypt.",
      "18": "Remember how they confronted you on the way, when you were weak and tired, and they cut off all the stragglers among you, the ones who were lagging behind.",
      "19": "When the Lord your God gives you rest from all your enemies that are around you in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, wipe away the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. Do not forget!"
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and settle in it,",
      "2": "take some of the first ripe produce that you harvest from the soil of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Put it in a basket, and go to the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish his name.",
      "3": "Go to the priest who is presiding at that time and say to him, “Today I declare before the Lord your God that I have come to the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give to us.”",
      "4": "The priest will take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God.",
      "5": "Then you will respond and say in the presence of the Lord your God, “My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt and lived there as an alien with just a few people, but there he became a great, strong, and populous nation.",
      "6": "The Egyptians mistreated and afflicted us. They imposed hard labor on us.",
      "7": "We cried out to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and he saw our affliction, our labor, and oppression.",
      "8": "The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and with great awe-inspiring acts and signs and wonders.",
      "9": "He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.",
      "10": "So now, look as I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you have given me, Lord.”\nThen set the basket down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God.",
      "11": "Then you, as well as the Levite and the alien who resides among you, will rejoice in all the good things that the Lord your God has given to you and your household.",
      "12": "When you have finished tithing a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of tithing, and you have given it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless, and to the widow so that they may eat within the gates of your cities and be satisfied,",
      "13": "then say before the Lord your God, “I have completely removed the holy portion from my house, and I have also given it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless, and to the widow just as you have commanded me. I have neither transgressed nor forgotten your commandments.",
      "14": "I have not eaten any of it while I was mourning, and I have not removed any of it while I was unclean or given any of it for the dead. I have obeyed the voice of the Lord my God. I have done just as you have commanded me.",
      "15": "Look down from your holy dwelling place, from the heavens, and bless your people Israel and the soil that you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.”",
      "16": "The Lord your God commands you this day to carry out these statutes and commandments, and to be careful to do them with all your heart and soul.",
      "17": "You have declared today that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways and keep his statutes and commandments and his ordinances and obey his voice.",
      "18": "The Lord has declared today, just as he promised you, that you are his treasured people who are to carry out all of his commandments,",
      "19": "and that he will set you up in praise, fame, and splendor, high above all the nations that he has made, and that you will be set apart as a holy people to the Lord your God, just as he promised."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "Moses and the elders of Israel gave the following orders to the people: Keep the entire set of commands that I am giving you today.",
      "2": "At the time that you cross the Jordan into the land that the Lord your God is giving to you, set up large stones and coat them with lime plaster.",
      "3": "Write on them all the words of this law when you cross over to enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you.",
      "4": "When you cross over the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal and coat them with lime plaster, as I am commanding you today.",
      "5": "Build an altar there to the Lord your God, an altar made of stones. Do not shape them with an iron tool.",
      "6": "Build the altar of the Lord your God with whole, uncut stones, and offer whole burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God.",
      "7": "Sacrifice fellowship offerings and eat there, and rejoice before the Lord your God.",
      "8": "Write clearly and carefully all of the words of this law on the stones.",
      "9": "Moses and the priests, who are Levites, also spoke the following to all Israel:\nBe silent and listen, Israel! Today you have become the people of the Lord your God.",
      "10": "Obey the voice of the Lord your God and carry out his commandments and statutes that I am giving you today.",
      "11": "Then Moses gave this command to the people that day:",
      "12": "The following tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you cross the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.",
      "13": "The following will stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.",
      "14": "The Levites will testify to every person of Israel with a loud voice:",
      "15": "Cursed is the man that makes a carved image or a molten metal image, an abomination to the Lord, a work of the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up secretly.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "16": "Cursed is anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "17": "Cursed is anyone who moves the boundary marker of his neighbor.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "18": "Cursed is anyone who leads astray a blind man on his way.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "19": "Cursed is anyone who perverts the justice due to an alien who resides among you, or justice due to the fatherless or a widow.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "20": "Cursed is any man who lies down with his father’s wife, because he has removed the skirt that is reserved for his father.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "21": "Cursed is anyone who lies down with any animal.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "22": "Cursed is any man who lies down with his sister, either the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "23": "Cursed is any man who lies down with his mother-in-law.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "24": "Cursed is anyone who strikes down his neighbor secretly.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "25": "Cursed is anyone who takes payment to strike down an innocent person.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”",
      "26": "Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by doing them.\n    All the people will say, “Amen!”"
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "If you fully obey the voice of the Lord your God by carefully carrying out all his commandments that I am giving you today, then the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.",
      "2": "All of the following blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of the Lord your God:",
      "3": "You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the fields.",
      "4": "You will be blessed in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your soil, and in the fruit of your animals: the calves of your cattle and the lambs of your flock.",
      "5": "You will be blessed in your basket and in your kneading trough.",
      "6": "You will be blessed when you come in, and you will be blessed when you go out.",
      "7": "The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. From one direction they will come out against you, but they will flee from you in seven directions.",
      "8": "The Lord will command a blessing on you in your storehouses and in regard to every action of your hand, and he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.",
      "9": "The Lord will establish you as his holy people, just as he swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and you walk in his ways.",
      "10": "Then all the people of the earth will see that the name of the Lord has been proclaimed over you, and they will fear you.",
      "11": "The Lord will cause you to be overflowing with good things: with the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your animals, and the fruit of the soil of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.",
      "12": "The Lord will open for you his good storehouse, the heavens, by giving rain for your land in its season and by blessing all the work of your hand.\nThen you will cause many nations to borrow from you, but you yourself will not borrow.",
      "13": "The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will be only at the top and never at the bottom, if you conscientiously obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today to carry out,",
      "14": "and if you do not turn away to the right or to the left from all the words that I am commanding you today, to walk after other gods and serve them.",
      "15": "If you do not listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do not carefully carry out all of his commandments and statutes that I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.",
      "16": "You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the fields.",
      "17": "You will be cursed in your basket and in your kneading trough.",
      "18": "You will be cursed in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your soil, in the calves of your cattle and in the lambs of your flock.",
      "19": "You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out.",
      "20": "The Lord will send on you a curse and confusion and opposition in every undertaking of your hand that you carry out, until you are destroyed and until you quickly perish, because of the evil you have done by forsaking me.",
      "21": "The Lord will cause epidemics to cling to you until he has removed you from your land that you are going to possess.",
      "22": "The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with intense heat and with drought, and with blight and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.",
      "23": "The skies over your head will become bronze, and the earth under you will become iron.",
      "24": "The Lord will turn the rain of your land to dust. From the heavens it will come down on you until you are destroyed.",
      "25": "The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. In one direction you will go out against them, but in seven directions you will flee from them, and you will become a horrible sight to all the kingdoms of the earth.",
      "26": "Your dead bodies will become food for every bird of the sky and every animal of the earth, and there will not be anyone to scare them away.",
      "27": "The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, scabs, and itch, from which you cannot be healed.",
      "28": "The Lord will strike you with insanity and with blindness and with a confused mind.",
      "29": "You will grope at noon as a blind person gropes in the dark, and you will not prosper in your ways.\nYou will be cheated and robbed all the time, and there will be no one to rescue you.",
      "30": "You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her.\nYou will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not enjoy its fruit.",
      "31": "Your ox will be slaughtered in front of your eyes, but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be seized right in front of your face, and it will not return to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, but there will be no one to help you.",
      "32": "Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will grow weak as you look longingly for them all day long, but your hands will be powerless.",
      "33": "A people that you do not know will eat what your soil and all your work produces.\nYou will be squeezed and crushed throughout the days",
      "34": "until you go insane from the sights that your eyes will see.",
      "35": "The Lord will strike you on your knees and legs with distressing boils from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.",
      "36": "The Lord will lead you and the king, whom you will set over you, to a nation that you and your fathers have not known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone.",
      "37": "You will become an object of horror, the subject of proverbs, and the butt of sarcastic taunts among all the people to whom the Lord will send you.",
      "38": "You will take a lot of seed out to the field, but you will harvest little, because locusts will finish it off.",
      "39": "You will plant and tend vineyards, but you will not drink the wine and store it, because worms will eat them up.",
      "40": "You will have olive trees covering your whole property, but you will not anoint yourselves with oil, because your olives will fall off the trees.",
      "41": "You will produce sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.",
      "42": "Locusts will take possession of all of your trees and all the fruit of your land.",
      "43": "The alien who resides among you will ascend higher and higher over you, and you will descend lower and lower.",
      "44": "He will cause you to borrow, but you will not cause him to borrow. He will become the head, and you will become the tail.",
      "45": "All of these curses will come upon you, and they will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.",
      "46": "They will be signs and wonders against you and your descendants perpetually.",
      "47": "Because you would not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness in your heart flowing from the abundance of everything he gave you,",
      "48": "you will serve your enemies that the Lord will unleash against you in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and a lack of everything, and he will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.",
      "49": "He will bring a nation from far away against you, from the end of the earth, as fast as an eagle soars through the air, a nation whose language you do not understand,",
      "50": "a fierce nation that does not show any regard for the old or any mercy to the young.",
      "51": "That nation will eat the produce from your animals and the fruit from your soil until you are destroyed. It will leave you no grain, no new wine, no fresh oil, no calves of your cattle or lambs from your flock until it has caused you to perish.",
      "52": "That nation will besiege you in all of your cities until the high, fortified walls that you were trusting collapse throughout your land. When that nation besieges you in all of the cities throughout your whole land that the Lord your God is giving you,",
      "53": "you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, because of the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.",
      "54": "The most sensitive and refined man among you will be so begrudging against his brother, against the wife he embraces, and against any of his children who still survive,",
      "55": "that he will not give to any one of them some of the flesh of his children that he is eating, because then he would have nothing left for himself, because of the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you in all of your cities.",
      "56": "The most sensitive and refined woman among you, so refined and sensitive that she would not venture to touch the sole of her foot to the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter",
      "57": "the afterbirth that goes out from between her legs and the babies that she gives birth to, because she plans to eat them secretly since she has nothing else, as a result of the siege and the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in all of your cities.",
      "58": "If you are not careful to carry out all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome Name, the Lord your God,",
      "59": "then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants: severe, long-lasting plagues and distressing, long-lasting sicknesses.",
      "60": "Then he will bring back on you all the sicknesses of Egypt that you feared, and they will cling to you.",
      "61": "More than that, the Lord will bring on you all other sicknesses and plagues that are not written in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.",
      "62": "Then you will be left as just a few people instead of being as numerous as the stars in the heavens, because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.",
      "63": "Just as the Lord delighted in making you prosperous and making you many in number, likewise the Lord will delight in causing you to perish and in destroying you. You will be torn away from your land that you are going to possess.",
      "64": "The Lord will scatter you among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods, gods made of wood and stone, gods that you and your fathers have not known.",
      "65": "Still, among those nations you will find no peace, nor will the sole of your foot find a place to rest. There the Lord will give you a trembling heart and longing eyes and a despairing soul.",
      "66": "Your life will be hung out in front of you. Night and day you will live in dread, and you will not expect to survive.",
      "67": "In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” In the evening you will say, “If only it were morning!” because of the dread you feel in your heart and because of what your eyes see.",
      "68": "The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships on a journey that I said you would never again experience. There you will try to sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.",
      "2": "Moses summoned all Israel and spoke to them as follows:\nYou have seen everything that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to his whole land:",
      "3": "the great trials that your eyes saw, those great signs and wonders.",
      "4": "Yet the Lord to this very day has not given you a heart to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear.",
      "5": "“I led you through the wilderness for forty years. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did the sandals on your feet.",
      "6": "You did not eat bread, and you did not drink wine and beer. I did all this so you would know that I am the Lord your God.”",
      "7": "When you came to this place, and Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to meet us in battle, we struck them down.",
      "8": "We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half of the tribe of Manasseh.",
      "9": "Therefore you are to keep the words of this covenant and carry them out so that you may succeed in all that you do.",
      "10": "You are standing today before the Lord your God, all of you—your tribal heads, your elders, your officers, and men of every rank in Israel,",
      "11": "your children, your wives, and the aliens who reside in your camp, whether as wood cutters or water carriers.",
      "12": "You are standing here so that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, which is sealed by the oath that the Lord your God is making with you today,",
      "13": "in order to establish you today as his people and himself as your God, just as he promised you and just as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.",
      "14": "Today I am not making this covenant and its oath only with you,",
      "15": "but also with everyone who is standing here with us before the Lord our God, and also with those who are not here with us today.",
      "16": "You yourselves know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we passed through the midst of the various nations we encountered.",
      "17": "You saw their detestable things and their filthy idols of wood and stone and silver and gold that were with them.",
      "18": "Make sure that there is not among you a man, a woman, a family, or a tribe whose heart today is turning away from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Make sure that there is among you no root that is producing a poison plant and bitter wormwood.",
      "19": "When such a person hears the words of this oath, he might congratulate himself in his heart and say, “I’ll be safe, even though I’m proceeding in my stubborn way.” By acting this way he will destroy the watered ground as well as the parched.",
      "20": "The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger and jealousy of the Lord will smoke against that man, and all the curses written in this document will come to rest on him, and the Lord will wipe away his name from under the heavens.",
      "21": "The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, in keeping with all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law.",
      "22": "And when the next generation, your children who will come after your time, and the foreigner who will come from a distant land have seen the plagues on that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord struck it, they will say,",
      "23": "“Sulfur and salt, conflagration for all of its land! No planting, no sprouting, no maturing crop in it! It will be like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his fierce anger!”",
      "24": "Then all the nations will say, “Why did the Lord do something like that to this land? What is the reason for this burning, this fierce anger?”",
      "25": "Then they will say, “It is because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.",
      "26": "They went and served other gods and bowed down to them, gods that they had not known and that he had not allotted to them.",
      "27": "So the anger of the Lord burned against that land to bring on it the entire curse written in this book.",
      "28": "The Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, in rage, and in his great wrath, and he hurled them into another land, as it is to this day.”",
      "29": "The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, so that we carry out all the words of this law."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "When all these things come upon you, both the blessing and the curse that I have given you, and you take them to heart while you are among all the nations to which the Lord your God has banished you,",
      "2": "and when you return to the Lord your God and listen to his voice with all your heart and soul, in every way that I am commanding you today, you and your children,",
      "3": "then the Lord your God will restore you from your captivity. He will have compassion on you, and he will gather you together again out of all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.",
      "4": "Even if your banished people are at the end of the heavens, the Lord your God will gather you together there and take you away from there.",
      "5": "The Lord your God will bring you back to the land that your fathers possessed, and then you will possess it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.",
      "6": "The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with the result that you will live.",
      "7": "Then the Lord your God will place all these curses on your enemies and on those who hated you and persecuted you.",
      "8": "Once again you will listen to the voice of the Lord, and you will carry out all of his commands that I am giving you today.",
      "9": "The Lord your God will cause you to be overflowing with good things from all the work of your hands, in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your animals, and in the fruit of your soil. Once again he will rejoice over your prosperity, just as he rejoiced over your fathers,",
      "10": "when you obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes written in this Book of the Law, when you return to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.",
      "11": "Certainly, this commandment that I am giving you today is not too difficult for you, and it is not far away.",
      "12": "It is not up in the heavens, so that you have to say, “Which one of us will go up to the heavens and get it for us so we can listen to it and carry it out?”",
      "13": "It is not across the sea, so that you have to say, “Which one of us will cross over to the other side of the sea and get it for us so we can listen to it and carry it out?”",
      "14": "Instead, the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so you can obey it.",
      "15": "See now, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster.",
      "16": "This is what I am commanding you today: Love the Lord your God, walk in his ways, and keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and increase in number, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are going to possess.",
      "17": "But if your heart turns away, and you do not listen, and you are lured away, and you bow down to other gods and serve them,",
      "18": "then I declare to you today that you will most certainly perish. You will not live a long life on the land that you are about to enter and possess by crossing over the Jordan.",
      "19": "I call the heavens and the earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live",
      "20": "by loving the Lord your God, by listening to his voice, and by clinging to him, because that means life for you, and you will live a long life on your land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "Moses came and spoke the following words to all Israel.",
      "2": "He said to them:\n“I am now one hundred twenty years old. I can no longer go out and come back. The Lord has said to me, ‘You will not cross over this Jordan.’",
      "3": "“The Lord your God himself will cross over before you. He will destroy those nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua is the one who will cross over before you, as the Lord promised.",
      "4": "The Lord will do to them as he did to Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites, and as he did to their lands when he destroyed them.",
      "5": "The Lord will hand them over to you, and you are to deal with them according to the whole set of commands that I gave you.",
      "6": "“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid and do not be terrified before them, because the Lord your God is going with you. He will not abandon you and he will not forsake you.”",
      "7": "Moses called Joshua and said to him in the view of all Israel:\n“Be strong and courageous, because you will go with this people into the land that the Lord promised to your fathers with an oath, and you will divide it among them as their possession.",
      "8": "The Lord himself will go ahead of you. He will be with you. He will not abandon you, and he will not forsake you. Do not be afraid and do not be overwhelmed.”",
      "9": "Then Moses wrote down this law, and he gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi who carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.",
      "10": "Moses commanded them:\n“At the end of seven years, at the appointed time of the year of the release, at the Festival of Shelters,",
      "11": "when all Israel comes to appear in the presence of the Lord your God at the place that he will choose, you are to read this law before all Israel in their hearing.",
      "12": "Gather the people—the men, the women, the children, and the alien who resides within your gates—so that they may hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God and to be careful to carry out all the words of this law.",
      "13": "Their children also, who do not know the law, are to hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God all the time that you live on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”",
      "14": "Then the Lord said to Moses, “The time is approaching for you to die. Summon Joshua and stand at the Tent of Meeting, and I will commission him.”\nSo Moses and Joshua went and stood at the Tent of Meeting.",
      "15": "Then the Lord appeared at the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood over the entrance to the tent.",
      "16": "The Lord said to Moses:\n“You are about to lie down with your fathers, but this people will rise up and prostitute themselves to the foreign gods among them in the land they are about to enter. They will forsake me and break my covenant that I made with them.",
      "17": "My anger will burn against them on that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them. They will be on the verge of being devoured, and many evils and distresses will find them. They will say on that day, ‘Haven’t these evil things found us because our God is not among us?’",
      "18": "Yet I will hide my face on that day because of all the evil they have done by turning to other gods.",
      "19": "“So now, write down this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths so this song will be my witness against the people of Israel.",
      "20": "When I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey that I promised by oath to their fathers, and they eat and are satisfied and grow fat, and they then turn to other gods and serve them, when they despise me and break my covenant,",
      "21": "and many evils and distresses find them, then this song will testify against them as a witness, because it will not be forgotten or gone from the mouths of their descendants. I certainly know the inclination that they are developing today before I bring them to the land that I have promised on oath.”",
      "22": "So Moses wrote down this song on that day and taught it to the people of Israel.",
      "23": "Then the Lord commissioned Joshua son of Nun and said to him:\n“Be strong and courageous, because you will bring the people of Israel into the land that I have promised to them with an oath, and I will be with you.”",
      "24": "When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book,",
      "25": "he gave this command to the Levites, who carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord:",
      "26": "“Take this Book of the Law, and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, and let it remain there as a witness against you.",
      "27": "I certainly know how rebellious and stubborn you are. Even while I am still alive and among you today, you are rebels against the Lord. So how much more after my death!",
      "28": "Assemble all the elders of your tribes and your officials before me, and I will speak all these words in their hearing, and I will call the heavens and the earth to witness against them.",
      "29": "I know that after my death you will act corruptly and turn from the way that I have commanded you, and that evil will come on you in future days when you do evil in the sight of the Lord by provoking him to anger by the work of your hands.”",
      "30": "Then Moses spoke the words of this song in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel, from beginning to end:"
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak.\nLet the earth hear the sayings from my mouth.",
      "2": "Let my teaching drop down like rain,\nand let my sayings distill like dew,\nlike raindrops on grass,\nlike showers on green plants.",
      "3": "Yes, I will proclaim the name of the Lord.\nAscribe greatness to our God.",
      "4": "He is the Rock! Perfect is his work.\nIndeed all of his ways are justice.\nHe is a faithful God. He does no wrong.\nRighteous and upright is he.",
      "5": "Israel acted corruptly against him.\nThey are not his children.\nThat is their fault.\nThey are a twisted and crooked generation.",
      "6": "Is this how you repay the Lord,\nyou foolish people, who are not wise?\nIs he not your father, who created you,\nwho made you and established you?",
      "7": "Remember the days of the distant past.\nConsider the years of many generations.\nAsk your father and he will tell you about it.\nAsk your elders and they will describe it to you.",
      "8": "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,\nwhen he separated the children of Adam,\nhe established the boundaries for peoples\n    according to the number of the sons of Israel.",
      "9": "But the allotment for the Lord is his people.\nJacob is the territory that is his possession.",
      "10": "The Lord found Jacob in a wild land,\nin a desolate land, in a howling wasteland.\nHe encircled him. He cared for him.\nHe guarded him like the pupil of his eye.",
      "11": "As an eagle rises from its nest\nand hovers over its young,\nthen spreads its wings to catch them\nand carries them on the edge of its wings,",
      "12": "so the Lord alone led Israel.\nThere was no foreign god with him.",
      "13": "He caused them to ride over the high places of the land,\nand they ate the produce from the fields.\nHe caused them to suck honey from the rocks\nand olive oil from the hardest flint.",
      "14": "He fed them with curds from the cattle and milk from the flocks,\nwith fat lambs, rams, and goats from Bashan,\nwith the very best wheat,\nand they drank foaming wine, the blood of the grape.",
      "15": "Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.\nYou grew fat, you were stout, you were stuffed.\nThen he abandoned the God who made him,\nand he mocked the Rock who saved him.",
      "16": "They made him jealous with strange gods.\nThey provoked him with abominations.",
      "17": "They sacrificed to demons that are not gods,\nto gods they had not known,\nto newcomers from their neighbors,\ngods whom your fathers did not fear.",
      "18": "You failed to remember the Rock who conceived you.\nYou forgot the God who gave you birth.",
      "19": "The Lord saw this and rejected them,\nbecause his sons and daughters had provoked him.",
      "20": "So the Lord said:\n    I will hide my face from them,\n    until I see what their final condition will be,\n    because they are a twisted generation,\n    children who cannot be trusted.",
      "21": "They have made me jealous with their non-gods.\nThey have provoked me with their useless things.\nSo I will make them jealous by a non-people.\nBy a foolish nation I will provoke them.",
      "22": "For a fire has been ignited by my anger,\nand it burns to the depths of hell.\nIt devours the earth and its produce.\nIt sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.",
      "23": "I will pile up disasters for them.\nI will use up all my arrows on them.",
      "24": "They will be sucked dry by hunger and burned up by fever.\nI will send them bitter destruction.\nWild animals will sink their teeth into them\n    with the burning venom of snakes that crawl in the dust.",
      "25": "In the street the sword will take away their children.\nInside the houses terror will fill young man and\n    young woman alike,\nthe nursing child, together with the gray-haired old man.",
      "26": "I would have said, “I will cut them to pieces.\nI will erase their memory from mankind,”",
      "27": "if I had not dreaded the taunting of the enemy.\nI did not want their adversaries to misunderstand.\nI did not want them to say,\n“Our hand is high-and-mighty,\nand the Lord has not done any of this.”",
      "28": "For they are a nation that never takes advice,\nand they understand nothing.",
      "29": "If only they had been wise,\nthey would have comprehended this.\nThey would have understood\nwhat the final outcome would be.",
      "30": "How could one pursue a thousand,\nand two chase away ten thousand,\nunless their Rock had sold them,\nand the Lord had handed them over?",
      "31": "Yes, their rock is not like our Rock,\nas our enemies themselves recognize.",
      "32": "For their vine grows from the vine of Sodom\nand from the fields of Gomorrah.\nTheir grapes are poison grapes.\nThey have bitter clusters.",
      "33": "Their wine is burning snake venom\nand the deadly poison of cobras.",
      "34": "Do I not have all this stored up with me?\nIs this not sealed up in my storehouses?",
      "35": "To me belongs vengeance and repayment.\nIt will come at the time when their foot slips.\nIndeed, the day of their disaster is near,\nand their impending doom is coming quickly.",
      "36": "Yes, the Lord will judge his people,\nbut he will change his course of action toward his servants\nwhen he sees that their strength is exhausted,\nand that there are none left, either as prisoners or still free.",
      "37": "Then he will say:\nWhere are their gods,\nthe rock in which they sought refuge,",
      "38": "the gods that ate the fat of their sacrifices\n    and drank the wine of their drink offerings?\n    Let them rise up and help you.\n    Let them be a shelter over you.",
      "39": "Now see that I, only I, am he,\n    and there is not a god comparable to me.\n    I put to death and I make alive.\n    I wound and I heal.\n    There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.",
      "40": "For I lift up my hand to heaven,\n    and I swear: “As I live forever,",
      "41": "if I sharpen the lightning, which is my sword,\n    and my hand grabs hold of judgment,\n    I will take revenge against my adversaries,\n    and I will repay those who hate me.",
      "42": "I will make my arrows drunk with blood,\n    and my sword will devour flesh\n    from the blood of the slain and the captives,\n    from the long-haired heads of the enemy.”",
      "43": "Shout out with a cry of joy, you nations, because of his people,\nfor he will avenge the blood of his servants,\nand he will return vengeance to his adversaries,\nbut he will atone for the ground, for his people.",
      "44": "Moses came along with Hoshea son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people.",
      "45": "Then when Moses had finished speaking all of these words to all Israel,",
      "46": "he also said to them:\n“Direct your heart to all the words that I am calling as a witness against you today. Instruct your children with them so that they may be careful to carry out all the words of this law,",
      "47": "for it is not empty talk for you, because it is your life. By this word you will live long on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”",
      "48": "On this same day the Lord spoke to Moses:",
      "49": "“Go up to Mount Nebo, this mountain of the Abarim range, which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho, and view the land of Canaan that I am giving to the people of Israel as a possession,",
      "50": "and die on the mountain that you are about to ascend and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.",
      "51": "This will happen because you broke faith with me among the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin, by not treating me as holy among the people of Israel.",
      "52": "You may view the land from a distance, but you will not go into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel.”"
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "The following is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the people of Israel before his death.",
      "2": "He said:\nThe Lord came from Sinai,\nand from Seir he rose like the sun for them.\nHe was shining from Mount Paran,\nand he came with ten thousand holy ones.\nFrom his right hand a fiery law flew at them.",
      "3": "Indeed, you love the peoples.\nAll his holy ones are in your hand.\nThey are seated at your feet.\nEach one rises after hearing your words.",
      "4": "Moses commanded a law for us\nas a possession for the assembly of Jacob.",
      "5": "The Lord was King in Jeshurun,\nwhen the heads of the people gathered\ntogether with the tribes of Israel.",
      "6": "May Reuben live and not die,\nbut may his men be few in number.",
      "7": "Concerning Judah he said this:\nHear, O Lord, the voice of Judah,\nand bring him to his people.\nWith his own hands he fights for them,\nand you will be a help against his enemies.",
      "8": "Concerning Levi he said:\nYour Thummim and your Urim belong to your favored man,\nwhom you tested at Massah,\nwith whom you contended at the waters of Meribah.",
      "9": "He said about his father and mother,\n“I do not recognize them.”\nHe did not show regard for his own brother.\nHe did not acknowledge his own children.\nInstead he protected your word,\nand he guarded your covenant.",
      "10": "The Levites will teach your judgments to Jacob.\nThey will teach your law to Israel.\nThey will burn incense for you to smell.\nThey will offer whole offerings upon your altar.",
      "11": "Bless, O Lord, his strength,\nand accept the work of his hands.\nCripple those who rise against him.\nPrevent those who hate him from rising against him.",
      "12": "Concerning Benjamin he said:\nThose loved by the Lord will dwell with him safely.\nHe will be a canopy over them all day.\nThey will rest securely against his chest.",
      "13": "Concerning Joseph he said:\nHis land is blessed by the Lord:\nblessed with the best gifts from the heavens,\nblessed with dew and with the deep waters hidden below,",
      "14": "blessed with the best gifts produced by the sun,\nblessed with the best gifts yielded by the seasons,",
      "15": "blessed with the best crops from the ancient mountains,\nblessed with the best gifts from the everlasting hills,",
      "16": "blessed with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness,\nblessed with the favor of the one who was dwelling in\n    the burning bush.\nMay all these come on the head of Joseph,\non the forehead of the one set apart from his brothers.",
      "17": "Like a firstborn bull, he has majesty,\nand his horns are the horns of a wild ox.\nWith them he will gore the peoples,\nall the peoples, to the ends of the earth.\nSuch are the ten thousands of Ephraim.\nSuch are the thousands of Manasseh.",
      "18": "Concerning Zebulun he said:\nRejoice, Zebulun, when you go out.\nRejoice, Issachar, in your tents.",
      "19": "They will call people to the mountain.\nThere they will sacrifice righteous offerings.\nIndeed they will nurse on the abundance from the seas\nand on the treasures hidden in the sand.",
      "20": "Concerning Gad he said:\nBlessed is the one who enlarges Gad.\nLike a lioness he settles down.\nHe tears off arms and even heads.",
      "21": "He selected the best portion for himself,\nthe portion reserved for the ruler.\nHe came with heads of the people\nto carry out the righteousness of the Lord,\nto carry out his judgments along with Israel.",
      "22": "Concerning Dan he said:\nDan is a lion cub.\nHe leaps out from Bashan.",
      "23": "Concerning Naphtali he said:\nNaphtali is abounding with favor.\nHe is full of the blessing of the Lord.\nTake possession of the west and south.",
      "24": "Concerning Asher he said:\nThe most blessed of sons is Asher.\nMay he be pleasing to his brothers.\nMay he bathe his feet in olive oil.",
      "25": "Your door bolts are iron and bronze.\nMay your strength be as long-lasting as all your days.",
      "26": "There is no one like the God of Jeshurun,\nwho rides through the heavens to help you.\nIn his majesty he rides through the clouds.",
      "27": "The everlasting God is a dwelling place,\nand his eternal arms are under you.\nHe drove out the enemy in front of you,\nand he said, “Destroy!”",
      "28": "So Israel settled down in safety.\nJacob dwelt in security\nin a land of grain and fresh wine,\nand, yes, its heavens dropped down dew.",
      "29": "How blessed are you, O Israel!\nWho is like you?\nYou are a people saved by the Lord,\nthe shield who gives you help,\nthe sword who gives you majesty.\nYour enemies will come cringing before you,\nand you will trample on their high places."
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "Moses went up from the Plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: the territory of Gilead as far as Dan,",
      "2": "all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, the whole land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea,",
      "3": "the Negev, and the Kikkar as far as Zoar (that is, the plain in the valley around Jericho, the City of Palms).",
      "4": "Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when I said I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over to it.”",
      "5": "So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab as the Lord had said.",
      "6": "The Lord buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day.",
      "7": "Moses was one hundred twenty years old at his death. His eyes had not grown dim, and his vigor had not declined.",
      "8": "So the children of Israel wept for Moses in the Arabah of Moab for thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.",
      "9": "Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him, so the people of Israel listened to him and did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "10": "Never again has a prophet risen in Israel like Moses, who knew the Lord face-to-face.",
      "11": "Moses performed all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh and against all his officials and his whole land.",
      "12": "No other prophet ever displayed all of the mighty power and the great, awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel."
    }
  },
  "Joshua": {
    "1": {
      "1": "This is what happened after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord.\nThe Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, the attendant of Moses,",
      "2": "“Moses my servant is dead. So prepare to cross the Jordan River that lies in front of you. You and all this people, prepare to go into the land that I am about to give to the people of Israel.",
      "3": "I have given you every place where the sole of your foot has stepped, just as I promised Moses.",
      "4": "From the Wilderness and from Lebanon to the Great River, the Euphrates River—all the land of the Hittites—as far as the Mediterranean Sea, where the sun sets, this will be your territory.",
      "5": "No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, I will be with you. I will not abandon you, and I will not forsake you.",
      "6": "“Be strong and courageous, because you will divide this land among these people, this land which I swore to their fathers that I would give to this people.",
      "7": "Just be strong and very courageous. Be careful to act according to the entire Law which my servant Moses commanded for you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may succeed wherever you go.",
      "8": "This Book of the Law must never depart from your mouth, and you are to meditate on it day and night, so that you will act faithfully according to everything written in it, because then you will prosper in everything you do, and you will succeed.",
      "9": "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified and do not be overwhelmed, because the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”",
      "10": "So Joshua gave this order to the officers of the people:",
      "11": "“Go through the camp and give this order to the people: ‘Prepare provisions for yourselves, because within three days you will be crossing over this Jordan to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving to you as a possession.’”",
      "12": "To the Reubenites and the Gadites and to half of the tribe of Manasseh Joshua said,",
      "13": "“Remember the command that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you when he said, ‘The Lord your God is granting you rest, and he has given you this land.’",
      "14": "Your wives, your children, and your cattle will stay in the land that Moses gave you east of the Jordan, but you yourselves, all of your strong warriors in their military units, are to cross over ahead of your brothers. You are to help your brothers",
      "15": "until the Lord gives rest to them as he has to you and they too take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you may return to the land allotted to you so that you may fully possess the land that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave to you in the area east of the Jordan, toward the sunrise.”",
      "16": "Then they answered Joshua, “Everything that you have commanded us we will do. We will go to any place you send us.",
      "17": "Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, we will likewise obey you. May the Lord your God be with you, just as he was with Moses.",
      "18": "Anyone who rebels against your orders and does not obey whatever you command him will be put to death. Just be strong and courageous!”"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Now Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two men from Shittim to be spies. He said, “Go and look over the land and Jericho.” So they set out and came to the house of a woman who was a prostitute. Her name was Rahab. They settled in to spend the night there.",
      "2": "It was reported to the king of Jericho: “Some Israelite men came here tonight to spy on the land.”",
      "3": "So the king of Jericho sent messengers to Rahab. They said, “Bring out the men who came to you, the ones who came to your house, because they have come to spy on the whole land.”",
      "4": "Now the woman had taken the two men and had hidden both of them. So she said, “Yes, the men did come to me, but I did not know where they were from.",
      "5": "When the gate was about to be shut at dark, the men left. I do not know where the men went. Go after them quickly so you can overtake them.”",
      "6": "But she actually had taken them up to the roof and had concealed them among the stalks of flax that she had spread out on the roof.",
      "7": "The men of Jericho then went to pursue them along the route to the Jordan that led to the fords. The city gate was closed just after the pursuers had gone out to pursue the spies.",
      "8": "But before the men lay down, Rahab came up to them on the roof.",
      "9": "She said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land. Because of you, terror has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land are melting in fear before you.",
      "10": "Indeed, we have heard that the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea in front of you when you came out of Egypt, and we heard what you did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan—to Sihon and to Og. We heard that you devoted them to destruction.",
      "11": "We heard, and our hearts melted, and no one’s courage could hold up anymore against you, because the Lord your God is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.",
      "12": "So now, please swear to me by the Lord that since I have shown kindness to you, you in turn will show kindness to my father’s house. Give me a trustworthy sign",
      "13": "that you will preserve the lives of my father and mother and my brothers and sisters and everyone who belongs to them, and that you will spare our lives.”",
      "14": "The men said to her, “If you do not reveal what we are doing, our lives are pledged for your lives, even to the point of death. Then when the Lord gives us the land, we will show mercy and faithfulness to you.”",
      "15": "She let them down through the window with a rope, since her house was built into the city wall, and she was living inside the wall.",
      "16": "She said to them, “To the hill country! Get moving, so the pursuers do not catch up with you. Hide there for three days until the pursuers return, and then you can go on your way.”",
      "17": "The men said to her, “When we come into the land, we will be free from this oath that you made us swear",
      "18": "unless you tie this bright red cord in the window through which you let us down, and you gather your father and mother, your brothers, and your father’s entire household into your house.",
      "19": "If any one of them goes outside the doors of your house, his blood will be on his own head, and we will be free of guilt. Anyone who is with you in the house, his blood will be on our heads if a hand is laid on him.",
      "20": "If you reveal what we are doing, we will be free from the oath that you made us swear.”",
      "21": "She said, “It will be done just as you have said!” Then she sent them out, and they went away. She tied the bright red cord in the window.",
      "22": "After they left, they went up into the hill country and stayed there for three days, until the pursuers had returned. The pursuers had searched for them all along the route, but they found nothing.",
      "23": "So then the two men set out to return. After they had come down from the hill country, they crossed the river and came to Joshua son of Nun. They reported to him everything that had happened to them.",
      "24": "They said to Joshua, “The Lord has without doubt given the entire land into our hands. What’s more, all the inhabitants of the land are melting in fear before us.”"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "After Joshua had gotten up early in the morning, he and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and arrived at the Jordan. They stayed there until they crossed over.",
      "2": "After three days the officers went through the camp",
      "3": "and gave this order to the people: “As soon as you see the priests from the tribe of Levi carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, you are to set out from your position and follow the ark.",
      "4": "But keep a distance between you and the ark—about three thousand feet. Do not get too close to it, so that you can determine which way you should go, because you have never crossed over this way before.”",
      "5": "Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, because tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”",
      "6": "Then Joshua said to the priests, “Lift up the Ark of the Covenant and pass by in front of the people.” So they lifted up the Ark of the Covenant and went ahead of the people.",
      "7": "The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel so that they will know that just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.",
      "8": "You are the one who will give this order to the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant: ‘As soon as you come to the edge of the water of the Jordan, you are to stand still in the Jordan.’”",
      "9": "Joshua said to the people of Israel, “Come closer to me and listen to the words of the Lord your God.”",
      "10": "Then Joshua said, “This is how you will know that the Living God is among you and that he will most certainly drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites:",
      "11": "Look, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth is about to cross over the Jordan ahead of you.",
      "12": "So now choose for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from each tribe.",
      "13": "As soon as the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, come to rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing down from upstream will be cut off, and they will stand up in one heap.”",
      "14": "So the people set out from their tents to cross the Jordan, and the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of the people.",
      "15": "As soon as the priests carrying the ark came to the Jordan, and as soon as their feet dipped into the edge of the water (the Jordan is full and overflows all its banks during all the days of the grain harvest),",
      "16": "the waters flowing down from upstream came to a standstill. The waters piled up in one heap, very far away, at Adam, the town that is next to Zarethan, and the waters flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah, that is, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. So the people crossed the Jordan opposite Jericho.",
      "17": "The priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel was crossing over on dry ground, until the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord told Joshua,",
      "2": "“Take twelve men from the people, one man from each tribe,",
      "3": "and give them the following orders: ‘Pick up twelve stones from here in the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the feet of the priests are standing securely. Carry them over with you and put them at the place where you will stay tonight.’”",
      "4": "So Joshua called the twelve men whom he had selected from the people of Israel—a man from each tribe.",
      "5": "Joshua said to them, “Go to the middle of the Jordan in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. There each man is to lift up one stone on his shoulder. The number will correspond to the number of the tribes descended from the sons of Israel,",
      "6": "so that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in the future, ‘What do these stones mean for you?’",
      "7": "Then you shall respond to them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. When the ark passed through the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones will serve as a permanent memorial for the people of Israel.”",
      "8": "So the people of Israel did just as Joshua had ordered. They picked up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, corresponding to the number of the tribes descended from the sons of Israel, as the Lord had instructed Joshua. They carried the stones over with them to their lodging place and deposited them there.",
      "9": "Joshua also set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the feet of the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant had stood. They are there to this day.",
      "10": "The priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything that the Lord had commanded Joshua to speak to the people had been accomplished, just as Moses had commanded Joshua. The people moved swiftly and completed the crossing.",
      "11": "When all the people had finished crossing, the Ark of the Lord and the priests crossed over in the presence of the people.",
      "12": "The descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, arranged by their military units, had crossed over ahead of the people of Israel, just as Moses had commanded them,",
      "13": "about forty thousand men armed for battle. They crossed over to the plain near Jericho to wage war in the presence of the Lord.",
      "14": "That day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they honored him, just as they had honored Moses, all the days of his life.",
      "15": "The Lord said to Joshua,",
      "16": "“Command the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Testimony that they should come up out of the Jordan.”",
      "17": "So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.”",
      "18": "When the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came up from the middle of the Jordan, as soon as the soles of their feet reached dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place, and it overflowed all its banks as before.",
      "19": "The people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month and set up camp at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho.",
      "20": "Those twelve stones that they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal.",
      "21": "He said to the people of Israel, “When your children in the future ask their fathers, ‘What are these stones?’",
      "22": "you shall teach your children, ‘On dry land Israel crossed over this Jordan.’",
      "23": "For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan in front of you until you crossed over, just as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up in front of us until we had crossed over.",
      "24": "He did this so that all the peoples of the earth would know that the hand of the Lord is strong, so that you would fear the Lord your God always.”"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "When all the kings of the Amorites who were in the region west of the Jordan and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan in front of the people of Israel until we had crossed over, their hearts melted, and they lost all courage in the presence of the Israelites.",
      "2": "At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives, and circumcise the sons of Israel again, a second time.”",
      "3": "So Joshua made flint knives, and he circumcised the sons of Israel at the Hill of the Foreskins.",
      "4": "This is the reason Joshua had to circumcise the men of Israel again: All the people who came up out of Egypt—all the males, the fighting men—died in the wilderness along the way after they came out of Egypt.",
      "5": "All the people who came out of Egypt had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness during the journey after they had come out from Egypt had not been circumcised.",
      "6": "Yes, for forty years the Israelites walked through the wilderness until the whole nation was gone—all the fighting men who had gone out from Egypt, who had not listened to the voice of the Lord. The Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land that the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.",
      "7": "So it was their sons, whom the Lord had raised up in their place, whom Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised, since the people had not circumcised them during the journey.",
      "8": "When the whole nation had been circumcised, they stayed at their places in the camp until they recuperated.",
      "9": "Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the disgrace of Egypt from you.” So the name of that place is Gilgal to this day.",
      "10": "While the people of Israel were camped at Gilgal, they celebrated the Passover on the plain near Jericho on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening at sunset.",
      "11": "They ate from the produce of the land on the day after the Passover. On that very day they ate unleavened bread and roasted grain.",
      "12": "The manna stopped the day after the first day that they had eaten from the produce of the land. The people of Israel no longer received manna. Instead, they ate from the crops of the land of Canaan that year.",
      "13": "When Joshua was at Jericho, he looked up and saw a man was standing right there in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said, “Are you one of us or one of our enemies?”",
      "14": "The man said, “Neither! I have now come as the commander of the army of the Lord.” Joshua fell with his face to the ground and worshipped. Then he said to him, “What does my Lord have to say to his servant?”",
      "15": "The commander of the army of the Lord said to Joshua, “Take your sandals off your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy.” So Joshua did so."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Jericho was shut up tight because of the Israelites. There was no one going out and no one coming in.",
      "2": "So the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho and its king into your hands even though they are strong warriors.",
      "3": "You shall march around the city with all the fighting men. Circle the city one time. Do this for six days.",
      "4": "Seven priests shall carry seven special ram’s horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times with the priests blowing the ram’s horns.",
      "5": "When there is a long blast on the special ram’s horn of jubilee, when you hear the sound of the ram’s horn, all the people shall shout with a loud war cry. Then the wall of the city will collapse on itself, and the people will go up into the city, one man after another.”",
      "6": "So Joshua son of Nun called for the priests and said to them, “Lift up the Ark of the Covenant, and seven priests shall carry seven special ram’s horns in front of the Ark of the Lord.”",
      "7": "Then he said to the people, “Move out. March around the city. The armed contingent shall march in front of the Ark of the Lord.”",
      "8": "When Joshua had given orders to the people, the seven priests with the seven special ram’s horns moved forward in front of the Lord, blowing the ram’s horns continuously, with the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord following them.",
      "9": "The armed contingent was marching ahead of the priests, who were blowing the ram’s horns, and the rear guard was following the ark. The priests kept blowing the ram’s horns as they went.",
      "10": "But to the people Joshua had given the order, “Do not shout and do not let your voice be heard. Do not let a word go out of your mouth until the day I say to you, ‘Shout!’ Then you shall shout!”",
      "11": "So he had the Ark of the Lord go around the city, sending it out to circle the city one time. Then they came back to the camp and spent the night there.",
      "12": "Then Joshua got up early in the morning, and the priests lifted up the Ark of the Lord.",
      "13": "The seven priests with the seven special ram’s horns moved forward in front of the Ark of the Lord, blowing the ram’s horns continuously. The armed contingent was marching in front of them, and the rear guard was following behind the Ark of the Lord. The priests kept blowing the ram’s horns as they went.",
      "14": "They marched around the city one time on the second day, and then they returned to the camp. They did this for six days.",
      "15": "Then on the seventh day they got up early, at daybreak, and they marched around the city seven times, following the directions they had been given. It was only on the seventh day that they marched around the city seven times.",
      "16": "Then on the seventh time, the priests blew the ram’s horns, and Joshua said to the people, “Shout, because the Lord has given you the city!",
      "17": "The city will be devoted to destruction. The city and everything in it will be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute will live—she along with all who are with her in the house—because she hid the agents whom we sent.",
      "18": "But you must keep away from the things devoted to destruction, or you will make yourselves subject to destruction by taking some of the devoted things, and you will make the camp of Israel subject to destruction and bring disaster upon it.",
      "19": "But all the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord. They must go into the treasury of the Lord.”",
      "20": "So the people shouted, and the priests blew the ram’s horns. When the people heard the sound of the ram’s horns, they shouted with a loud war cry. Then the wall collapsed on itself, and the people went up into the city, one man after another. So they captured the city.",
      "21": "Then they applied the decree of destruction by the edge of the sword to everything that was in the city—both men and women, young and old, and also the oxen, sheep, and donkeys.",
      "22": "To the two men who had spied on the land Joshua said, “Go to the house of the prostitute and bring out the woman and everyone who belongs to her, just as you swore to her.”",
      "23": "So the young men who had acted as spies went and brought out Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers, and everyone who belonged to her. They brought out all her family members, and they settled them outside the camp of Israel.",
      "24": "But the city and everything in it they burned with fire. Only the silver and gold and the bronze and iron vessels were placed into the treasury of the House of the Lord.",
      "25": "But Joshua spared the lives of Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and everyone who belonged to her, and she has lived within Israel to this day, because she hid the agents that Joshua sent to spy on Jericho.",
      "26": "At that time Joshua swore an oath:\nCursed before the Lord is the man who sets out to rebuild this city, Jericho.\nAt the cost of his firstborn he will lay its foundation,\nand at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.",
      "27": "So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread through the whole land."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "The people of Israel acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things. Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.",
      "2": "Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven, east of Bethel. He said to them, “Go up and spy on the land.” So the men went up and spied on Ai.",
      "3": "They returned to Joshua and told him, “All the people do not need to go up. Let about two or three thousand men go up, and they can defeat Ai. Do not trouble all the people with going up there, because there are only a few people in Ai.”",
      "4": "So about three thousand men from among the people went up there, but they fled from the men of Ai.",
      "5": "The men of Ai struck dead about thirty-six of them. They pursued them from the city gate as far as Shebarim, and they struck them dead on the way down the descent. So the hearts of the people melted and turned to water.",
      "6": "Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell down with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord until evening—he and the elders of Israel. They also threw dust on their heads.",
      "7": "Joshua said, “Ah, my Lord God! Why did you bring this people across the Jordan to place us into the hand of the Amorites to exterminate us? If only we had been willing to settle in the area on the other side of the Jordan!",
      "8": "Please bear with me, my Lord! What can I say after Israel has turned its back before its enemies?",
      "9": "Now the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear, and they will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. Then what will you do for your great name?”",
      "10": "Then the Lord gave directions to Joshua:\nYou, get up! Why are you falling on your face?",
      "11": "Israel has sinned! They have transgressed the covenant that I commanded for them! Yes, they have even taken some of the devoted things. They have stolen! They have deceived! Yes, they have even placed the devoted things that they stole among their own goods.",
      "12": "That is why the people of Israel are not able to stand before their enemies. They turned their backs before their enemies because they have become liable to destruction. I will not continue to be with you unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.",
      "13": "Get up and consecrate the people. You are to tell them: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, because this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Things devoted to destruction are in your midst, Israel. You will not be able to stand before your enemies until you remove the devoted things from your midst.",
      "14": "In the morning you are to present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe that the Lord identifies is to come forward by clans. The clan that the Lord identifies is to come forward by households. The household that the Lord identifies is to come forward one man at a time.",
      "15": "Then the man who is caught with the devoted things is to be burned with fire—he and all that belongs to him—because he transgressed the covenant of the Lord and because he committed sacrilege in Israel.",
      "16": "Joshua got up early in the morning, and he had Israel come forward tribe by tribe. The tribe of Judah was identified.",
      "17": "Then he had the tribe of Judah come forward, and he identified the clan of the Zerahites. Next, he had the clan of the Zerahites come forward by individual families, and Zabdi’s family was identified.",
      "18": "Then he had Zabdi’s household come forward one man at a time, and Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, was identified.",
      "19": "Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory now to the Lord, the God of Israel, and give him praise. Now tell me what you did. Do not conceal it from me.”",
      "20": "Achan answered Joshua, “It is true. I am the one who has sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did:",
      "21": "Among the plunder I saw an expensive Mesopotamian robe, a fine one, and two hundred shekels of silver and one wedge of gold—it weighed fifty shekels. I coveted them and I took them. Now they are hidden in the ground inside my tent, and the silver is underneath it.”",
      "22": "So Joshua sent agents. They ran to the tent, and there it was! The robe was hidden in his tent, and the silver was underneath it!",
      "23": "They took them from the middle of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel, where they poured them out before the Lord.",
      "24": "Then Joshua took Achan son of Zerah and the silver, the garment, and the wedge of gold, as well as Achan’s sons and his daughters, his ox, his donkey and his flock, and his tent and everything that belonged to him—so all Israel, led by Joshua, brought them up to the Valley of Achor.",
      "25": "Joshua said, “Why have you brought disaster on us? The Lord will bring disaster on you this day!”\nThen all Israel stoned Achan to death. They also burned him and them with fire, and they pelted them with stones.",
      "26": "They erected a large heap of stones over Achan, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from the heat of his anger. For that reason the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor to this day."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid. Do not be overwhelmed. Take with you the whole military force and get ready to go up to Ai. You see, I have given the king of Ai into your hand with his people, his city, and his land.",
      "2": "You shall do to Ai and its king just as you did to Jericho and its king, but its plunder and its livestock you may take as spoils of war for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city on the west side of it.”",
      "3": "So Joshua and the whole military force got ready to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, strong warriors, and sent them out during the night.",
      "4": "He commanded them, “See to it that you set up an ambush against the city on its west side, not very far from the city. All of you are to be on alert.",
      "5": "Then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. When the men of Ai come out to face us just as they did the first time, we will flee from them.",
      "6": "They will come out after us until we lure them away from the city, because they will say, ‘They are fleeing from us just as they did the first time!’ and we will flee from them.",
      "7": "Then you are to spring up from the ambush and seize the city, and the Lord your God will give it into your hand.",
      "8": "When you have taken the city, you are to set the city on fire. According to the word of the Lord you are to act in this way. Look, I have commanded you.”",
      "9": "So Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place for the ambush. They lay hidden on the west side of Ai, between Bethel and Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people of the main force.",
      "10": "Joshua got up early in the morning, and he mustered the people. Then he went up—he and the elders of Israel—leading the main force of the people to Ai.",
      "11": "The whole military force that was with him went up and advanced. They arrived opposite the city, and they camped north of Ai. The valley was between Joshua and Ai.",
      "12": "He had taken about five thousand men and set them as an ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.",
      "13": "This is how they positioned the people: The whole army that had come from the camp was north of the city, but the detachment in the ambush was west of the city. That night Joshua went out into the middle of the valley.",
      "14": "When the king of Ai saw this, the men of the city got up quickly and went out to face Israel in battle—the king and all his people—at the chosen place facing the Arabah. But he did not know that there was an ambush for him west of the city.",
      "15": "Then Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them and fled toward the wilderness.",
      "16": "All the people that were in the city were marshaled to pursue them. As they pursued Joshua, they were lured away from the city.",
      "17": "So not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel.",
      "18": "Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Point toward Ai with the javelin that is in your hand, because I will give Ai into your hand.” So Joshua reached out toward the city with the javelin that was in his hand.",
      "19": "The ambush force quickly sprang up from its place and came running as soon as he reached out his hand. Then they went into the city, took it, and quickly set it on fire.",
      "20": "The men of Ai turned to look behind them, and, to their surprise, the smoke of the city was rising to the sky! They were not strong enough to escape this way or that, because the people of Israel who had been fleeing toward the wilderness turned back against the pursuers.",
      "21": "When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush force had taken the city and that smoke was rising from the city, they turned back and struck the men of Ai.",
      "22": "Then the other Israelites came out of the city against the men of Ai so that they were trapped in the middle of Israel, with some Israelites on this side of them and some on that. So Israel struck them down until there was no one left, no survivor, no escapee.",
      "23": "But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.",
      "24": "When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai who were in the open country of the wilderness, into which the men of Ai had pursued them, and when all of the men of Ai had fallen by the edge of the sword so that they were finished off, then all Israel turned back to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.",
      "25": "All those who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand—all the people of Ai.",
      "26": "Joshua did not lower his hand that held the javelin until he had completely destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.",
      "27": "But the livestock and the plunder from that city the Israelites took as spoils of war for themselves, according to the word of the Lord that he had commanded Joshua.",
      "28": "Then Joshua burned Ai and reduced it to a mound of rubble, which lies in ruins to this day.",
      "29": "He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. When the sun was setting, Joshua gave the command, and they took down his corpse from the tree and threw it at the entrance to the gatehouse of the city. Then they erected a large heap of stones over him, which remains to this day.",
      "30": "Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,",
      "31": "just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the people of Israel. According to the directions written in the Book of the Law of Moses, it was an altar of uncut stones, upon which no one had used an iron tool. They offered up burnt offerings to the Lord on it, and they also sacrificed fellowship offerings.",
      "32": "There on the stones Joshua wrote a copy of the Law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the people of Israel.",
      "33": "All Israel with its elders and officers and its judges were standing on both sides of the ark facing the priests from the tribe of Levi who held the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. Both the resident aliens and the native-born stood there, half in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded previously, so that the people of Israel could be blessed.",
      "34": "After that, Joshua read aloud all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, exactly as all of it is written in the Book of the Law.",
      "35": "There was not one word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read aloud before the whole assembly of Israel, including the women, the children, and the aliens living among them."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "When all the kings who were west of the Jordan in the hill country, in the Shephelah, and along the entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea as far as Lebanon (the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites) heard what had happened,",
      "2": "they gathered together with one purpose: to wage war against Joshua and Israel.",
      "3": "However, when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai,",
      "4": "they responded by coming up with a clever scheme: They gathered their provisions as if they were going on a trip. They loaded worn-out sacks on their donkeys and wineskins that were worn-out, split, and mended.",
      "5": "They put worn-out, patched sandals on their feet, and they put on worn-out clothing. All the bread in their provisions was dried out. It had begun to crumble.",
      "6": "Then they came to Joshua at the camp at Gilgal and told him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a land far away. So now, make a treaty with us.”",
      "7": "The men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you live among us. How can we make a treaty with you?”",
      "8": "They said to Joshua, “We are your servants.”\nSo Joshua said to them, “Who are you, and where do you come from?”",
      "9": "They said to him, “Because of the Name of the Lord your God, your servants have come from a land very far away. For we heard the report about him and all that he did in Egypt",
      "10": "and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were in the area east of the Jordan—to Sihon king of Heshbon and to Og king of Bashan, who was in Ashtaroth.",
      "11": "Our elders and all the inhabitants of our land said to us, ‘Take in your hand provisions for the journey and go to meet them. You should say to them, “We are your servants, so now make a treaty with us.”’",
      "12": "This bread of ours was hot when we packed for the trip at our houses on the day we set out to come to you. Now, look, it is dried out and has become crumbs!",
      "13": "The wineskins were new when we filled them. Look, they have burst! Look at our clothing and our sandals. They wore out because of the great length of the journey.”",
      "14": "Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions, but they did not seek the word of the Lord.",
      "15": "So Joshua made peace with them. He made a treaty with them to let them live, and the leaders of the community swore an oath to them.",
      "16": "But three days after they had made the treaty with them, the Israelites heard that they were their neighbors, that is, that they were living among them.",
      "17": "So the people of Israel set out and came to the Gibeonites’ cities on the third day. Their cities were Gibeon, Kephirah, Be’eroth, and Kiriath Jearim.",
      "18": "But the people of Israel did not attack them because the leaders of the congregation had sworn an oath to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. So the whole community grumbled against the leaders.",
      "19": "All the leaders said to the community, “We swore an oath to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, so now we are not able to touch them.",
      "20": "This is what we should do with them: We will keep them alive so that there will not be anger against us because of the oath that we swore to them.”",
      "21": "Then the leaders said to the community, “They shall live!” So they became wood cutters and water carriers for the whole community, just as the leaders had advised concerning them.",
      "22": "Then Joshua summoned them and said to them, “Why did you deceive us by saying, ‘We live very far away from you,’ when in fact you live right among us?",
      "23": "So now you are cursed! The name ‘slave’ will never be removed from you. You will always be wood cutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”",
      "24": "They answered Joshua, “Your servants were told very clearly that the Lord your God commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to exterminate all the inhabitants of the land from your presence. We feared greatly for our lives because of you. That is why we did this.",
      "25": "So here we are, in your hand. Whatever seems good and right in your eyes to do to us, do it.”",
      "26": "So that is what he did to them. He saved them from the hand of the people of Israel so that they did not kill them.",
      "27": "On that day Joshua designated them as wood cutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord, for the place the Lord would choose, until this very day."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "When Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had captured Ai and devoted it to destruction, and that Joshua had done to Ai and its king exactly what he had done to Jericho and its king, and that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were allied with them,",
      "2": "then he and those with him were very afraid because Gibeon was a large city, like one of the royal capital cities. It was larger than Ai, and all its men were warriors.",
      "3": "So Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem sent word to Hoham king of Hebron, to Piram king of Jarmuth, to Japhia king of Lachish, and to Debir king of Eglon. He said,",
      "4": "“Come up, join me, and help me. We must attack Gibeon, because it made peace with Joshua and with the Israelites.”",
      "5": "So the five kings of the Amorites—namely, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon—gathered together and went up with all their divisions. They set up camp around Gibeon and waged war against it.",
      "6": "The men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal, saying, “Do not withdraw your hand from your servants. Come up to us quickly! Save us! Help us, because all the kings of the Amorites living in the hill country have united themselves against us.”",
      "7": "So Joshua went up from Gilgal—he and all the military forces with him, including all the strong warriors.",
      "8": "Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, because I have given them into your hand. Not a man among them will be able to stand in your presence.”",
      "9": "So Joshua came upon them unexpectedly by marching up from Gilgal all night.",
      "10": "The Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, and he struck a powerful blow against them at Gibeon. Then he chased them on the road that goes up to Beth Horon, and he struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah.",
      "11": "While they were fleeing from Israel on the descent from Beth Horon, the Lord hurled large stones from the heavens on them all the way to Azekah. So they died. Those who died from the hailstones were many more than those whom the Israelites killed by the sword.",
      "12": "Then Joshua spoke to the Lord on the day that the Lord gave the Amorites into the power of Israel ⎣when he struck them down at Gibeon, and they were struck down before the people of Israel⎦. He said in the sight of Israel:\nSun, rest at Gibeon.\nMoon, rest at the Valley of Aijalon.",
      "13": "The sun rested,\nand the moon stood still\nuntil a nation could avenge itself on its enemies.\nIs this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stood still in the middle of the sky and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.",
      "14": "There has never been a day like that day either before it or after it, a day when the Lord listened to the voice of a man, for the Lord was fighting for Israel.",
      "15": "Then Joshua and all Israel with him returned to the camp at Gilgal.",
      "16": "Those five kings fled and hid in the cave at Makkedah.",
      "17": "It was reported to Joshua: “The five kings have been found hiding in the cave at Makkedah.”",
      "18": "So Joshua said, “Roll large stones against the mouth of the cave, and station men over it to guard them.",
      "19": "But you—do not stand still. Chase your enemies and attack them from the rear. Do not give them a chance to get to their cities, because the Lord your God has given them into your hand.”",
      "20": "When Joshua and the people of Israel had inflicted a devastating blow upon them, to the point that they were almost wiped out (though a small group of survivors escaped into the fortified cities),",
      "21": "then all the people returned safely to the camp of Joshua at Makkedah. No one dared to speak a word against the people of Israel—against any one of them!",
      "22": "Then Joshua said, “Open the mouth of the cave, and bring those five kings out to me from the cave.”",
      "23": "They did so and brought those five kings out to him from the cave: the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon.",
      "24": "When they had brought those kings out to Joshua, he summoned every man of Israel and said to the commanders of the fighting men who had gone with him, “Come, put your feet on the necks of these kings.” So they came and put their feet on their necks.",
      "25": "Then Joshua said to them, “Do not be afraid. Do not be overwhelmed. Be strong and courageous because the Lord will do these same things to all your enemies against whom you are waging war.”",
      "26": "Joshua struck them down after that, and after he had killed them, he hung them on five trees. They were hung on the trees until evening.",
      "27": "At sunset Joshua gave the command, and they took them down from the trees and threw them into the cave where they had hidden themselves. They placed large stones over the mouth of the cave, which remain there to this very day.",
      "28": "Joshua captured Makkedah on that day and struck it and its king with the edge of the sword. He devoted it to destruction, together with every living thing that was in it. He did not leave a survivor. So he did to the king of Makkedah just as he had done to the king of Jericho.",
      "29": "Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and waged war against Libnah.",
      "30": "The Lord gave it into the hand of Israel, together with its king. He struck Libnah with the edge of the sword, together with every living thing that was in it. He did not leave a survivor in it. So he did to its king just as he had done to the king of Jericho.",
      "31": "Next Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Libnah to Lachish. He set up camp against it and waged war against it.",
      "32": "The Lord gave Lachish into the hand of Israel. He captured it on the second day, and he struck it with the edge of the sword, together with every living thing that was in it, exactly as he had done to Libnah.",
      "33": "Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish, but Joshua struck him and his people until he did not leave one survivor for him.",
      "34": "Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved from Lachish to Eglon. They set up camp against it and waged war against it.",
      "35": "They captured it on that day and struck it with the edge of the sword, together with every living thing that was in it. On that day he devoted it to destruction, exactly as he had done to Lachish.",
      "36": "Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron, and they waged war against it.",
      "37": "They captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword together with its king and all its settlements and every living thing that was in it. He did not leave a survivor, exactly as he had done to Eglon. He devoted it to destruction, along with every living thing in it.",
      "38": "Next Joshua and all Israel with him turned back to Debir and waged war against it.",
      "39": "He captured it, together with its king and all its settlements. They struck them with the edge of the sword and devoted to destruction every living thing that was in it. He did not leave a survivor. Just as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir and its king, just as he had done to Libnah and its king.",
      "40": "In this way Joshua struck the whole land: the hill country, the Negev, the Shephelah, and the slopes, together with all their kings. He did not leave a survivor. Every breathing thing he devoted to destruction, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded him.",
      "41": "Joshua struck them from Kadesh Barnea all the way to Gaza and from the whole land of Goshen all the way to Gibeon.",
      "42": "All of these kings and their land Joshua captured at one time because the Lord, the God of Israel, was fighting for Israel.",
      "43": "Then Joshua and all Israel with him returned to the camp at Gilgal."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "When Jabin king of Hazor heard what had happened, he sent word to Jobab king of Madon, to the king of Shimron, to the king of Akshaph,",
      "2": "and to the kings in the northern hill country, those in the Arabah south of Kinneret, in the Shephelah, and in Naphoth Dor to the west,",
      "3": "as well as to the Canaanites in the east and the west, and to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill country, and to the Hivites below Mount Hermon in the land of Mizpah.",
      "4": "They came out—they and all their divisions with them—a people as numerous as the sand on the seashore, together with very many horses and chariots.",
      "5": "All these kings gathered together. They came and camped together at the Waters of Merom to wage war against Israel.",
      "6": "But the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, because tomorrow at this time I will give all of them to Israel as corpses. You are to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.”",
      "7": "So Joshua and all the military forces with him came upon them suddenly at the Waters of Merom and attacked them.",
      "8": "The Lord gave them into the hand of Israel, and they struck them and pursued them as far as Great Sidon, as far as Misrephoth Maim, and as far east as the Valley of Mizpah. They struck them down until they left no survivor for them.",
      "9": "Joshua did to them just as the Lord had said to him: He hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire.",
      "10": "Joshua turned back at that time and captured Hazor. He struck down its king with the sword, even though Hazor had formerly been the head of all these kingdoms.",
      "11": "The Israelites struck down every living thing that was in Hazor with the edge of the sword, devoting them to destruction. He left nothing breathing, and Hazor he burned with fire.",
      "12": "Joshua captured all the cities of these kings and all their kings. He struck them with the edge of the sword. He devoted them to destruction just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded.",
      "13": "But none of the cities standing on their mounds were burned by Israel—except that Joshua did burn Hazor.",
      "14": "All of the plunder from these cities, including the cattle, was taken by the people of Israel as spoils of war for themselves, but they struck down every person with the edge of the sword until they had exterminated them all. They did not leave anything that breathed.",
      "15": "Just as the Lord had commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He did not fail to carry out a single word of everything that the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "16": "So Joshua took all this land: the hill country, all the Negev, all the land of Goshen, the Shephelah, the Arabah, the mountainous region of Israel and its foothills,",
      "17": "from Mount Halak that rises to Seir, as far as Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon. He captured all their kings. He struck them and put them to death.",
      "18": "For many days Joshua made war with all these kings.",
      "19": "There was no city that made peace with the people of Israel except for the Hivites living in Gibeon. The Israelites took them all in battle,",
      "20": "for it was the Lord who hardened their hearts so that they would confront Israel in battle and would be devoted to destruction, and they would not receive mercy but would be destroyed, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.",
      "21": "At that time Joshua went and cut off the Anakites from the hill country—from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them and their cities to destruction.",
      "22": "There were no Anakites remaining in the land of the Israelites. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod were they left.",
      "23": "So Joshua took the whole land according to everything the Lord had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their allotments for their tribes. Then the land rested from war."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "The following are the kings of the land whom the people of Israel struck down and then took possession of their land, which was east of the Jordan toward the rising of the sun, from the Arnon Canyon to Mount Hermon, including all of the Arabah east of the Jordan.",
      "2": "The first was Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon. He ruled over the territory that extends from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Canyon, and from the middle of the canyon all the way north to the Jabbok Canyon, which is the border of the Ammonites.",
      "3": "This includes half of Gilead. He also ruled over the eastern part of the Arabah from the Sea of Kinneret south as far as the Sea of the Arabah, which is the Salt Sea, and east in the direction of Beth Jeshimoth and south as far as the slopes of Pisgah.",
      "4": "The second area was the territory of Og king of Bashan, who was from a remnant of the Rephaim and who lived in Ashtaroth and in Edrei.",
      "5": "He was ruler in Mount Hermon, in Salekah, and in all Bashan up to the border of the Geshurites and the Ma’akathites, and in half of Gilead as far south as the border of Sihon king of Heshbon.",
      "6": "Moses, the servant of the Lord, and the people of Israel struck them down. Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave this land east of the Jordan as a possession to the tribe of Reuben, to the tribe of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.",
      "7": "The following are the kings of the land that Joshua and the people of Israel struck down in the area west of the Jordan, from Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon to Mount Halak, which rises toward Seir. Joshua gave it to the tribes of Israel as a possession according to their allotments,",
      "8": "which were in the hill country, in the Shephelah, in the Arabah, on the slopes, in the wilderness, and in the Negev—land that formerly was the land of the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites:",
      "9": "the king of Jericho onethe king of Ai, which is next to Bethel one",
      "10": "the king of Jerusalem onethe king of Hebron one",
      "11": "the king of Jarmuth onethe king of Lachish one",
      "12": "the king of Eglon onethe king of Gezer one",
      "13": "the king of Debir onethe king of Geder one",
      "14": "the king of Hormah onethe king of Arad one",
      "15": "the king of Libnah onethe king of Adullam one",
      "16": "the king of Makkedah onethe king of Bethel one",
      "17": "the king of Tappuah onethe king of Hepher one",
      "18": "the king of Aphek onethe king for the Sharon Plain one",
      "19": "the king of Madon onethe king of Hazor one",
      "20": "the king of Shimron Meron onethe king of Akshaph one",
      "21": "the king of Ta’anach onethe king of Megiddo one",
      "22": "the king of Kedesh onethe king of Jokneam in Carmel one",
      "23": "the king of Dor in Naphoth Dor onethe king of Goyim in Gilgal one",
      "24": "the king of Tirzah oneall of the kings thirty-one."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "Now Joshua had grown old and had advanced in years. So the Lord said to him, “You have grown old and advanced in years, but very much land remains to be taken as your possession.",
      "2": "“This is the land that remains:\nAll the districts of the Philistines and all of the Geshurites,",
      "3": "from the Shihor, which is east of Egypt, to the border of Ekron on the north. (This is reckoned as belonging to the Canaanites, but includes the five serens of the Philistines, the serens of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron, as well as the Avvites",
      "4": "on the south.)\nAll the land of the Canaanites, and Me’arah, which belongs to the Sidonians, as far as Aphek, up to the border of the Amorites.",
      "5": "The land of the Gebalites, and all of Lebanon toward the rising of the sun, from Baal Gad below Mount Hermon up to the entry to Hamath,",
      "6": "all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon to Misrephoth Maim, and all the Sidonians.\n“I myself will drive them out as the people of Israel advance. So assign the land to Israel as their possession by lot, just as I have commanded you.",
      "7": "Now apportion this land as an inheritance for nine of the tribes and one of the half tribes of Manasseh.”",
      "8": "Together with the other half tribe of Manasseh, the Reubenites and Gadites had already received their inheritance from Moses in the area east of the Jordan, just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had assigned it to them.",
      "9": "It extended from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Canyon, and from the city that is in the middle of the canyon, and included all the tableland from Medeba to Dibon.",
      "10": "It included all the cities of Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon, up to the border of the people of Ammon;",
      "11": "also Gilead, and the territory of the Geshurites and the Ma’akathites, and all Mount Hermon and all of Bashan to Salekah;",
      "12": "also all the kingdom of Og in Bashan, who ruled in Ashtaroth and in Edrei.\n(Og himself was left from the remnant of the Rephaim, and Moses struck them down and drove them out.)",
      "13": "But the people of Israel did not drive out the Geshurites and the Ma’akathites. So Geshur and Ma’akath have lived within Israel to this day.",
      "14": "But to the tribe of Levi, Moses did not give an inheritance. Their inheritance is the offerings made by fire to the Lord, the God of Israel, just as he said to them.",
      "15": "Moses gave land to the tribe of the descendants of Reuben according to their clans.",
      "16": "Their territory included Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Canyon, and the city that is in the middle of the canyon, and all of the tableland by Medeba.",
      "17": "It included Heshbon and all its cities that are in the tableland, also Dibon, Bamoth Baal, and Beth Baal Meon,",
      "18": "also Jahaz, Kedemoth, and Mepha’ath;",
      "19": "also Kiriathaim, and Sibmah, and Zereth Shahar on the hill in the valley,",
      "20": "and Beth Peor, and the slopes of Pisgah, and Beth Jeshimoth,",
      "21": "all the cities of the tableland.\nIt included the whole kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon, whom Moses had struck down, together with the chiefs of Midian, namely, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, who were subject kings under Sihon and lived in his land.",
      "22": "In addition to the Midianites who were killed, the Israelites killed with the sword Balaam son of Beor, who practiced divination.",
      "23": "The border of the descendants of Reuben was the Jordan River. This was the border of the inheritance of the descendants of Reuben according to their clans—the cities and their villages.",
      "24": "Moses also gave land to the tribe of Gad, to the descendants of Gad according to their clans.",
      "25": "Their territory included Jazer, and all the cities of Gilead, and half of the land of the descendants of Ammon, as far as Aroer, which is near Rabbah.",
      "26": "Also it extended from Heshbon to Ramat Hamizpah and Betonim, and from Mahanaim to the border of Debir.",
      "27": "Also in the valley he gave them Beth Haram, Beth Nimrah, and Succoth, as well as Zaphon, and the rest of the kingdom of Sihon king of Heshbon, with the Jordan as a border, up to the end of the Sea of Galilee, the region beyond the Jordan to the east.",
      "28": "This is the inheritance of the descendants of Gad according to their clans—the cities and their villages.",
      "29": "Moses also gave land to the half tribe of Manasseh. It was given to the half tribe of the descendants of Manasseh according to their clans.",
      "30": "Their territory extended from Mahanaim through all of Bashan, including all the kingdom of Og king of Bashan and all the tent villages of Jair, which are in Bashan—sixty cities in all.",
      "31": "He gave half of Gilead, also Ashtaroth and Edrei, cities belonging to the kingdom of Og in Bashan, to the descendants of Makir, the son of Manasseh, to half of the descendants of Makir according to their clans.",
      "32": "These territories are what Moses had given as an inheritance while in the Plains of Moab from the region beyond the Jordan of Jericho to the east.",
      "33": "But to the tribe of Levi, Moses had not given an inheritance. The Lord, the God of Israel—he is their inheritance, as he had said to them."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "The following are the allotted inheritances for the descendants of Israel in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leading fathers of the tribes allotted as an inheritance to the people of Israel.",
      "2": "The inheritances for nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh were determined by lot, just as the Lord had commanded through Moses.",
      "3": "Moses had already assigned inheritances to two tribes and to one half tribe in the region east of the Jordan, but to the Levites he did not give an inheritance among the other tribes.",
      "4": "Because the sons of Joseph had been divided into two tribes, namely, Manasseh and Ephraim, the Levites did not receive a tribal territory in the land. They did, however, receive cities to live in along with the cities’ pasturelands for their cattle and property.",
      "5": "Just as the Lord had commanded Moses, that is what the people of Israel did when they apportioned the land.",
      "6": "When the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal, Caleb son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, said this to him:\nYou know what the Lord spoke to Moses, the man of God, concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea.",
      "7": "I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to scout the land, and I brought back to him my heartfelt advice.",
      "8": "When my brother Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt, I nevertheless fully followed the Lord my God.",
      "9": "So Moses swore an oath to me on that day. He said, “Most certainly the land on which your foot has walked shall be an inheritance for you and for your children forever, because you fully followed the Lord my God.”",
      "10": "So now as you see, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, for these forty-five years since the Lord spoke this promise to Moses when Israel was traveling in the wilderness. So now, here I am today, eighty-five years old!",
      "11": "I am still as strong today as on the day that Moses sent me out. My strength for going out and for coming back from battle is the same now as it was then.",
      "12": "So now, give me this place in the hill country that the Lord promised that day. Even though you heard on that day that the Anakites are there, as well as large fortified cities, perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out, just as the Lord said.",
      "13": "So Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb son of Jephunneh as an inheritance.",
      "14": "Therefore Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, as an inheritance to this day, because he fully followed after the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "15": "The name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath Arba. Arba was the greatest man among the Anakites.\nSo the land rested from war."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "This was the allotment for the tribe of the descendants of Judah according to their clans. It extended south to the border with Edom and through the Negev to the Wilderness of Zin in the extreme south.",
      "2": "Their border on the south started from the south end of the Dead Sea, from the bay that faces south.",
      "3": "It goes south from the Ascent of Akrabbim and crosses over to Zin and ascends from south of Kadesh Barnea.\nThen it crosses over to Hezron and ascends to Adar and curves around to Karka.",
      "4": "Then it crosses over to Azmon and goes out to the Stream of Egypt.\nThe border ends at the Mediterranean Sea.\nThis is your southern border.",
      "5": "The border on the east is the Dead Sea, up to the mouth of the Jordan.\nThe border on the north side starts from the bay of the sea at the mouth of the Jordan.",
      "6": "The border ascends to Beth Hoglah and crosses over north of Beth Arabah.\nThen the border ascends to the Stone of Bohan, the son of Reuben.",
      "7": "Then the border ascends to Debir from the Valley of Achor and turns north toward Gilgal, which is opposite the Ascent of Adummim, which is south of the streambed.\nThen the border crosses over to the waters of En Shemesh, ending at En Rogel.",
      "8": "Then the border ascends through the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the slope of the Jebusites on the south side of Jerusalem.\nThen the border ascends to the top of the mountain that is across the Valley of Hinnom on the west side, where Hinnom meets the north end of the Valley of Rephaim.",
      "9": "Then the border bends from the top of the mountain to the spring of the Waters of Nephtoah and goes out to the cities of Mount Ephron.\nThen the border bends toward Baalah—that is, Kiriath Jearim.",
      "10": "The border curves around from Baalah westward to Mount Seir and crosses over to the slope of Mount Jearim from the north—that is, Kesalon—and descends to Beth Shemesh, then crosses over to Timnah.",
      "11": "The border goes out to the slope of Ekron, on the north.\nThen the border bends to Shikkeron and crosses over Mount Baalah and goes out to Jabne’el, and the border ends at the sea.",
      "12": "The border on the west—the Mediterranean Sea is the border.\nThis is the border on all sides for the descendants of Judah according to their clans.",
      "13": "To Caleb son of Jephunneh, Joshua gave a portion among the people of Judah, in keeping with the word of the Lord to Joshua, namely, the city of Kiriath Arba (Arba was the father of Anak). Kiriath Arba is now called Hebron.",
      "14": "Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak: Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.",
      "15": "Then he went up from there against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir was formerly Kiriath Sepher.",
      "16": "Caleb said, “If anyone attacks Kiriath Sepher and captures it, I will give my daughter Aksah to him as his wife.”",
      "17": "Othniel son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured Kiriath Sepher, and Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him as his wife.",
      "18": "When she came to Othniel, she pressured him to ask her father for some pastureland. As she dismounted from the donkey, Caleb said to her, “What do you want?”",
      "19": "She said, “Give me a blessing. Since you have given me land in the dry Negev, you should also give me springs of water.” So he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.",
      "20": "This is the inheritance of the tribe of the people of Judah according to their clans.",
      "21": "The cities at the southern edge of the tribe of the people of Judah along the border with Edom in the Negev are:\nKabze’el, Eder, Jagur,",
      "22": "Kinah, Dimonah, Adadah,",
      "23": "Kedesh, Hazor, Ithnan,",
      "24": "Ziph, Telem, Bealoth,",
      "25": "Hazor Hadattah, Kerioth Hezron (that is, Hazor),",
      "26": "Amam, Shema, Moladah,",
      "27": "Hazar Gaddah, Heshmon, Beth Pelet,",
      "28": "Hazar Shual, Beersheba, Biziothiah,",
      "29": "Baalah, Iyim, Ezem,",
      "30": "Eltolad, Kesil, Hormah,",
      "31": "Ziklag, Madmannah, Sansannah,",
      "32": "Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain, and Rimmon—twenty-nine cities and their villages.",
      "33": "In the Shephelah the cities are:\nEshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah,",
      "34": "Zanoah, En Gannim, Tappuah, Enam,",
      "35": "Jarmuth, Adullam, Sokoh, Azekah,",
      "36": "Sha’araim, Adithaim, Gederah, and Gederothaim—fourteen cities and their villages.",
      "37": "Zenan, Hadashah, Migdal Gad,",
      "38": "Dilan, Mizpah, Jokthe’el,",
      "39": "Lachish, Bozkath, Eglon,",
      "40": "Kabbon, Lahmas, Kitlish,",
      "41": "Gederoth, Beth Dagon, Na’amah, and Makkedah—sixteen cities and their villages.",
      "42": "Libnah, Ether, Ashan,",
      "43": "Iphtah, Ashnah, Nezib,",
      "44": "Keilah, Akzib, and Mareshah—nine cities and their villages.",
      "45": "Ekron and its surrounding towns and its villages.",
      "46": "West of Ekron, all the towns that are near Ashdod and their villages.",
      "47": "Also Ashdod with its surrounding towns and its villages.\nGaza with its surrounding towns and its villages, as far as the Stream of Egypt, with the Mediterranean Sea as the boundary.",
      "48": "In the hill country the cities were:\nShamir, Jattir, Sokoh,",
      "49": "Dannah, Kiriath Sannah (that is, Debir),",
      "50": "Anab, Eshtemoh, Anim,",
      "51": "Goshen, Holon, and Giloh—eleven cities and their villages.",
      "52": "Arab, Rumah, Eshan,",
      "53": "Janum, Beth Tappuah, Aphekah,",
      "54": "Humtah, Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), and Zior—nine cities and their villages.",
      "55": "Maon, Carmel, Ziph, Juttah,",
      "56": "Jezre’el, Jokdeam, Zanoah,",
      "57": "Kain, Gibeah, and Timnah—ten cities and their villages.",
      "58": "Halhul, Beth Zur, Gedor,",
      "59": "Ma’arath, Beth Anoth, and Eltekon—six cities and their villages.\n⎣Tekoa, Ephrathah (that is, Bethlehem), Peor, Etam, Kolan, Tatem, Shoresh, Kerem, Gallim, Bether and Manoko—eleven cities and their villages.⎦",
      "60": "Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim) and Rabbah—two cities and their villages.",
      "61": "In the wilderness:\nBeth Arabah, Middin, Sekakah,",
      "62": "Nibshan, Ir Melah, and En Gedi—six cities and their villages.",
      "63": "But as for the Jebusites, who were the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people of Judah were not able to drive them out. The Jebusites have lived with the people of Judah in Jerusalem to this day."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "The allotment for the descendants of Joseph starts from the Jordan of Jericho and from the waters of Jericho on the east and extends up through the wilderness, ascending from Jericho through the hill country to Bethel.",
      "2": "Then it goes out from Bethel to Luz and crosses over to the border of the Arkites at Ataroth.",
      "3": "It descends westward to the border of the Japhletites as far as the border of Lower Beth Horon and as far as Gezer, and it ends at the sea.",
      "4": "So the descendants of Joseph—the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim—received their inheritance.",
      "5": "The border of the descendants of Ephraim was arranged according to their clans.\nThe southern border of their inheritance, starting from the east end, extends from Ataroth Addar up to Upper Beth Horon.",
      "6": "Then the border goes out to the sea.\nStarting at Mikmethath on the northeast, the border curves around toward the southeast, toward Ta’anath Shiloh, and it crosses over on the east of Janoah.",
      "7": "Then it descends from Janoah to Ataroth and to Na’arath. It touches Jericho and goes out to the Jordan.",
      "8": "From Tappuah the border goes west to the streambed of the Kanah. It ends at the sea.\nThis is the inheritance of the tribe of the descendants of Ephraim according to their clans.",
      "9": "It also includes the cities that were set apart for the descendants of Ephraim in the middle of the inheritance of the descendants of Manasseh, all the cities with their villages.",
      "10": "But the Ephraimites did not drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer. So the Canaanites have lived within Ephraim to this day, but they have become a labor force of slaves."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "The second allotment went to the tribe of Manasseh, even though he was the firstborn of Joseph.\nTo Makir, the firstborn of Manasseh, the father of Gilead, because he was a warrior—to him went Gilead and Bashan.",
      "2": "The next allotment went to the rest of the descendants of Manasseh according to their clans: that is, to the sons of Abiezer, to the sons of Helek, to the sons of Asriel, to the sons of Shechem, to the sons of Hepher, and to the sons of Shemida. These were the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, the males according to their clans.",
      "3": "Now Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons, but only daughters. These are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah, and Tirzah.",
      "4": "They approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the other leaders and said, “The Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our brothers.”\nSo, in keeping with the word of the Lord, he gave them an inheritance among the brothers of their father.",
      "5": "Thus the portions of Manasseh were assigned as ten portions, in addition to the land of Gilead and Bashan, which are in the region east of the Jordan,",
      "6": "because the daughters of Manasseh received an inheritance among his sons. The land of Gilead went to the rest of the descendants of Manasseh.",
      "7": "The border of Manasseh extends from Asher to Mikmethath, which is close to Shechem. Then the border turns to the right toward the inhabitants of En Tappuah.",
      "8": "The land of Tappuah belongs to Manasseh, but Tappuah, on the border of Manasseh, belongs to the descendants of Ephraim.",
      "9": "Then the border descends to the streambed of the Kanah.\nSouth of the streambed, these cities belonging to Ephraim are located among the cities of Manasseh. The border of Manasseh is north of the streambed, and it ends at the sea.",
      "10": "The land to the south belongs to Ephraim and the land to the north belongs to Manasseh, and the sea is its border. The borders touch Asher on the northwest and Issachar on the northeast.",
      "11": "Also belonging to Manasseh but lying within the territory of Issachar and Asher are Beth Shan and its surrounding towns, Ibleam and its surrounding towns, the inhabitants of Dor and its surrounding towns, the inhabitants of Endor and its surrounding towns, the inhabitants of Ta’anach and its surrounding towns, and the inhabitants of Megiddo and its surrounding towns; also three cities of the Nephet.",
      "12": "But the people of Manasseh were not able to take possession of these cities, and the Canaanites were determined to continue living in this land.",
      "13": "When the people of Israel grew strong, they made the Canaanites serve as a labor force, but they did not drive them out completely.",
      "14": "The descendants of Joseph spoke with Joshua. They said, “Why did you give us an inheritance of only one lot and one portion, even though we are a numerous people, whom the Lord has blessed right up to the present?”",
      "15": "But Joshua said to them, “If you are a numerous people, go up to the forest and clear some land for yourself in the territory of the Perizzites and the Rephaim, since the hill country of Ephraim is too confining for you.”",
      "16": "The descendants of Joseph said, “The hill country is not sufficient for us, and all the Canaanites living in the valleys have iron chariots, both those in Beth Shan and its surrounding towns and those in the Valley of Jezre’el.”",
      "17": "But Joshua said to the house of Joseph—to Ephraim and Manasseh, “Because you are a numerous people and you have great strength, you will not have just one allotment,",
      "18": "but you will also have the hill country. Even though it is forest, you will clear it, and all of it will be yours, because you will drive out the Canaanites, even though they have iron chariots and even though they are strong.”"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "Then the whole community of the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh, and they set up the Tent of Meeting there, since the land had been subdued by their advance.",
      "2": "Seven tribes remained among the people of Israel to whom no inheritance had yet been apportioned.",
      "3": "So Joshua said to the people of Israel, “How long are you going to keep delaying before you go and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given to you?",
      "4": "You yourselves are to appoint three men for each tribe, and I will send them out. They are to go out and walk throughout the land. They are to write a description of it as a basis for each of their inheritances, and then come back to me.",
      "5": "They are to divide it into seven shares. Judah will remain in its territory in the south, and the house of Joseph will remain in its territory north of that.",
      "6": "You are to write a description of the land in seven parts and bring it to me here. Then I will cast lots for you here before the Lord our God.",
      "7": "But the Levites have no portion in your midst because the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance, and Gad, Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh have already received their inheritance in the region to the east, on the other side of the Jordan, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave to them.”",
      "8": "So the men set out on their tour. Joshua had given a command to write a description of the land to the men who were going out, “Go, walk around throughout the land. Write a description of it and return to me. I will cast lots for you here before the Lord in Shiloh.”",
      "9": "So the men went and passed through the land, and they wrote a description of it on a scroll with the lists of cities divided into seven portions. Then they came to Joshua in the camp at Shiloh.",
      "10": "Joshua cast lots for them at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord, and there Joshua assigned the land to the people of Israel portion by portion.",
      "11": "First, the lot came up for the tribe of the descendants of Benjamin according to their clans. The territory of their lot stretched out between the descendants of Judah and the descendants of Joseph.",
      "12": "Their northern border starts at the Jordan.\nThen the border ascends to the slope of Jericho on the north.\nThen it ascends westward through the hill country.\nIt ends at the Wilderness of Beth Aven.",
      "13": "The border crosses over from there to Luz, to the slope on the south side of Luz (Luz is Bethel).\nThen the border descends to Ataroth Addar on the mountain that is south of Lower Beth Horon.",
      "14": "This is the border on the western side.\nFrom the mountain that is facing the south side of Beth Horon, the border bends and curves around toward the south. It ends at Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim), a city of the descendants of Judah.\nThis is the western side.",
      "15": "On the southern side, the border begins from the edge of Kiriath Jearim.\nThen the border goes out toward the sea and goes out to the spring of the Waters of Nephtoah.",
      "16": "Then the border descends to the edge of the mountain that faces the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which is north of the Valley of Rephaim.\nThen it descends through the Valley of Hinnom to the southern slope of the Jebusite city and descends to En Rogel.",
      "17": "Then it bends north and goes out to En Shemesh.\nThen it goes out to Geliloth, which is opposite the Ascent of Adummim, and descends to the Stone of Bohan, the son of Reuben.",
      "18": "Then it passes northward to the slope facing the Arabah and descends into the Arabah.",
      "19": "The border then passes on to the northern slope of Beth Hoglah, and the border ends at the northern bay of the Dead Sea at the southern end of the Jordan.\nThis is the southern border.",
      "20": "The Jordan River is its border on the eastern side.\nThis is the inheritance of the descendants of Benjamin, on the basis of the borders enclosing it, according to their clans.",
      "21": "The cities belonging to the tribe of the people of Benjamin according to their clans were:\nJericho, Beth Hoglah, Emek Keziz,",
      "22": "Beth Arabah, Zemaraim, Bethel,",
      "23": "Avvim, Parah, Ophrah,",
      "24": "Kephar Ha’ammoni, Ophni, and Geba—twelve cities and their villages.",
      "25": "Gibeon, Ramah, Be’eroth,",
      "26": "Mizpah, Kephirah, Mozah,",
      "27": "Rekem, Irpe’el, Taralah,",
      "28": "Zela, Ha’eleph, the Jebusite city (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeath, Kiriath—fourteen cities and their villages.\nThis is the inheritance of the descendants of Benjamin according to their clans."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "The second lot came out for Simeon, for the tribe of the descendants of Simeon, according to their clans. Their inheritance was located within the inheritance of the descendants of Judah.",
      "2": "As their inheritance they received:\nBeersheba, Sheba, Moladah,",
      "3": "Hazar Shual, Balah, Ezem,",
      "4": "Eltolad, Bethul, Hormah,",
      "5": "Ziklag, Beth Markaboth, Hazar Susah,",
      "6": "Beth Lebaoth, and Sharuhen—thirteen cities and their villages.",
      "7": "Also Ain, Rimmon, Ether, and Ashan—four cities and their villages.",
      "8": "All the villages that are around these cities, as far as Baalath Be’er (which is Ramah of the Negev).\nThis is the inheritance of the tribe of the descendants of Simeon according to their clans.",
      "9": "Part of the share of the descendants of Judah became the inheritance of the descendants of Simeon. Because the portion of the descendants of Judah was too large for them, the descendants of Simeon received an inheritance within Judah’s inheritance.",
      "10": "The third lot came up for the descendants of Zebulun according to their clans.\nThe border of their inheritance reaches as far as Sarid.",
      "11": "Their border ascends toward the west to Maralah and touches Dabbesheth.\nThen it touches the streambed that is next to Jokneam.",
      "12": "Then it turns from Sarid eastward toward the rising of the sun on the border of Kisloth Tabor. Then it goes out to Daberath and ascends to Japhia.",
      "13": "From there it passes on the east, along the side that is toward the sunrise, to Gath Hepher, to Eth Kazin, and goes out to Rimmon, which is marked off to Neah.",
      "14": "Then the border curves around it on the north to Hannathon, and it ends at the Valley of Iphtah El,",
      "15": "Kattath, Nahalal, Shimron, Idalah, and Bethlehem—twelve cities and their villages.",
      "16": "This is the inheritance of the descendants of Zebulun according to their clans—these cities and their villages.",
      "17": "The fourth lot came out for Issachar, for the descendants of Issachar according to their clans.",
      "18": "Their territory extended to Jezre’el, Kesulloth, Shunem,",
      "19": "Hapharaim, Shion, Anaharath,",
      "20": "Rabbith, Kishion, Ebez,",
      "21": "Remeth, En Gannim, En Haddah, and Beth Pazzez.",
      "22": "The border touches Tabor, Shahazimah, and Beth Shemesh, and their border ends at the Jordan—sixteen cities and their villages.",
      "23": "This is the inheritance of the tribe of the descendants of Issachar according to their clans—the cities and their villages.",
      "24": "The fifth lot came out for the tribe of the descendants of Asher according to their clans.",
      "25": "Their border enclosed Helkath, Hali, Beten, Akshaph,",
      "26": "Allammelek, Amad, and Mishal, and it touches on Carmel on the west, and on Shihor Libnath.",
      "27": "Then it turns on the east to Beth Dagon and touches the territory of Zebulun and the Valley of Iphtah El to the north, also Beth Emek, and Neiel.\nThen it goes out to Kabul in the north,",
      "28": "to Ebron, Rehob, Hammon, and Kanah, as far as Great Sidon.",
      "29": "Then the border turns toward Ramah, to the fortified city of Tyre.\nThen the border turns toward Hosah, and it ends at the sea.\nIt extends from Hebel to Akzib,",
      "30": "Ummah, Aphek, and Rehob—twenty-two cities and their villages.",
      "31": "This is the inheritance of the tribe of the descendants of Asher according to their clans—these cities and their villages.",
      "32": "The sixth lot came out for the descendants of Naphtali, for the descendants of Naphtali according to their clans.",
      "33": "Their border extends from Heleph, from the oak in Za’annim, past Adami Nekeb, and Jabne’el to Lakkum. It ends at the Jordan.",
      "34": "Then the border turns west to Aznoth Tabor and goes out from there to Hukkok. It touches Zebulun on the south, Asher on the west, and Judah at the Jordan on the east.",
      "35": "The fortified cities are Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Kinneret,",
      "36": "Adamah, Ramah, Hazor,",
      "37": "Kedesh, Edrei, En Hazor,",
      "38": "Yiron, Migdal El, Horem, Beth Anath, and Beth Shemesh—nineteen cities and their villages.",
      "39": "This is the inheritance of the tribe of the descendants of Naphtali according to their clans—the cities and their villages.",
      "40": "The seventh lot came out for the tribe of the descendants of Dan according to their clans.",
      "41": "The territory of their inheritance includes Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir Shemesh,",
      "42": "Sha’alabbin, Aijalon, Ithlah,",
      "43": "Elon, Timnah, Ekron,",
      "44": "Eltekeh, Gibbethon, Baalath,",
      "45": "Jehud, Bene Berak, Gath Rimmon,",
      "46": "Me Yarkon, and Rakkon, with the border close to Joppa.",
      "47": "But the territory of the descendants of Dan slipped away from them. So the descendants of Dan went up and fought against Leshem. They captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword. They took possession of it and lived in it, and they named Leshem “Dan” after Dan, their forefather.",
      "48": "This is the inheritance of the tribe of the descendants of Dan according to their clans—these cities and their villages.",
      "49": "When they had finished distributing the land as an inheritance by assigning borders, the Israelites gave Joshua son of Nun an inheritance among them.",
      "50": "According to the command of the Lord, they gave him the city that he had requested, Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim. He built up the city and lived in it.",
      "51": "These are the inheritances that Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leading fathers of the tribes of Israel assigned by lot at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. So they finished distributing the land."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Then the Lord spoke to Joshua",
      "2": "and told him to give the people of Israel the following directions:\nDesignate for yourselves the cities of refuge about which I spoke to you through Moses.",
      "3": "A person who takes a life may flee to one of them, if that person has killed someone by accident, without intent. These cities are to serve for you as a refuge from the avenger of blood.",
      "4": "The person is to flee to one of these cities and stand at the entrance to the gate of the city and state his case before a hearing of the elders of that city. They are to receive him into the city and give him a place where he can live with them.",
      "5": "When the avenger of blood pursues him, the elders are not to hand over the person who took a life to the avenger, because that person killed his fellow man without intent, and he had not been his enemy previously.",
      "6": "The killer is to live in that city until he stands in front of the community for judgment, and then until the death of the high priest who presides in those days. At that time the one who took a life may return to his city and to his house—to the city from which he fled.",
      "7": "So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.",
      "8": "Also in the region on the east side of the Jordan of Jericho, they designated Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland from the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh.",
      "9": "These were the appointed cities for all the people of Israel and for the aliens residing among them, so that anyone killing a person accidentally could flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood before he stood trial in the presence of the community."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Then the leading fathers of the Levites approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leading fathers of the tribes of the people of Israel.",
      "2": "When they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, they said, “The Lord commanded through Moses to give us cities to live in, together with their pasturelands for our livestock.”",
      "3": "So from their own inheritance the people of Israel gave to the Levites these cities and their pasturelands according to the command of the Lord.",
      "4": "The clans of Kohath, one of the descendants of Levi, received the first lot. Those who were descendants of Aaron the priest received by lot thirteen cities from the tribes of Judah, from the Simeonites, and from the tribe of Benjamin.",
      "5": "The remaining Kohathites received by lot ten cities from the clans of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan, and the half tribe of Manasseh.",
      "6": "The descendants of Gershon received by lot thirteen cities from the clans of the tribes of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and the half tribe of Manasseh in Bashan.",
      "7": "The descendants of Merari according to their clans received twelve cities from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun.",
      "8": "The people of Israel assigned cities and their pasturelands to the Levites by lot, just as the Lord had commanded through Moses.",
      "9": "The tribe of the descendants of Judah and the tribe of the descendants of Simeon gave the cities, named below,",
      "10": "to the descendants of Aaron, who were from the Kohathite clan of the people of Levi, because the first lot was theirs.",
      "11": "They gave them Kiriath Arba in the hill country of Judah and its pasturelands which surround it. (Kiriath Arba is Hebron.) (Arba was the father of the Anakites.)",
      "12": "But the outlying countryside of the city and its villages they had given to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his possession.",
      "13": "In this way they gave the descendants of Aaron the priest these cities: Hebron, the city of refuge for one who takes a life, together with its pasturelands, Libnah and its pasturelands,",
      "14": "Jattir and its pasturelands, Eshtemoa and its pasturelands,",
      "15": "Holon and its pasturelands, Debir and its pasturelands,",
      "16": "Ain and its pasturelands, Juttah and its pasturelands, Beth Shemesh and its pasturelands—nine cities from these two tribes.",
      "17": "From the tribe of Benjamin, they gave Gibeon and its pasturelands, Geba and its pasturelands,",
      "18": "Anathoth and its pasturelands, and Almon and its pasturelands—four cities.",
      "19": "All the cities for the descendants of Aaron the priest totaled thirteen cities and their pasturelands.",
      "20": "For the rest of the clans of the Levites descended from Kohath, the cities of their allotment came from the tribe of Ephraim.",
      "21": "They gave them Shechem, the city of refuge for one who takes a life, and its pasturelands in the hill country of Ephraim; Gezer and its pasturelands;",
      "22": "Kibzaim and its pasturelands; and Beth Horon and its pasturelands—four cities.",
      "23": "From the tribe of Dan they gave Eltekeh and its pasturelands, Gibbethon and its pasturelands,",
      "24": "Aijalon and its pasturelands, Gath Rimmon and its pasturelands—four cities.",
      "25": "From the half tribe of Manasseh, they gave Ta’anach and its pasturelands, and Gath Rimmon and its pasturelands—two cities.",
      "26": "The total was ten cities and their pasturelands for the remaining clans of the descendants of Kohath.",
      "27": "To the descendants of Gershon, one of the clans of the Levites, these cities were given.\nFrom the half tribe of Manasseh: the city of refuge for someone who had killed a man, namely, Golan in Bashan and its pasturelands, also Be’eshterah and its pastureland—two cities.",
      "28": "From the tribe of Issachar: Kishion and its pasturelands, Daberath and its pasturelands,",
      "29": "Jarmuth and its pasturelands, En Gannim and its pasturelands—four cities.",
      "30": "From the tribe of Asher: Mishal and its pasturelands, Abdon and its pasturelands,",
      "31": "Helkath and its pasturelands, and Rehob and its pasturelands—four cities.",
      "32": "From the tribe of Naphtali: the city of refuge for someone who had killed a man, namely, Kedesh in Galilee and its pasturelands, Hammoth Dor and its pasturelands, and Kartan and its pasturelands—three cities.",
      "33": "All the cities of the Gershonites according to their clans totaled thirteen cities and their pasturelands.",
      "34": "To the clans of the sons of Merari, the rest of the Levites, these cities were given.\nFrom the tribe of Zebulun: Jokneam and its pasturelands, Kartah and its pasturelands,",
      "35": "Dimnah and its pasturelands, Nahalal and its pasturelands—four cities.",
      "36": "From the tribe of Reuben: Bezer and its pasturelands, Jahzah and its pasturelands,",
      "37": "Kedemoth and its pasturelands, and Mepha’ath and its pasturelands—four cities.",
      "38": "From the tribe of Gad: the city of refuge for one who takes a life, namely, Ramoth in Gilead and its pasturelands, Mahanaim and its pasturelands,",
      "39": "Heshbon and its pasturelands, Jazer and its pasturelands. All the cities totaled four.",
      "40": "All the cities for the descendants of Merari according to their clans, the rest of the clans of the Levites—their allotment was twelve cities.",
      "41": "So all the cities of the Levites within the possession of the descendants of Israel totaled forty-eight cities and their pasturelands.",
      "42": "These cities consisted of each city and its pasturelands that surround it. It was that way for all these cities.",
      "43": "So the Lord gave to Israel all of the land that he had sworn to give to their fathers. They took possession of it and lived in it.",
      "44": "The Lord gave them rest all around, in fulfillment of everything that he had sworn to their fathers. Not one person out of all their enemies had withstood them. The Lord had given all their enemies into their hands.",
      "45": "Not one promise out of all the good promises that the Lord had promised to the house of Israel failed. They all came true!"
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh.",
      "2": "He said to them, “You have carried out everything that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, and you have obeyed my voice in everything that I commanded you.",
      "3": "You have not forsaken your brothers for many days now, right up till today, and you have carried out the commands of the Lord your God.",
      "4": "Now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers, just as he promised them. So now return to your tents, to the land assigned as your possession, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave to you east of the Jordan.",
      "5": "But be very careful to follow the commandment and teaching that Moses, the servant of the Lord, decreed to you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, to cling to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”",
      "6": "Then Joshua blessed them and dismissed them, and they went to their tents.",
      "7": "(To the half tribe of Manasseh Moses had made a grant of land in Bashan, and to the other half of that tribe Joshua had made a grant among their brothers west of the Jordan.) So when Joshua dismissed them to their tents, he blessed them",
      "8": "and said to them, “Return to your tents with very great wealth—with large herds of livestock, with silver, gold, bronze, and iron, and with a lot of clothing. Divide the plunder taken from your enemies with your brother Israelites.”",
      "9": "So the descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh set out to return home. They left the people of Israel at Shiloh in the land of Canaan to travel to the land of Gilead, to the land assigned as their possession, which they had acquired there by the word of the Lord through Moses.",
      "10": "When they came to Geliloth by the Jordan, which is in the land of Canaan, the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh built an altar there by the Jordan, a conspicuously large altar.",
      "11": "The people of Israel heard about it and said, “See, the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh have built the altar on the frontier of the land of Canaan at Geliloth of the Jordan, on the side of the river that belongs to the people of Israel.”",
      "12": "When the people of Israel heard this, the whole commuity of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to go to war against them.",
      "13": "Then the people of Israel sent the priest Phinehas son of Eleazar to the people of Reuben, to the people of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead.",
      "14": "Together with him they sent ten tribal leaders, a leader for each fathers’ house for all the tribes of Israel. Each one was a head of his fathers’ house according to the divisions of Israel.",
      "15": "They came to the people of Reuben, to the people of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them. They said,",
      "16": "“This is what the whole community of the Lord has said: Why have you committed such an unfaithful act against the God of Israel by turning from the Lord today? When you built an altar for yourselves, you rebelled against the Lord today.",
      "17": "Was the sin of Peor so trivial—something from which we have not cleansed ourselves to this day, and for which a plague came on the community of the Lord—",
      "18": "so that today you have to turn away from the Lord? This is what will happen if you rebel against the Lord today: Tomorrow he will be furious against the whole community of Israel!",
      "19": "But by all means, if the land you have received as your possession is unclean, cross over to the Lord’s own land where the Dwelling of the Lord has its home and take your possession among us. But do not rebel against the Lord, and do not make us rebels by your act of building an altar for yourselves apart from the altar of the Lord our God!",
      "20": "When Achan son of Zerah acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things, did it not bring anger against the whole community of Israel? He was not the only one who perished because of his guilt!”",
      "21": "Then the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh responded to the heads of the divisions of Israel:",
      "22": "By God, the true God, the Lord! By God, the true God, the Lord! He knows, and Israel will know too. If we acted in rebellion or if we acted in unfaithfulness against the Lord, do not spare us this day.",
      "23": "If we acted to build an altar for ourselves to turn from the Lord, or if we acted to offer up burnt offerings or grain offerings on it, or if we acted to make sacrifices of fellowship offerings on it, let the Lord himself demand an accounting from us.",
      "24": "But in truth, we did this because we were concerned that in the future your children would say to our children, “What connection do you have to the Lord, the God of Israel?",
      "25": "The Lord placed a border between us and you people of Reuben and Gad, namely, the Jordan. You have no portion in the Lord.” Then your children would stop our children from fearing the Lord.",
      "26": "So we said, “Come on now, let us build an altar—but not for burnt offerings and not for sacrifice.”",
      "27": "Rather, it is to be a witness between us and you and between our generations after us concerning our right to perform the worship of the Lord before him by our burnt offerings, by our sacrifices, and by our fellowship offerings, so that your children cannot say in the future to our children, “You have no share in the Lord.”",
      "28": "So we said, “If they say that to us and to our generations in the future, then we will say, ‘Look at the replica of the altar of the Lord that our fathers made—but not for burnt offerings and not for sacrifice. Rather it is a witness between us and you.’”",
      "29": "Far be it from us to rebel against the Lord and to turn today from the Lord by building an altar for burnt offerings, for grain offerings, or for fellowship offerings apart from the altar of the Lord our God that is in front of his dwelling.",
      "30": "Phinehas the priest heard this, as did the tribal leaders of the community and the heads of the divisions of the tribes of Israel who were with him. They heard the words that the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the people of Manasseh spoke, and they were pleased.",
      "31": "So Phinehas, son of Eleazar the priest, said to the people of Reuben, to the people of Gad, and to the people of Manasseh, “Today we know that the Lord is among us since you did not act unfaithfully against the Lord. Now you have saved the people of Israel from the hand of the Lord.”",
      "32": "So the priest Phinehas son of Eleazar and the leaders returned from the people of Reuben and Gad in the land of Gilead to the people of Israel in the land of Canaan, and they brought them a report.",
      "33": "The report pleased the people of Israel, so the people of Israel blessed God, and they did not say anything more about going to war against them to destroy the land that the people of Reuben and the people of Gad were living in.",
      "34": "The people of Reuben and the people of Gad named the altar “Witness” because they said, “It is a witness between us that the Lord is the one God.”"
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "After many days, when the Lord had given Israel rest from all its enemies all around, when Joshua had grown old and advanced in years,",
      "2": "Joshua summoned all Israel—its elders, its heads, its judges, and its officers, and he said to them:\nI have grown old and advanced in years.",
      "3": "You yourselves have seen everything that the Lord your God has done for you against all these nations. Yes, the Lord your God was fighting for you!",
      "4": "See now, I have allotted to your tribes an inheritance from these nations that remain unconquered, as well as from the nations that I have destroyed. It extends from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.",
      "5": "The Lord your God himself will push them away from you and drive them out of your presence, ⎣until they perish. He will send wild animals among them until he completely destroys them and their kings from your presence⎦ and you will take possession of their land, just as the Lord your God promised you.",
      "6": "You must be very resolute in carrying out all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses by not turning from it to the right or to the left,",
      "7": "by not intermingling with these nations that remain with you. Do not ever call on or swear by the names of their gods. Never serve them and never bow down to them.",
      "8": "But hold fast to the Lord your God, just as you have been doing to this day.",
      "9": "The Lord has driven out great and powerful nations from among you. As for you, no one has stood up against you to this day.",
      "10": "One of you would put a thousand to flight because the Lord your God himself was fighting for you, just as he promised you.",
      "11": "Therefore, for your own sakes be very careful to love the Lord your God.",
      "12": "But if you do turn away and keep close company with the remnant of these nations that remain with you, and if you intermarry with them and intermingle with them and they with you,",
      "13": "then know for certain that the Lord your God will not continue to drive out these nations from among you, but they will become a trap and a snare for you, a whip for your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from your good land that the Lord your God has given you.",
      "14": "See now, I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know with all your heart and with all your soul that not one promise out of all the good promises that the Lord your God promised you has failed. All of them have come true for you. Not one promise from him has failed.",
      "15": "But just as every good promise that the Lord your God promised to you has come true for you, likewise the Lord will cause every promise of disaster to come true for you until he has destroyed you from this good land that the Lord your God has given you.",
      "16": "If you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God that he commanded you, and you go and serve other gods, and you bow down to them, then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and you will perish quickly from the good land that he has given you."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel at Shechem, and he summoned the elders of Israel, its heads, its judges, and its officers, and they presented themselves before God.",
      "2": "Then Joshua told all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said.”\nFrom ancient times your ancestors, including Terah, who was the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River, and they served other gods.",
      "3": "But I took your father Abraham from across the River, and I caused him to walk through the whole land of Canaan. I multiplied his seed, and I gave Isaac to him,",
      "4": "and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.",
      "5": "Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted Egypt with the plagues I sent there. Afterward I brought you out.",
      "6": "I brought your fathers out from Egypt, and you came to the sea. With chariots and charioteers the Egyptians pursued your fathers to the Red Sea.",
      "7": "They cried out to the Lord, and he set darkness between you and the Egyptians, and he brought the sea upon them so that it covered them. Your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you lived in the wilderness for many days.",
      "8": "I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan, and they fought against you. But I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land after I had destroyed them before you.",
      "9": "Then Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel. He summoned Balaam son of Beor to curse you,",
      "10": "but I was not willing to listen to Balaam. So he blessed you time after time. In this way I rescued you from his power.",
      "11": "Then you crossed over the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho and the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites fought against you, but I gave them into your hand.",
      "12": "I sent the hornet before you, and it drove them out before you, as it drove out the two kings of the Amorites.\nIt was not by your sword and not by your bow!",
      "13": "So I have given you a land for which you did not labor. I gave you cities that you did not build, but you have been living in them. I gave you vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant, but you are eating from them.",
      "14": "Joshua said, “Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly and faithfully. Remove the gods that your fathers served in the region across the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.",
      "15": "But if you see no benefit in serving the Lord, then choose for yourselves today whomever you will serve—whether the gods that your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household—we will serve the Lord!”",
      "16": "The people responded by saying, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord in order to serve other gods!",
      "17": "For the Lord our God, he is the one who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, where we were slaves. He is the one who performed these great signs right before our eyes and protected us on the whole journey that we made and among all the peoples through whom we passed.",
      "18": "The Lord drove out of our presence all the peoples and the Amorites who were living in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God!”",
      "19": "But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, because he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.",
      "20": "If you forsake the Lord and you serve foreign gods, then he will turn and cause disaster for you, and he will put an end to you after he has done good for you.”",
      "21": "But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will most certainly serve the Lord!”",
      "22": "So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves in order to serve him.”\nThe people said, “We are witnesses!”",
      "23": "Joshua said, “Now, therefore, remove the foreign gods that are among you, and turn your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel.”",
      "24": "The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God, and we will listen to his voice.”",
      "25": "That day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and he affirmed for them a statute and ordinance there at Shechem.",
      "26": "Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was at the holy place of the Lord.",
      "27": "Joshua said to all the people, “See, this stone will be a witness among us and against us, because it has heard all the words that the Lord spoke with us. So it will be a witness among you and against you, so that you do not act deceptively against your God.”",
      "28": "Then Joshua dismissed the people, each one to his own inheritance.",
      "29": "After these events Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred ten years.",
      "30": "They buried him in the territory of his inheritance, in Timnath Serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Ga’ash.",
      "31": "Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and who had experienced every deed that the Lord had done for Israel.",
      "32": "The bones of Joseph, which the descendants of Israel had brought up from Egypt, were buried in Shechem in the portion of the field that Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of silver, and they became a heritage for the sons of Joseph.",
      "33": "Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they buried him on the hill that belonged to his son Phinehas, which had been given to him in the hill country of Ephraim."
    }
  },
  "Judges": {
    "1": {
      "1": "After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel asked the Lord, “Who should go up against the Canaanites for us? Who of us should be the first to wage war against them?”",
      "2": "The Lord said, “Judah should go up. I have handed over the land to them.”",
      "3": "So the tribe of Judah said to the tribe of Simeon, their brothers, “Go up with us to the territory that has been allotted to us, and together we will wage war against the Canaanites. We also will come with you into your allotment.” So Simeon went with Judah.",
      "4": "When Judah went up, the Lord delivered the Canaanites and Perizzites into their hand. At Bezek the Israelites struck down ten thousand men.",
      "5": "They encountered Adoni-Bezek at Bezek, and they waged war against him and struck down the Canaanites and the Perizzites.",
      "6": "Adoni-Bezek fled, but they pursued him, seized him, and cut off his thumbs and his big toes.",
      "7": "So Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, with their thumbs and their big toes cut off, had to scrounge for scraps of food under my table. God has repaid me with exactly what I did to them.” Israel brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.",
      "8": "The men of Judah waged war against Jerusalem and captured it. They struck the city with the edge of the sword and set it on fire.",
      "9": "After that, the men of Judah went down to wage war against the Canaanites who lived in the hill country, in the Negev, and in the Shephelah.",
      "10": "Judah went up against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (the name of Hebron before this was Kiriath Arba). There they struck down Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai.",
      "11": "From there they went up against those who lived at Debir (the name of Debir before this was Kiriath Sepher).",
      "12": "Then Caleb said, “To the one who attacks Kiriath Sepher and takes it, I will give my daughter Aksah as his wife.”",
      "13": "Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s youngest brother, captured it. So Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him as his wife.",
      "14": "She came to Othniel and pressured him to ask her father for pastureland. As she dismounted from her donkey, Caleb said to her, “What do you want?”",
      "15": "She said to him, “Give me this blessing: Since you gave me land in the dry Negev, give me springs of water also.” So Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.",
      "16": "The descendants of the Kenite father-in-law of Moses went up with the people of Judah from the City of Palms to the part of the Wilderness of Judah that was in the Negev near Arad. They went and lived there among the people.",
      "17": "The tribe of Judah went along with the tribe of Simeon, its brother tribe. Together they struck down the Canaanites who lived in Zephath. They devoted the city to destruction and named the city Hormah.",
      "18": "Judah also captured Gaza with its border region, Ashkelon with its border region, and Ekron with its border region.",
      "19": "The Lord was with Judah, and Judah took possession of the hill country, but Judah could not take possession of the land belonging to the people who lived in the valleys and lowlands, because they had iron chariots.",
      "20": "Hebron was given to Caleb, as Moses had commanded, and he took possession of the land of the three sons of Anak.",
      "21": "But the men of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites live among the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.",
      "22": "The house of Joseph likewise went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them.",
      "23": "The house of Joseph sent spies to scout Bethel (the name of the city was formerly Luz).",
      "24": "The spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us a way into the city, and we will grant you mercy.”",
      "25": "The man showed them a way into the city, and they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and his whole family go.",
      "26": "The man went to the land of the Hittites, built a city, and named it Luz. That is its name to this day.",
      "27": "But the tribe of Manasseh did not take possession of Beth Shan and its towns or Ta’anach and its towns. They did not drive out the inhabitants of Dor and its towns, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its towns, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns, so the Canaanites were determined to keep living in this land.",
      "28": "Whenever Israel grew strong, they made the Canaanites perform forced labor, but they did not drive them out completely.",
      "29": "In the same way, Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites living at Gezer. Instead, the Canaanites continued to live among them at Gezer.",
      "30": "Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or the inhabitants of Nahalol. Instead, the Canaanites continued to live among them. Zebulun did subject them to forced labor.",
      "31": "Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Akko, the inhabitants of Sidon, or those in Ahlab, Akzib, Helbah, Aphek, or Rehob.",
      "32": "Instead, the people of Asher lived among the Canaanites, who continued to live in the land because the Asherites did not drive them out.",
      "33": "Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh or the inhabitants of Beth Anath. Instead, they continued to live among the Canaanites, who continued to live in the land, but the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath did perform forced labor for Naphtali.",
      "34": "The Amorites forced the men of Dan back into the hill country. They did not allow them to come down to the lowlands.",
      "35": "The Amorites were determined to continue living in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Sha’albim, but the hand of the house of Joseph grew heavy on them, and they were put to forced labor.",
      "36": "The border of the Amorites stretched from the Ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela, and beyond."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "The Angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim, and he said, “I brought you up out of Egypt, and I brought you to the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will not break my covenant with you, forever.",
      "2": "As for you, do not make a covenant with the people living in this land. You must tear down their altars.’ But you did not listen to my voice. What is this you have done?",
      "3": "So I say, ‘I will not drive them out before you, but they will be traps for you, and their gods will be a snare to you.’”",
      "4": "When the Angel of the Lord spoke these things to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept loudly.",
      "5": "They named that place Bokim, and they sacrificed to the Lord there.",
      "6": "When Joshua dismissed the people, each of the descendants of Israel went to his own inheritance to take possession of the land.",
      "7": "The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, those who had seen all the great deeds that the Lord had done for Israel.",
      "8": "Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred ten years.",
      "9": "They buried him within the borders of his inheritance, in Timnath Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Ga’ash.",
      "10": "After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them, who did not know the Lord or the deeds that he had done for Israel.",
      "11": "The people of Israel committed evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals,",
      "12": "and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them. They bowed down to them, and they angered the Lord.",
      "13": "They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtartes.",
      "14": "So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of raiders, who plundered them. He sold them into the hand of their enemies around them, and they were not able to stand up in the face of their enemies.",
      "15": "Whenever the men of Israel went out, the hand of the Lord was against them to bring disaster on them, just as the Lord had said to them and just as the Lord had sworn to them. So they were greatly distressed.",
      "16": "Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges, who saved them from the hand of those who plundered them,",
      "17": "but they did not listen even to the judges! Instead, they prostituted themselves to other gods and bowed down to them. They quickly turned from the way in which their fathers, who had obeyed the commands of the Lord, had once walked. This generation did not act the same way their fathers had acted.",
      "18": "Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, the Lord was with that judge and saved them from their enemies during all the days of that judge, because the Lord had compassion when he heard their groaning under their tormenters and oppressors.",
      "19": "But then, after the death of the judge, Israel would turn back and become more corrupt than their fathers by going after other gods, by serving them, and by worshipping them. They refused to let go of their practices and their shameless ways.",
      "20": "So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel. He said, “Because this nation has violated my covenant, which I commanded to their fathers, and because they did not obey my voice,",
      "21": "I will no longer drive out from among them a single one of the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died.",
      "22": "I will do this in order to test Israel by means of them. Will Israel keep the way of the Lord and walk upon it as their fathers kept it, or not?”",
      "23": "So the Lord gave those nations a reprieve, and he did not drive them out quickly. He did not hand them over to Joshua."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "The following are the nations that the Lord left in place in order to test all the Israelites who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan.",
      "2": "(This was done so that the generations of Israelites who did not know war would learn how to wage war.)",
      "3": "Those who remained were the five serens of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwell in the mountains of Lebanon from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.",
      "4": "They remained there to test Israel, in order to know whether or not they would obey the commands of the Lord, which he commanded to their fathers by the hand of Moses.",
      "5": "The people of Israel lived in the midst of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.",
      "6": "They took the daughters of these peoples as wives for themselves, and they gave their own daughters to the other peoples’ sons. They also served their gods.",
      "7": "Then the people of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.",
      "8": "The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim, who was the king of Aram Naharaim. The Israelites served Cushan Rishathaim for eight years.",
      "9": "Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up a deliverer for the Israelites, who saved them.\nThe deliverer was Othniel, son of Kenaz, the youngest brother of Caleb.",
      "10": "The Spirit of the Lord was upon him. He served as Israel’s judge. When he went out to wage war, the Lord gave Cushan Rishathaim, the king of Aram, into his hand, and his hand was strong against Cushan Rishathaim.",
      "11": "Then the land was quiet for forty years, and Othniel son of Kenaz died.",
      "12": "Again the people of Israel committed evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel because they had committed evil in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "13": "Eglon took Ammonites and Amalekites along with him. He advanced and attacked Israel and took possession of the City of Palms.",
      "14": "So the people of Israel served Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years.",
      "15": "Again the people of Israel called out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up a deliverer for them. The deliverer was Ehud son of Gera, a Benjaminite, who was left-handed.\nThe Israelites sent him with a tribute payment for Eglon king of Moab.",
      "16": "Ehud made a double-edged sword for himself, about eighteen inches long, and he strapped it under his clothing on his right thigh.",
      "17": "Ehud presented the tribute payment to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man.",
      "18": "After Ehud had presented the tribute payment, he sent the men who had delivered the tribute on their way.",
      "19": "But after he himself had passed the carved images that were at Gilgal, Ehud turned back and told the king, “I have a secret for you, O king!”\nThe king said, “Quiet, everyone,” so all his attendants left the room.",
      "20": "Ehud approached Eglon as Eglon was sitting in the cool upper chamber, all alone. Ehud said, “I have something from God for you.” So Eglon stood up from the throne.",
      "21": "Ehud reached out his left hand and took the sword that was on his right thigh and drove it into Eglon’s belly.",
      "22": "As the hilt went in after the blade, Eglon’s fat closed behind the blade. Ehud did not draw the sword out from Eglon’s belly, and the contents of his bowels came out.",
      "23": "Ehud then went out to the vestibule, shut the doors of the upper chamber behind him, and locked them.",
      "24": "Then off he went!\nWhen Eglon’s servants came back, they were surprised to see that the doors of the upper chamber were locked. They said, “He must be using the toilet.”",
      "25": "They waited until the delay became embarrassing, but no one opened the doors to the upper chamber. Finally they took the key and opened the door. And there he was. Their master was lying on the ground—dead!",
      "26": "While they delayed, Ehud had escaped. He passed by the carved images and escaped to Seirah.",
      "27": "When he arrived, ram’s horns were sounded throughout the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites marched down from the hill country with Ehud leading the way.",
      "28": "He said to them, “Follow me, because the Lord has given your enemies, the Moabites, into your hands.” So they pursued them, captured the fords of the Jordan opposite Moab, and let no one cross.",
      "29": "At this time they struck down about ten thousand men of Moab, every one robust, each one a powerful warrior. Not one escaped.",
      "30": "This is how Moab was humbled on that day under the hand of Israel, and the land was quiet for eighty years.",
      "31": "After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath. He struck down six hundred Philistines with an ox goad. He too delivered Israel."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "After Ehud died, once again the people of Israel committed evil in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "2": "So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who ruled in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim.",
      "3": "Again the people of Israel called out to the Lord, because Jabin had nine hundred iron chariots. He brutally oppressed the people of Israel for twenty years.",
      "4": "Deborah, a woman, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.",
      "5": "She would sit under the Palm Tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel would come to her for judgment.",
      "6": "She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali. She said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, has commanded, ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from Naphtali and Zebulun.",
      "7": "I will lure Sisera, commander of the army of Jabin, to you at the stream Kishon along with his chariots and his horde, and I will give him into your hand.’”",
      "8": "But Barak said to her, “If you go with me, I will go, but if you do not go with me, I will not go.”",
      "9": "She answered, “All right. I will go with you, but because of the way you are going about it, the honor will not be yours. The Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.",
      "10": "Barak called up the forces of Zebulun and Naphtali to meet at Kedesh. Ten thousand men went up on foot, and Deborah also went up with him.",
      "11": "It happened that Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the other Kenites, who were the descendants of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses, and he had set up his tent out by the oak tree in Za’anannim near Kedesh.",
      "12": "When Sisera was told that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor,",
      "13": "Sisera led out all his chariots (nine hundred iron chariots) and all the people who were with him from Harosheth Haggoyim, and they came to the stream Kishon.",
      "14": "Deborah said to Barak, “Get up! Today is the day that the Lord has given Sisera into your hands! Is not the Lord going ahead of you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men followed him.",
      "15": "The Lord threw Sisera, all his chariots, and all his troops into confusion with the edge of the sword of Barak. So Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot.",
      "16": "Barak pursued the chariots and the troops as far as Harosheth Haggoyim. Sisera’s whole army fell by the edge of the sword. Not a single man was left.",
      "17": "Sisera meanwhile fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the household of Heber the Kenite.",
      "18": "Jael came out to meet Sisera and said to him, “This way, my lord. Come here to me! Do not be afraid.” So he turned aside to her, went into her tent, and she hid him with a covering.",
      "19": "He said to her, “Give me something to drink, please—just a little water, because I am thirsty.” She opened a skin of milk and gave him some milk to drink. Then she covered him up.",
      "20": "After that, he said to her, “Stand at the door of the tent, and if anyone comes and asks you, ‘Is there anyone here?’ say, ‘No.’”",
      "21": "But then Jael wife of Heber took a tent stake, and gripping a hammer in her hand, she came to Sisera quietly and drove the stake through his temple, right through into the ground. Sisera had been fast asleep, exhausted—now he was dead!",
      "22": "When Barak arrived in pursuit of Sisera, Jael came out to meet him. She said to him, “Come in, and I will show you the man you are looking for.” So he went with her, and there he was. Sisera was lying there dead, with the tent stake through his temple.",
      "23": "So on that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the people of Israel,",
      "24": "and the hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan, until they cut down Jabin king of Canaan."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song:",
      "2": "When leaders take the lead in Israel,\nwhen the people freely offer themselves, bless the Lord!",
      "3": "Listen, kings! Lend an ear, rulers!\nI will sing. Yes, I will sing to the Lord.\nI will make music for the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "4": "Lord, when you went out from Seir,\nwhen you marched through the countryside of Edom,\n    the earth shook, the skies poured,\n    yes, the dark clouds poured water.",
      "5": "The mountains melted before the Lord—this one of Sinai—\nbefore the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "6": "In the days of Shamgar son of Anath,\nin the days of Jael, the main roads were deserted,\nand travelers kept to pathways and winding roads.",
      "7": "Life in the unwalled towns came to a halt.\nIn Israel, life came to a halt until I, Deborah, arose,\nuntil I arose as a mother in Israel.",
      "8": "When Israel chose new gods, there was war at the gates.\nNeither shield nor spear was seen among the forty thousand in Israel.",
      "9": "My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel,\nto those who freely offer themselves among the people. Bless the Lord!",
      "10": "Riders on tan donkey mares, you who sit on saddle blankets,\nas well as those who walk along the way—consider this:",
      "11": "Listen to the voices of those who divide flocks between water holes,\nwhere they recount the righteous acts of the Lord,\nrighteous acts for those who live in the unwalled towns in Israel.\nThen the people of the Lord went down to the city gates.",
      "12": "Wake, awake, Deborah!\n⎣Wake up the multitudes of the people.⎦\nWake, awake, sing a song.\nRise up, Barak!\n⎣Deborah, strengthen Barak.⎦ \nLead away your captives, son of Abinoam.",
      "13": "Then a survivor subdued the mighty ones.\nThe people of the Lord came down to me as warriors.",
      "14": "Some came from Ephraim—their root is in Amalek.\nBehind you came Benjamin with your people.\nFrom Makir the commanders came down,\nand from Zebulun those carrying the staff of a scribe.",
      "15": "The officers of Issachar are with Deborah.\nYes, Issachar sent support for Barak into the valley on foot.\nBut in the divisions of Reuben there was much soul searching.",
      "16": "Why did you linger among the sheepfolds\n    to listen to the whistling for the flocks?\nConcerning the divisions in Reuben, there was much soul searching.",
      "17": "Gilead remained beyond the Jordan,\nand Dan—why did he linger in ships?\nAsher remained sitting on the seashore,\nand upon its landing places he remained.",
      "18": "Zebulun is a people who scorned death and risked their lives,\nand Naphtali stayed on the heights of the battlefields.",
      "19": "Kings came; they waged war.\nThere the kings of Canaan waged war,\n    in Ta’anach, at the waters of Megiddo,\nbut they gained no silver as plunder.",
      "20": "From the heavens the stars waged war.\nFrom their courses they fought against Sisera.",
      "21": "The torrent Kishon swept them away,\nthe torrent from ancient times, the torrent Kishon.\nKeep marching, my soul, in strength.",
      "22": "Then the horses’ hoofs thundered,\nthe stampeding, the stampeding of their mighty stallions!",
      "23": "“Curse Meroz!” says the Angel of the Lord.\n“Completely curse those who live in her,\nbecause they did not come to assist the Lord,\nto help the Lord among the warriors.”",
      "24": "Most blessed among women is Jael,\n    the wife of Heber the Kenite.\nMost blessed is she among the women in the tent.",
      "25": "He asked for water, but she gave him milk.\nIn a bowl fit for a nobleman she presented curdled milk.",
      "26": "Her hand reached for the tent stake,\nher right hand for the workman’s hammer,\nand she hammered Sisera.\nShe smashed his head.\nShe shattered and pierced his temple.",
      "27": "Between her feet he knelt, he fell, he lay there.\nBetween her feet he knelt, he fell.\nWhere he sank, there he fell—destroyed.",
      "28": "Out the window she peers.\nSisera’s mother wails from behind the latticework.\n“Why is his chariot so late in coming?\nWhy do I still not hear the clatter of his chariots?”",
      "29": "The wise women among her ladies answer,\nbut she keeps saying to herself,",
      "30": "“Aren’t they just finding and dividing the plunder?\nA womb—no—two wombs for every man.\nDyed goods as plunder for Sisera, dyed fabrics as spoils,\nembroidered dyed material,\nfancy embroidered fabric for my neck, plunder.”",
      "31": "Thus may all your enemies perish, Lord.\nBut those who love him will be\n    like the sun coming forth in its strength.\nThen the land was quiet for forty years."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Again the people of Israel committed evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years.",
      "2": "The hand of Midian was heavy upon Israel. Because of Midian, the people of Israel made hidden shelters for themselves, in the mountains, in caves, and other hideouts.",
      "3": "Whenever Israel planted crops, Midian and Amalek and the people of the East would go up against Israel.",
      "4": "They would set up camp against them and ruin the crops all the way to Gaza, so there was no source of livelihood left in Israel—not even a sheep, an ox, or a donkey.",
      "5": "When the Midianites would invade with their herds of cattle and their tents, they were as numerous as locusts, so it was impossible to count them and their camels. This is how they came up against the land to ruin it.",
      "6": "So Israel was laid low because of Midian, and the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.",
      "7": "When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord because of Midian,",
      "8": "the Lord sent a man, a prophet, to the people of Israel. The prophet said this to them:\nThis is what the Lord God of Israel says: It was I who brought you up from Egypt, and I brought you out from the house of slavery.",
      "9": "I rescued you from the hand of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors, and I drove them out before you, and I gave you their land.",
      "10": "I said to Israel, “I am the Lord your God. Do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live,” but you did not listen to my voice.",
      "11": "The Angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.",
      "12": "The Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”",
      "13": "Gideon said to him, “Please tell me this, my lord: If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the wonderful acts our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Is it not the Lord who brought us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us, and he has given us into the hand of Midian.”",
      "14": "The Lord turned to him and said, “Go forward in this strength that is now yours, and you will deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?”",
      "15": "He said to the Angel, “Pardon me, my lord, but how can I deliver Israel? Look! My clan is the lowliest in Manasseh, and I—I am the least in my father’s house.”",
      "16": "But the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you will strike down Midian as one man.”",
      "17": "Gideon said to him, “If I have now found grace in your eyes, offer me a sign that it is you who are speaking with me.",
      "18": "Please do not leave this spot until I come back to you. I will bring my gift and set it before you.”\nHe said, “I will sit here until you return.”",
      "19": "So Gideon went and prepared a young goat, and he made unleavened bread from a half bushel of flour. He put the meat into a basket and the broth into a pot. He then brought them out to the Angel under the oak, where he presented them.",
      "20": "The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and set them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” So that is what he did.",
      "21": "The Angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread, and fire came up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the Angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.",
      "22": "Gideon realized that this was the Angel of the Lord, and he said, “Oh, no! It is the Lord God! Yes, I have seen the Angel of the Lord face-to-face!”",
      "23": "But the Lord said to him, “Peace be with you. Do not be afraid. You will not die.”",
      "24": "So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there, and he named it “The Lord Is Peace.” To this day it stands at Ophrah of the Abiezrites.",
      "25": "On that same night the Lord said to him, “Take a bull from your father’s herd of cattle, the second bull, the one that is seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal. Then cut down the Asherah pole that is next to it.",
      "26": "In its place, build an altar to the Lord your God in the proper way, on top of this stronghold. Then take the second bull and send up a burnt offering using the wood from the Asherah pole that you cut down.",
      "27": "So Gideon took ten of his servants and carried out the word of the Lord. Yet because he was too afraid of the household of his father and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.",
      "28": "When the men of the city got up early in the morning, they were surprised to see that the altar of Baal had been thrown down, the Asherah pole next to it had been cut down, and the second bull was being offered up as a sacrifice upon the altar that had been built there.",
      "29": "The people were asking each other, “Who did this?” They searched and investigated until they concluded, “Gideon son of Joash did this.”",
      "30": "So the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he broke down the altar of Baal and because he cut down the Asherah pole next to it.”",
      "31": "But Joash said to all those who opposed him, “Will you contend for Baal? Will you save him? Whoever contends for him will be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself if someone broke down his altar.”",
      "32": "From that day on they called Gideon “Jerubbaal,” saying, “Let Baal contend with him, if he broke down his altar.”",
      "33": "Then all the Midianites and Amalekites and the people of the East gathered together. They crossed over to Israelite territory and set up camp in the Valley of Jezre’el.",
      "34": "The Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon. He blew the ram’s horn, and the clan of Abiezer was called out to follow him.",
      "35": "Gideon also sent messengers into all Manasseh, so Manasseh assembled behind Gideon. He also sent messengers into Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet the others.",
      "36": "Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have said,",
      "37": "look here, I am placing a woolen fleece on the threshing floor. If dew is found only on the fleece, but all the ground around it is dry, then I will know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said.”",
      "38": "And that is exactly what happened! Gideon got up early in the morning and squeezed the fleece and wrung out dew from it—a bowlful of water!",
      "39": "But again Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more. Please let me conduct just one more test with the fleece: This time let the fleece be dry, but let there be dew on the ground all around.”",
      "40": "That night God did that very thing! Only the fleece was dry, and there was dew on the ground all around."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him set out and camped by the Spring of Harod. The Midianite camp was north of him, in the valley below the Hill of Moreh.",
      "2": "The Lord said to Gideon, “There are too many people with you for me to give Midian into your hands. If I did that, Israel would glorify itself at my expense and say, ‘My own hand has delivered me.’",
      "3": "So then, make an announcement for the people to hear: ‘Whoever is trembling with fear can return home and fly away from Mount Gilead.’” Twenty-two thousand people turned and left. Only ten thousand remained.",
      "4": "The Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many people. Lead them down to the water, and there I will refine them further for you. If I tell you, ‘This one will go with you,’ he may go with you, but if I say to you, ‘This one will not go with you,’ he must not go.”",
      "5": "So Gideon led the people down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, “Place everyone who laps water with his tongue, as a dog would lap, to one side. Place everyone who kneels down to drink on the other side.”",
      "6": "The number of those who lapped—those who put their hands to their mouths—was three hundred men, while all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water.",
      "7": "The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men who lapped, I will deliver you, and I will give Midian into your hand. As for all the other people, let each man go back to his place.”",
      "8": "The men who had been chosen took provisions in hand, along with their ram’s horns, but Gideon sent every other Israelite man back to his own tent. He kept only the three hundred men. The camp of Midian lay below him in the valley.",
      "9": "That night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up and go down against the Midianite camp, for I have given them into your hand.",
      "10": "But if you are afraid to go down to attack them, then go down to the camp with your young attendant Purah.",
      "11": "Listen to what they say. After that your hands will be strengthened to go down to attack the camp.”\nSo Gideon and his young attendant Purah went down to the sentry posts at the edge of the camp.",
      "12": "Meanwhile, the Midianites and Amalekites and the whole army of the eastern peoples were spread out in the valley, thick as locusts, and their camels were more than could be counted, as many as the grains of sand on the seashore.",
      "13": "When Gideon went down, he arrived just as a man was telling his fellow soldier about a dream. He said, “Listen! I had a dream. I dreamed that a round loaf of barley bread came tumbling over and over into the Midianite camp. It crashed into a tent and struck it so that the tent fell down. It overturned the tent, and the tent collapsed!”",
      "14": "His companion responded, “What can that be but the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the man of Israel. God has given Midian and the whole camp into his hand.”",
      "15": "So when Gideon heard the retelling of the dream and its meaning, he bowed down in worship and returned to the camp of Israel. He said, “Get up, because the Lord has given the camp of Midian into your hand.”",
      "16": "He divided the three hundred men into three groups. He placed a ram’s horn into the hand of each one of them, as well as empty jars with torches inside them.",
      "17": "Then he said to them, “Watch me and do whatever I do. When you see me arrive at the edge of the camp, do whatever I do.",
      "18": "When I and all the men who are with me blow our ram’s horns, the rest of you, who are around the whole camp, also blow your ram’s horns and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”",
      "19": "Gideon and the one hundred men with him went to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the Midianites had posted the guards. Gideon and his men blew their ram’s horns and shattered the jars that were in their hands.",
      "20": "All three groups blew their ram’s horns and broke their jars. They held the torches in their left hands, and in their right hands they held the ram’s horns that they were to blow. They shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”",
      "21": "Each man stood at his station around the camp. The whole Midianite camp started running, raised the alarm, and fled.",
      "22": "When the Israelites blew the three hundred ram’s horns, the Lord turned the sword of each Midianite against the person next to him throughout the whole camp.\nThe Midianite army fled up to Beth Shittah, toward Zererah, up to the border of Abel Meholah, as far as Tabbath.",
      "23": "Then all the men of Israel were summoned, from Naphtali, from Asher, and from all Manasseh, and they pursued Midian.",
      "24": "Gideon sent messengers throughout the entire hill country of Ephraim, saying, “Go down to confront Midian. Seize the waters before them, all the way to Beth Barah and the Jordan.” So all the Ephraimites who were called out seized the waters as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan.",
      "25": "They also captured Oreb and Ze’eb, the two generals of Midian. They killed Oreb at the Rock of Oreb and Ze’eb at the Winepress of Ze’eb. Then they pursued Midian and brought the heads of Oreb and Ze’eb to Gideon by the crossing of the Jordan."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "The men of Ephraim said to Gideon, “What kind of thing was that which you did to us by not inviting us when you went to fight against Midian?” They contended with him vigorously.",
      "2": "Gideon said to them, “What have I accomplished compared to you? Are not the gleanings of Ephraim better than the whole grape harvest of Abiezer?",
      "3": "It was into your hands that God delivered Oreb and Ze’eb, the leaders of Midian. So what have I been able to accomplish compared to you?” Their anger against him died down when he said this.",
      "4": "Gideon then went to the Jordan and crossed over with the three hundred men who were with him. They were exhausted but kept pursuing the enemy.",
      "5": "Gideon said to the men of Succoth, “Please give loaves of bread to the troops who are following right behind me, because they are exhausted, and I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, kings of Midian.”",
      "6": "But the leaders of Succoth said, “Are the cut-off hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hands? Why then would we give bread to your army?”",
      "7": "Gideon replied, “Just for that, when the Lord gives Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with thorns from the wilderness and with briars.”",
      "8": "Then Gideon went up from there to Penuel and made the same request, and the men of Penuel gave him the same answer that the men of Succoth had.",
      "9": "So Gideon said to the men of Penuel, “When I return in peace, I will tear down this tower.”",
      "10": "In the meantime Zebah and Zalmunna had arrived in Karkor. Their armies were with them, but only about fifteen thousand men were left from all the forces of the peoples from the East. One hundred twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen.",
      "11": "Gideon went up by the route of the nomads who live in tents east of Nobah and Jogbehah. He struck the camp when it was not on alert.",
      "12": "Zebah and Zalmunna fled, but Gideon pursued them and captured Zebah and Zalmunna, the two kings of Midian. This made the entire army tremble.",
      "13": "When Gideon son of Joash returned from the battle by the Ascent of Heres,",
      "14": "he captured a young man from Succoth. Gideon questioned the young man, who wrote down for him the names of the leaders of Succoth and of the town’s elders, seventy-seven men in all.",
      "15": "Gideon then went to the men of Succoth and said, “Look! Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hands? Why then would we give bread to your exhausted men?’”",
      "16": "Then Gideon took the elders of the town, and he taught the men of Succoth a lesson with thorns from the wilderness and with briars.",
      "17": "He also tore down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.",
      "18": "Then Gideon said to Zebah and Zalmunna, “What about the men you killed at Tabor?”\nThey said, “They were just like you. Each one looked like a king’s son.”",
      "19": "“They were my brothers,” Gideon answered, “the sons of my mother. As surely as the Lord lives, if you had let them live, I would not kill you.”",
      "20": "Then he said to Jether, his firstborn, “Get up and kill them right now.” But the young man did not draw his sword because he was afraid, because he was still just a youth.",
      "21": "Zebah and Zalmunna said, “You get up and strike us down yourself, for a man’s strength shows what kind of man he is.” Gideon stepped up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he collected the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.",
      "22": "Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you and your son and also your grandson—because you have delivered us from the hand of Midian.”",
      "23": "But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. Only the Lord will rule over you.”",
      "24": "But Gideon also said to them, “Let me ask you for one thing: that each man give me an earring from his plunder.” (The enemy wore gold earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)",
      "25": "They answered, “All right, we will give them to you.” Then they spread out a garment, and each man among them threw in an earring from his plunder.",
      "26": "The weight of the gold earrings that he had requested was seventeen hundred shekels. This was in addition to the crescents, the pendants, and the purple clothing that had been worn by the kings of Midian, and the ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.",
      "27": "Gideon made the gold into a sacred breastplate. He set it up in his town of Ophrah, and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household.",
      "28": "In this way Midian was humbled before the people of Israel, and they did not raise their heads again.\nThe land was quiet for forty years during the days of Gideon.",
      "29": "Jerubbaal son of Joash returned and lived in his own house.",
      "30": "Gideon had seventy sons, who were his direct descendants from his own body, because he had many wives.",
      "31": "Also his concubine at Shechem bore him a son, and he named him Abimelek.",
      "32": "Finally Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age, and he was buried in the tomb of his father Joash, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.",
      "33": "After Gideon died, the people of Israel again prostituted themselves to the Baals, and they set up Baal of the Covenant as their god.",
      "34": "The people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who saved them from the hand of all their enemies around them.",
      "35": "They were not loyal to the house of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good he had done for Israel."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Abimelek son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem to visit his mother’s brothers. He spoke to them and to the entire clan of his mother’s household, saying,",
      "2": "“Please announce this in the hearing of all the citizens of Shechem: What is better for you? If seventy men—all of the sons of Jerubbaal—rule over you, or if one man rules over you? Also remember this—I am your own flesh and blood.”",
      "3": "His mother’s brothers spoke all these words concerning him in the hearing of all the citizens of Shechem. So their hearts were inclined toward Abimelek, because they said, “He is our brother.”",
      "4": "They gave him seventy pieces of silver from the house of Baal of the Covenant. With the money, Abimelek hired worthless, reckless men, who traveled with him.",
      "5": "He came to his father’s household at Ophrah, and he murdered his brothers, the sons of Jerubbaal—seventy men slaughtered on one stone. Only one remained alive, Jotham son of Jerubbaal, the youngest, for he had hidden himself.",
      "6": "Then all the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered together, and they went and crowned Abimelek as king by the oak tree next to the memorial pillar that was in Shechem.",
      "7": "When Jotham was told, he went and stood at the top of Mount Gerizim and called out with a loud voice, “Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, and God will listen to you.”",
      "8": "One day the trees went to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, “Be king over us.”",
      "9": "But the olive tree said to them, “Should I stop producing my rich oil, with which both God and men are honored, to go and sway over the other trees?”",
      "10": "Then the trees said to the fig tree, “Come, you be king over us.”",
      "11": "But the fig tree said to them, “Should I stop producing my sweetness and my good fruit to go and sway over the other trees?”",
      "12": "Then the trees said to the grape vine, “Come, you be king over us.”",
      "13": "But the vine said to them, “Should I stop producing my new wine, which gladdens both God and men, to go and sway over the other trees?”",
      "14": "Finally all the trees said to the bramble, “Come, you be king over us.”",
      "15": "So the bramble said to the trees, “If you are sincere about anointing me to be king over you, come, seek refuge in my shade. But if you are not, may fire come out from the bramble and consume the cedars of Lebanon.”",
      "16": "Jotham said, “So now, if you acted in truth and integrity when you made Abimelek king, and if you have treated Jerubbaal and his household well, and if you have dealt with him as his hands dealt with you—",
      "17": "My father waged war for you and put his life at grave risk and delivered you from the hand of Midian.",
      "18": "Yet you have risen up against the house of my father today, and you have killed his sons, seventy men on one stone, and you have crowned Abimelek, son of his concubine, as king over the citizens of Shechem, because he is your relative.",
      "19": "If you have acted in good faith and integrity with Jerubbaal and with his household this day, rejoice in Abimelek, and let him also rejoice in you.",
      "20": "But if not, may fire come out from Abimelek and consume the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and may fire come out from the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo and consume Abimelek.”",
      "21": "With that, Jotham fled and escaped to Be’er, where he remained because of Abimelek his brother.",
      "22": "After Abimelek ruled over Israel three years,",
      "23": "God sent an evil spirit between Abimelek and the citizens of Shechem, who acted treacherously against Abimelek,",
      "24": "so that the violence perpetrated against the seventy sons of Jerubbaal would come back on Abimelek, and their blood would be charged to their brother Abimelek, who killed them, and to the citizens of Shechem, who supported him when he killed his brothers.",
      "25": "In opposition to Abimelek, the citizens of Shechem set up ambushes on the mountains, and they robbed everyone who went by along the road. This was reported to Abimelek.",
      "26": "At this time Ga’al son of Ebed and his brothers had come to Shechem and settled there, and the citizens of Shechem put their trust in him.",
      "27": "The people of Shechem went out into the fields and gathered grapes from their vineyards. They trod the grapes into wine and held a thanksgiving festival. They went to the house of their god and ate and drank, and they cursed Abimelek.",
      "28": "Ga’al son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelek? Why should the city of Shechem serve him? Isn’t he the son of Jerubbaal? Isn’t Zebul his representative? Serve the descendants of Hamor, the founding father of Shechem, but why should we serve Abimelek?",
      "29": "If only someone would give this people into my hand! I would remove Abimelek!”\nSo he said to Abimelek, “Get a bigger army and come out!”",
      "30": "When Zebul, ruler of the city, heard the words of Ga’al son of Ebed, he was hot with anger.",
      "31": "He secretly sent messengers to Abimelek, saying, “Look, Ga’al son of Ebed and his brothers have been coming to Shechem, and now they are stirring up the city against you.",
      "32": "So now, get up tonight, you and the troops who are with you, and hide yourselves in the countryside.",
      "33": "When morning comes, at sunrise, get up early and make an attack on the city. Then when Ga’al and the people with him come out against you, do to him whatever you can.”",
      "34": "So Abimelek and all the troops who were with him set out in the middle of the night and set an ambush for Shechem, in four units.",
      "35": "Ga’al son of Ebed came out and stood at the entrance to the city gate. Then Abimelek and the troops with him rose up from their hiding places.",
      "36": "When Ga’al saw them, he said to Zebul, “Look! People are coming down from the mountains.”\nBut Zebul said to him, “You are seeing shadows on the mountains and mistaking them for men.”",
      "37": "But Ga’al spoke up again. He said, “No, look! There are people coming down from the navel of the land, and one unit is coming from the direction of the Oak of the Fortune Tellers.”",
      "38": "Zebul said to him, “Where is your big mouth now? You said, ‘Who is Abimelek that we should serve him?’ Aren’t these the people you despised? Go out now, and fight against him!”",
      "39": "So Ga’al went out in front of the citizens of Shechem and fought against Abimelek.",
      "40": "Abimelek pursued him, and Ga’al fled from him. Many fell wounded all the way up to the entrance to the city’s gatehouse.",
      "41": "Abimelek remained in Arumah, but Zebul drove out Ga’al and his brothers, so that they could not stay in Shechem.",
      "42": "The next day, when the people went out into the countryside, this was reported to Abimelek.",
      "43": "He took his people and divided them into three units and set up an ambush in the countryside.\nAs he kept watch, he saw people coming out of the city. He rose up against them and struck them down.",
      "44": "Abimelek and the unit that was with him rushed forward and took a position in front of the entrance to the city’s gatehouse. The other two units attacked everyone who was still out in the open country and struck them down.",
      "45": "Abimelek fought against the city all that day and captured it. He killed the people who were in it, and he tore down the city and sowed it with salt.",
      "46": "When all the citizens defending the citadel of Shechem realized what was happening, they went into the vault of the temple of El of the Covenant.",
      "47": "When it was reported to Abimelek that all the citizens were gathered together in the citadel of Shechem,",
      "48": "Abimelek went up to Mount Zalmon—he and all the people who were with him. Abimelek took an ax in his hand and cut brushwood. He picked up the brush and placed it on his shoulder. He told the people who were with him, “Quickly do exactly what you saw me do.”",
      "49": "All the people, each man, also cut brushwood and followed Abimelek. They placed the branches against the vault and with the branches they set the vault on fire, and all the people in the citadel of Shechem died, about a thousand men and women.",
      "50": "Abimelek then went to Thebez, besieged it, and captured it.",
      "51": "There was a strong tower in the middle of the city, and all the men and women and all the rulers of the city fled there. They shut it up tight behind them and went up to the roof of the tower.",
      "52": "Abimelek came up to the tower and attacked it. He approached the entrance of the tower to burn it down.",
      "53": "A certain woman threw down an upper millstone onto the head of Abimelek, and she fractured his skull.",
      "54": "He called quickly to the young man who carried his gear and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, so that they do not say about me, ‘A woman killed him.’” So this young man ran him through with his sword, and Abimelek died.",
      "55": "When the men of Israel saw that Abimelek was dead, they all went back, each to his place.",
      "56": "In this way God avenged the evil that Abimelek had done to his father by killing his seventy brothers.",
      "57": "God also returned all the evil done by the men of Shechem onto their own heads, and the curse of Jotham son of Jerubbaal came upon them."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "After Abimelek, Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man from Issachar, arose to deliver Israel. He lived in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.",
      "2": "He judged Israel twenty-three years. Then he died and was buried in Shamir.",
      "3": "After him Jair from Gilead arose. He judged Israel twenty-two years.",
      "4": "He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys, and he also had thirty villages in the land of Gilead. People call them the Villages of Jair to this very day.",
      "5": "Jair also died and was buried in Kamon.",
      "6": "Once again the people of Israel committed evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals and the Ashtartes, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the people of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. In this way they forsook the Lord and did not serve him.",
      "7": "So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites,",
      "8": "who shattered and crushed the people of Israel that year.\nFor the next eighteen years, the Ammonites oppressed all the people of Israel who were in the territory east of the Jordan, in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.",
      "9": "When the Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to wage war against Judah and Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim, Israel suffered great distress.",
      "10": "Finally the people of Israel called out to the Lord, “We have sinned against you, for we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals.”",
      "11": "At this, the Lord said to the people of Israel, “Did I not deliver you from Egypt, from the Amorites, from the Ammonites, and from the Philistines?",
      "12": "When the Sidonians and Amalek and Maon oppressed you, and you called out to me, I delivered you from their hands.",
      "13": "It is you who have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore, I will no longer deliver you.",
      "14": "Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen! Let them deliver you in the time of your distress!”",
      "15": "But the people of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned. Do with us whatever seems good in your eyes, but please save us today.”",
      "16": "When they removed the foreign gods from their midst and served the Lord, he could no longer refrain from relieving the misery of Israel.",
      "17": "Then the Ammonites were called to arms and set up camp in Gilead. The people of Israel also gathered and camped at Mizpah.",
      "18": "The army and the officers of Gilead said to each other, “Who is the man who will begin to wage war against the Ammonites? He will become head of all those who live in Gilead.”"
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a powerful warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute. Gilead was the father of Jephthah.",
      "2": "Gilead’s wife also bore sons for him, and when the wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah away. They said to him, “You will not share the inheritance with our father’s household, for you are the son of another woman.”",
      "3": "So Jephthah fled from the presence of his brothers. He lived in the Land of Tob, and a gang of worthless men gathered around him, and they went out on raids with him.",
      "4": "Sometime later, the people of Ammon waged war against Israel.",
      "5": "No sooner did the Ammonites wage war against the Israelites than the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah back from Tob.",
      "6": "They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our chief, and we will wage war against the Ammonites.”",
      "7": "But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me and drive me out of the house of my father? So why do you come to me now, when you are in trouble?”",
      "8": "The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is true, but now we have returned to you. Go with us and wage war against the Ammonites, and you will be the head over us and over everyone who lives in Gilead.”",
      "9": "Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me back to wage war against the Ammonites, and if the Lord hands them over to me, will I really become your head?”",
      "10": "The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “May the Lord be a witness between us if we do not do just as you have said.”",
      "11": "So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people appointed him head and chief over them. Jephthah repeated all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.",
      "12": "Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites. They said, “What is the problem between me and you? Why have you come against me to wage war against my land?”",
      "13": "The king of the Ammonites said to Jephthah’s messengers, “The problem is that Israel took my land when they came up from Egypt, my land between the Arnon and the Jabbok and extending to the Jordan. So now return the land peacefully.”",
      "14": "Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites.",
      "15": "This is what he said to the king:\nThis is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of Ammon.",
      "16": "Instead, when they came up from Egypt, Israel traveled through the wilderness to the Red Sea, and they came to Kadesh.",
      "17": "Israel then sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Please, let me cross over your land,” but the king of Edom would not listen. In the same way Israel sent messengers to the king of Moab, but the king of Moab also was not willing, so Israel returned to Kadesh.",
      "18": "Then Israel made their way through the wilderness on a route that circled around the outside of the land of Edom and the land of Moab. After they had traveled along the eastern side of the land of Moab, they camped on the north side of the Arnon. So they did not cross the border of Moab, for the Arnon forms the border of Moab.",
      "19": "Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon. Israel said to him, “Please let us cross over your land to our destination.”",
      "20": "But Sihon did not trust Israel to cross his territory. Instead, Sihon gathered all his troops, and they camped at Jahaz and waged war against Israel.",
      "21": "Then the Lord God of Israel gave Sihon and his whole army into the hand of Israel, and Israel struck Sihon down. Israel took possession of the land of the Amorites who had been living in that land.",
      "22": "In this way Israel took possession of all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness as far as the Jordan.",
      "23": "The Lord, the God of Israel, has taken possession of the land of the Amorites for the sake of his people Israel—and now you want to take possession of it!",
      "24": "Shouldn’t you possess whatever Chemosh your god gives to you, but we should possess everything that the Lord our God takes for us to possess?",
      "25": "Also now, are you any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he have a valid quarrel with Israel? Did he have a reason to wage war against them?",
      "26": "When Israel was living in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities along the Arnon for three hundred years, why didn’t you take the land back at that time?",
      "27": "As for me, I have not sinned against you. You are doing me wrong by waging war against me. Let the Lord, the Judge, render a verdict today between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon.",
      "28": "But the king of the Ammonites did not listen to the message that Jephthah sent him.",
      "29": "Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh. Then he passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he went out against the Ammonites.",
      "30": "Jephthah had made a vow to the Lord. He said, “If you indeed give the Ammonites into my hand,",
      "31": "then whoever or whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites will belong to the Lord, and I will offer it up as a whole burnt offering.”",
      "32": "So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to wage war against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand.",
      "33": "Jephthah struck them down from Aroer all the way to the vicinity of Minnith, twenty cities, as far as Abel Keramim—a great slaughter. Thus the Ammonites were humbled before the people of Israel.",
      "34": "But when Jephthah came home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to greet him with drums and dancing! She was his one and only child. Besides her, he had no son or daughter.",
      "35": "So, as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothing and cried out, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You have become a source of misery for me. I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take it back!”",
      "36": "She said to him, “My father, since you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me exactly what came out of your mouth, since the Lord has carried out vengeance for you on your enemies, the Ammonites.”",
      "37": "She also said to her father, “Do this one thing for me: Give me two months reprieve, so that I may go out into the mountains and weep for my virginity—I and my friends.”",
      "38": "Her father said, “Go,” and he sent her away for two months. She and her friends went and wept over her virginity there on the mountains.",
      "39": "When the two months came to an end, she returned to her father, and he carried out the vow that he had made regarding her. She never was intimate with a man.\nThis became a custom in Israel:",
      "40": "From year to year the daughters of Israel go out to hold a memorial service for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days each year."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "At that time the men of Ephraim were called to arms. They crossed over to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to wage war against the Ammonites, but you did not invite us to go with you? We will burn your house down with you in it.”",
      "2": "Jephthah said to them, “I was a man involved in a bitter dispute—I and my people against the Ammonites. I called you out to arms, but you did not rescue me from their hand.",
      "3": "When I saw that you were not coming to rescue me, I took my life into my hands. I crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into my hand. So why have you come up against me this day to wage war against me?”",
      "4": "So Jephthah summoned all the men of Gilead and waged war against Ephraim. The men of Gilead struck down Ephraim, because the Ephraimites had said, “You Gileadites are nothing but renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh.”",
      "5": "The men of Gilead captured the fords across the Jordan that led to Ephraim. Whenever an Ephraimite fleeing from the battle said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,”",
      "6": "they said to him, “Please say, ‘Shibboleth.’” But if he instead said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time, forty-two thousand from Ephraim fell.",
      "7": "Jephthah judged Israel for six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried among the cities of Gilead.",
      "8": "After him Ibzan from Bethlehem judged Israel.",
      "9": "He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He sent the thirty daughters outside his clan for marriage, and for his sons he brought in thirty wives from outside his clan. He judged Israel for seven years.",
      "10": "Then Ibzan died, and he was buried at Bethlehem.",
      "11": "After him Elon from Zebulun judged Israel. He judged Israel for ten years.",
      "12": "Then Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried at Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.",
      "13": "After him Abdon son of Hillel from Pirathon judged Israel.",
      "14": "He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys. He judged Israel for eight years.",
      "15": "Then Abdon son of Hillel from Pirathon died, and he was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "The people of Israel again committed evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.",
      "2": "Now there was a certain man from Zorah, from the clan of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren. She had not given birth.",
      "3": "The Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Listen, you are barren and have not given birth, but you will become pregnant and give birth to a son.",
      "4": "Now, please be careful. Do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat anything unclean.",
      "5": "Listen, you will become pregnant and give birth to a son. No razor is to touch his head, for the boy will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from his mother’s womb. He will begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”",
      "6": "The woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and he looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I did not ask where he was from, and he did not tell me his name.",
      "7": "But he did say to me, ‘Listen! You will be pregnant and give birth to a son. So now, do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat anything unclean, because the young man will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from his mother’s womb until the day of his death.’”",
      "8": "Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord, “Please, Lord, the man of God whom you sent—please let him come to us again, to teach us what we are to do for the young man who is to be born.”",
      "9": "God heard the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God returned to the woman while she was sitting in the field. Once again her husband Manoah was not with her.",
      "10": "The woman ran quickly and told her husband. She said to him, “Come, see! The man who appeared to me came to me again today.”",
      "11": "Manoah then got up and followed his wife. He came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”\nHe answered, “I am.”",
      "12": "Manoah said, “Now, when your words come true, what will be the rule for the young man and his actions?”",
      "13": "The Angel of the Lord answered Manoah, “The woman must be careful concerning everything that I said to her.",
      "14": "She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine. She must not drink wine or beer, and she must not eat any unclean thing. Everything that I commanded her she must observe.”",
      "15": "Manoah then said to the Angel of the Lord, “May we persuade you to stay, so that we may prepare a young goat for you?”",
      "16": "But the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Even if you keep me here, I will not eat any of your food, but if you make a burnt offering, offer it up to the Lord.” (Manoah did not yet know that he was the Angel of the Lord.)",
      "17": "Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that we can honor you when your words come true?”",
      "18": "The Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask about my name? It is wonderful.”",
      "19": "Manoah took the young goat and the grain offering, and he offered them on the rock to the Lord, who did something wonderful as Manoah and his wife were watching.",
      "20": "As the flame rose from the altar toward the sky, the Angel of the Lord ascended upward from the altar in the flame. Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell facedown to the ground.",
      "21": "The Angel of the Lord did not appear to Manoah and his wife again, but now Manoah knew that he was the Angel of the Lord.",
      "22": "Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die, because we have seen God.”",
      "23": "But his wife said to him, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, and he would not have shown us all these things, nor would he have let us hear this message at this time.”",
      "24": "The woman gave birth to a son, and she named him Samson. The boy grew, and the Lord blessed him.",
      "25": "The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Samson went down to Timnah. There he saw a young woman who was a Philistine.",
      "2": "He went back and told his father and his mother, “I saw a Philistine woman in Timnah. Now, get her for me as a wife.”",
      "3": "But his father and mother said to him, “Is there no suitable woman among the young women of your relatives and among all our people that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?”\nSamson insisted to his father, “No, get her for me—because, in my eyes, she is the right one.”",
      "4": "His father and mother did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an opportunity to confront the Philistines, who were ruling Israel at this time.",
      "5": "So Samson and his father and mother went down to Timnah, and as they approached the vineyards at Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring to meet him.",
      "6": "At that moment the Spirit of the Lord powerfully rushed upon Samson, and he tore the young lion in two as if he were tearing apart a young goat. He did this with his bare hands. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.",
      "7": "He went down and spoke to the woman. In the eyes of Samson, she was the right one.",
      "8": "After some days, when he returned to take her as his wife, he turned aside to look at the carcass of the lion, and to his surprise there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion!",
      "9": "So Samson scraped out some honey with his hands, and he ate it as he walked along. As he walked alongside his father and mother, he gave them some of the honey and they ate, but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the carcass of the lion.",
      "10": "His father met with the woman, and Samson held a wedding feast there, as young men were accustomed to do.",
      "11": "When the Philistines saw him, they selected thirty young men to serve as attendants.",
      "12": "Samson said to them, “Allow me to tell you a riddle. If you figure out the solution and tell me within the seven days of the feast, I will give to you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.",
      "13": "But if you are not able to tell me, you will give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.”\nSo they said to him, “Tell your riddle. Let us hear it!”",
      "14": "Samson said to them,\nOut of the eater comes something to eat.\nOut of the strong comes something sweet.\nBut they were not able to solve the riddle for three days.",
      "15": "Then, on the fourth day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Persuade your husband so that you can tell us the solution to the riddle, or we will set you on fire with the house of your father. You invited us in order to take our property, didn’t you?”",
      "16": "Samson’s wife cried on his shoulder and said, “You certainly hate me and do not love me. You told a riddle to my people, but you have not explained it to me!”\nSamson said to her, “Look! I have not told even my father and my mother, and I should tell you?”",
      "17": "But she cried to him for the rest of the seven-day feast. Finally on the seventh day he told her, because she kept nagging him. Then she explained the riddle to the Philistine young men.",
      "18": "So the men of the town said to Samson on the seventh day, just before the sun went down:\nWhat is sweeter than honey,\nand what is stronger than a lion?\nBut he said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle.”",
      "19": "Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men from there. Then he took the clothing that he stripped off them and gave the clothing to the men who had solved the riddle. He was burning with anger as he went back to his father’s house.",
      "20": "Meanwhile the Philistines gave Samson’s wife to one of the men who had attended him."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "After a number of days, during the wheat harvest, Samson came to visit his wife and brought a kid goat with him. He said, “Let me go in to my wife’s room,” but her father did not let him go in.",
      "2": "Her father said, “I was so convinced that you hated her that I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister better than she is? Please take her for yourself instead of her older sister.”",
      "3": "Samson said to them, “I am not responsible for the harm I am about to do to the Philistines.”",
      "4": "Then Samson went and captured three hundred foxes, took torches, tied the foxes tail to tail, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails.",
      "5": "He set fire to the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up sheaves of grain, the standing grain, the vineyards, and the olive groves.",
      "6": "The Philistines asked, “Who did this?” They were told, “Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnah, did it, because the man took Samson’s wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.",
      "7": "At that, Samson said to them, “Since you would do something like this, I will take revenge on you. Then I will stop.”",
      "8": "He ripped them to pieces in a devastating attack. Then he went down and stayed in the cleft in the Rock of Etam.",
      "9": "Meanwhile the Philistines went up, set up camp in Judah, and occupied the territory around Lehi.",
      "10": "The men of Judah asked, “Why have you come up against us?”\nThey said, “We have come up to tie up Samson—to do to him as he did to us.”",
      "11": "So three thousand men from Judah went down to the cleft in the Rock of Etam. They said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are now ruling over us? So what is this you have done to us?”\nSamson answered them, “As they did to me, so I did to them.”",
      "12": "They said to him, “We have come down to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”\nSamson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.”",
      "13": "They said to him, “We will not. We will indeed tie you up and hand you over to them, but we will not kill you.” Then they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.",
      "14": "When Samson came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him, shouting a war cry. But then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson, and the ropes around his shoulders were like flax charred by fire, and the ropes melted off his wrists.",
      "15": "Samson found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, and took it. With it he struck down a thousand men.",
      "16": "Samson said:\nWith the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps!\nWith the jawbone of a donkey I have struck down a thousand men.",
      "17": "When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand, and he named the place Ramath Lehi.",
      "18": "Then he became very thirsty, and he called to the Lord, “You placed this great victory into the hand of your servant. Shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”",
      "19": "Then God split the hollow that is in Lehi, and water came out of it. Samson drank, his vitality was restored, and he was revived. For this reason he called the place En Hakkore, which remains in Lehi to this day.",
      "20": "Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "One time Samson went to Gaza. There he saw a prostitute and went to her.",
      "2": "The people of Gaza were told, “Samson has come here.” So they surrounded the town and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate, but they relaxed during the night, saying, “Let’s wait for the light of morning. Then we will kill him.”",
      "3": "But Samson slept only until midnight. He got up in the middle of the night, grabbed the doors of the city gate along with the two gateposts, pulled them up crossbar and all, set them on his shoulders, and took them up to the top of the hill opposite Hebron.",
      "4": "Sometime after that, Samson fell in love with a woman from the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.",
      "5": "The serens of the Philistines approached her and said, “Persuade him to reveal where his great strength comes from and how we may overpower him, tie him up, and humiliate him. Each of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”",
      "6": "So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what the source of your great strength is, and how you can be tied up in order to humiliate you.”",
      "7": "Samson answered her, “If anyone ties me up with seven new bowstrings that have not yet been dried, I will become weak and be like any other man.”",
      "8": "So the serens of the Philistines brought her seven new bowstrings that had not yet been dried, and she tied him up with them.",
      "9": "She had men hiding in the room waiting to ambush Samson, and she said to him, “Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings as easily as a flax thread that was scorched when brought near fire. So the source of his strength was not revealed.",
      "10": "Then Delilah said to Samson, “Look! You made a fool of me and told me lies. Now please tell me how you can be tied up.”",
      "11": "Samson answered her, “Actually, if anyone ties me up with new ropes that have never been used for work, I will become weak and be like any other man.”",
      "12": "So Delilah took new ropes and tied him up with them. Then she said to him, “Philistines are upon you, Samson!” There were men hiding in the room waiting to ambush Samson, but he tore the ropes off his arms as if they were thread.",
      "13": "Delilah said to Samson, “So far you have made a fool of me and told me lies. Tell me how you may be tied up!”\nSo he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my hair into the fabric of a loom ⎣and fasten them with a pin, I will be as weak as any other man.”\nAfter she had waited for him to fall asleep, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and wove them in the fabric of a loom.⎦",
      "14": "She fastened them with the pin and said to him, “Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But Samson woke up from his sleep and pulled out the pin from the loom along with the fabric.",
      "15": "She said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? This makes three times you have made a fool of me, and you have not told me where your great strength comes from.”",
      "16": "This was how she tormented him with her words day after day and nagged him until he was sick to death of it.",
      "17": "Finally he told her everything in his heart. He said to her, “A razor has never touched my head, because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from the womb of my mother. If I am ever shaved, my strength will desert me, and I will become weak and be like any other man.”",
      "18": "When Delilah saw that he told her everything in his heart, she sent for the serens of the Philistines, saying, “Come back one more time, for he has poured out his heart to me.”\nThe serens of the Philistines came up to her and brought the silver in their hands.",
      "19": "Delilah let Samson fall asleep on her lap. Then she called for a man and shaved off the seven locks of his head. She began his humiliation, because his strength had left him.",
      "20": "She said, “Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as I have time after time, and I will shake myself free.” But he did not realize that the Lord had left him.",
      "21": "The Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, brought him down to Gaza, and restrained him with bronze shackles. He had to grind grain in the prison.",
      "22": "But the hair on his head began to grow after it had been shaved.",
      "23": "Meanwhile, the serens of the Philistines gathered to make a great sacrifice to their god Dagon and to celebrate. They said, “Our god has given our enemy Samson into our hands.”",
      "24": "When the people saw him, they praised their god: “Our god has given our enemy into our hands, the devastator of our land, who has caused the death of many of us.”",
      "25": "When they were feeling good, they said, “Send for Samson, so that he can provide amusement for us.” They summoned Samson from the prison, and he served as their entertainment.\nThey made Samson stand between the pillars.",
      "26": "He said to the young man who led him by his hand, “Put me where I can touch the pillars that support the building, so I can lean upon them.”",
      "27": "The building was full of men and women, as well as all the serens of the Philistines. On the roof were about three thousand more men and women watching Samson as he was amusing them.",
      "28": "Samson called out to the Lord. He said, “Lord God, remember me, I pray. Give me strength, I pray, this one more time, O God. Let me get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes in one act of vengeance.”",
      "29": "Samson then grasped the two central pillars supporting the building. He leaned against them, one with his right hand and one with his left.",
      "30": "Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He pushed with all his strength, and the building fell upon the serens and upon all the people who were inside.\nThe Philistines he put to death when he died were more numerous than those he had put to death during his lifetime.",
      "31": "Then his brothers and his father’s entire household went down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had served as judge of Israel for twenty years."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "There was a man from the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah.",
      "2": "He said to his mother, “You know that eleven hundred shekels of silver which were taken from you, about which you spoke a curse that I heard—Look! I have the silver. I took it.”\nHis mother said, “May my son be blessed by the Lord.”",
      "3": "Micah returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother.\nThen his mother said, “The silver that I received from my son I solemnly dedicate to the Lord to make a cast and engraved idol for my son’s benefit. So now I will return it to you.”",
      "4": "He returned the silver to his mother, and his mother gave two hundred shekels of silver to the silversmith, who made them into a cast and engraved idol, which was placed in the house of Micah.",
      "5": "This man Micah had a “house of God,” where he placed a special priestly vest and a household god and where he ordained one of his sons as his own priest.",
      "6": "In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did whatever was right in his own eyes.",
      "7": "Meanwhile, there was a young man from Bethlehem of Judah, a city which belonged to a clan of Judah. He was a Levite, but he resided in Bethlehem even though he was not a Judean.",
      "8": "This man left the city—Bethlehem of Judah—to take up residence wherever he could find a place to stay. As he went on his way, he came to the house of Micah in the hill country of Ephraim.",
      "9": "Micah said to him, “Where did you come from?”\nHe answered, “I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. I am going to take up residence wherever I can find a place to stay.”",
      "10": "Micah said to him, “Stay with me! Be a father and a priest to me. I will give you ten shekels of silver a year, an allowance for your clothing, and your food.”\nSo the Levite went with him.",
      "11": "The Levite was willing to stay with the man, and he became like one of his sons.",
      "12": "Micah ordained the Levite, so the young man became his priest and lived in Micah’s house.",
      "13": "Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will treat me well, because I have this Levite as my priest.”"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "In those days there was no king in Israel.\nAlso in those days, some members of the tribe of Dan were seeking a territory of their own in which to live, because up to that day they had not taken possession of their inheritance in the midst of the tribes of Israel.",
      "2": "So the descendants of Dan sent out from Zorah and Eshtaol five men who were strong warriors. They were to represent their clans and to scout the land and explore it. They said to the five men, “Go explore the land.” So they went to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and they spent the night there.",
      "3": "When they were near the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young Levite. They turned aside there and said to him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What advantage is there for you here?”",
      "4": "He told them what Micah had done for him: “He hired me, and I became his priest.”",
      "5": "They said to him, “Please inquire from God, so that we will know whether the way we are going will lead to success.”",
      "6": "The priest said to them, “Go in peace. The way you are going is approved by the Lord.”",
      "7": "So the five men continued their journey until they arrived at Laish. They saw that the people there were living in the same way as the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting. There was no one to disturb them or oppress them. They were far removed from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone else.",
      "8": "Then the five spies returned to their fellow tribesmen at Zorah and Eshtaol. Their brothers said to them, “What do you think?”",
      "9": "The five answered, “Get up! Let us go up against them, ⎣for we have entered the land and journeyed as far as Laish. We saw how the people lived in security in the same way as the Sidonians, but they were far from the Sidonians, and they had no dealings with Aram. Get up! Let us go up against them,⎦ for we have seen the land. We assure you it is very good. Why are you still sitting here? Do not be slow. Get going to the land and take possession of it.",
      "10": "When you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people, whose land is spacious. Yes, God has given into your hands a place where there is no lack of anything on earth.”",
      "11": "So the clan of Danites set out from Zorah and Eshtaol. There were six hundred men, equipped for war.",
      "12": "They went up and camped near Kiriath Jearim in Judah. (That is why the place has been called Mahaneh Dan to this present day. It is west of Kiriath Jearim.)",
      "13": "Then they traveled on from there to the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah.",
      "14": "The five men who had gone out to spy on the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that in one of these houses there is a priestly vest and a household god, an engraved and a cast idol? So now, you know what to do.”",
      "15": "They turned in and entered the house of the young Levite at the homestead of Micah, and they asked him how he was doing.",
      "16": "Meanwhile, the six hundred descendants of Dan, equipped for war, were standing at the entrance of the gate.",
      "17": "The five men who had gone to spy on the land came and took the engraved idol, the priestly vest, the household god, and the cast idol while the priest was standing at the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men equipped for war.",
      "18": "When these five men came into the house of Micah and took the engraved idol, the priestly vest, the household god, and the cast idol, the priest asked them, “What are you doing?”",
      "19": "They told him, “Be quiet. Put your hand over your mouth. Come with us and be our father and priest! Is it better for you to be priest for the household of one man or to be priest for an entire tribe and clan in Israel?”",
      "20": "Then the priest’s heart was glad, and he took the vest, the household god, and the engraved idol, and he went along with the people.",
      "21": "So they set out on their way and sent their children and their cattle and possessions ahead of them.",
      "22": "After the Danites had gone some distance from the house of Micah, the men who lived in the houses around the house of Micah were called out to pursue them, and they caught up with the Danites.",
      "23": "They called to the Danites, who turned toward them and said to Micah, “What is wrong with you? Why are you shouting like this?”",
      "24": "Micah replied, “You have taken my gods that I made and my priest, and you have gone off. What is left to me? How can you ask me, ‘What is wrong with you?’”",
      "25": "The Danites said to him, “Do not let us hear your voice. If you do, those men with a bad attitude will attack you, and you will lose your life, not to mention the lives of your household.”",
      "26": "The Danites then continued on their way, and when Micah saw that they were stronger than he was, he turned around and went back to his house.",
      "27": "So the Danites took what Micah had made and also his priest, and they went up against Laish, against a quiet and unsuspecting people, and they struck them down by the edge of the sword and burned down the city.",
      "28": "The people of Laish had no one to rescue them, because they were far away from Sidon, and they did not have any alliance with anyone else. The city was located in the valley near Beth Rehob.\nThe Danites rebuilt the city and lived there.",
      "29": "They named the city Dan, after their forefather Dan, who was born to Israel, but Laish had been the original name of the city.",
      "30": "So the Danites set up the engraved idol for themselves, and Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons became priests for the tribe of Dan, up to the day of the captivity of the land.",
      "31": "They maintained for themselves the engraved idol that Micah had made, throughout all the days that the house of God was in Shiloh."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "In those days there was no king in Israel.\nThere was a certain Levite living in a remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, who took a woman from Bethlehem of Judah as a concubine.",
      "2": "But his concubine committed adultery or prostitution against him and left him in order to return to her father’s house in Bethlehem of Judah. She remained there four months.",
      "3": "Then her husband got up and went after her to appeal to her heart in order to win her back. He brought with him a young man, who was his servant, and a pair of donkeys.\nHis concubine let him into her father’s house, and when the woman’s father saw him, he was happy to see him.",
      "4": "The Levite’s father-in-law, the father of the young woman, prevailed upon the man to stay with him for three days, eating, drinking, and spending the night there.",
      "5": "On the fourth day they got up early in the morning, and the man got ready to leave, but the young woman’s father said to his son-in-law, “Build up your strength with a little food. After that you may go.”",
      "6": "So the two of them sat around eating and drinking together. Then the young woman’s father said to the man, “Please, I beg you, stay one more night and enjoy yourself.”",
      "7": "The Levite got up to go, but his father-in-law pressured him, so he stayed and spent another night there.",
      "8": "He got up early on the morning of the fifth day in order to go, but the woman’s father said, “Please build up your strength first.” They delayed until the sun began to go down while the two of them were eating.",
      "9": "When the man got up to leave with his concubine and his servant, his father-in-law, the woman’s father, again said to him, “Please! The day is already turning into evening. Please stay the night. Look! The day is slipping away! Spend the night here, and enjoy yourself! You can get up early tomorrow to be on your way and return to your home.”",
      "10": "But the Levite did not want to stay another night. Instead, he got up and went on his way, and he came to Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). He had with him the pair of saddled donkeys, as well as his concubine.",
      "11": "When they were getting close to Jebus and the day was almost gone, the young man said to his master, “Let us turn aside to this city of the Jebusites and spend the night there.”",
      "12": "But his master said to him, “We will not turn aside into a foreign city that does not belong to the people of Israel. We will go on to Gibeah.”",
      "13": "He said to his young man, “Come on, we will continue on to one of these other places. We can spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah.”",
      "14": "So they continued on, and as the sun was going down on them, they came close to Gibeah, which belonged to Benjamin.",
      "15": "There they turned aside to spend the night in Gibeah. But when the man went and sat in the city square, there was no one who took them into his house to spend the night.",
      "16": "Just then, an old man was coming from his work in the field because it was evening. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim, but he was living in Gibeah, though the men of that place were Benjaminites.",
      "17": "The old man looked up and saw the traveler in the city square, and the old man said, “Where are you going, and where did you come from?”",
      "18": "The Levite said to him, “We are traveling from Bethlehem of Judah to a remote part of the hill country of Ephraim. I am from there. I traveled as far as Bethlehem of Judah, and now I am going to the House of the Lord, but there is no one who will take me into his house.",
      "19": "We even have straw and fodder for our donkeys, and we also have enough bread and wine for me, for your servant my wife, and for the young man. We, your servants, are lacking nothing.”",
      "20": "At this the old man said, “Peace be with you. Anything you lack will be my responsibility—only do not spend the night in the city square.”",
      "21": "So the old man brought the Levite to his house and fed the donkeys. He washed their feet, and they ate and drank together.",
      "22": "As they were making their hearts glad, all of a sudden the men of the city—worthless, good-for-nothing men—surrounded the house, pounding on the door. They said to the old man, the owner of the house, “Bring out the man who has come to your house. We want to get to know him.”",
      "23": "But the owner of the household went out to them and said, “No, my brothers, do not do such an evil thing, I beg you. Since this man has come to my house, do not do this disgraceful, foolish thing.",
      "24": "Look! Here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. Now I will bring them out, and you may abuse them and do to them whatever you see fit. But do not do this disgraceful, foolish thing to this man.”",
      "25": "But the men were not willing to listen to him. So the Levite took hold of his concubine and forced her to go out to them. They were intimate with her and mistreated her all night long until morning. Then they let her go at the break of dawn.",
      "26": "As morning was dawning, the woman came and collapsed at the entrance to the man’s house, where her husband had been staying until the light of day.",
      "27": "When her husband got up in the morning, he opened the doors of the house and went out in order to go on his way. There she was! His concubine had collapsed at the entrance of the house with her hands on the threshold.",
      "28": "He said to her, “Get up. Let’s go.” But there was no answer. So he put her on the donkey, got up, and returned to his place.",
      "29": "When he got home, he took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and cut her into pieces. Limb by limb he cut her into twelve pieces and sent her into all the territory of Israel.",
      "30": "Everyone who saw it said, “Nothing like this has ever been done or seen, from the day the people of Israel came up from the land of Egypt until this day.”\n⎣The Levite commanded the men he sent to say the following to all the men of Israel: “Has anything like this happened since the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day?⎦ Think this over, come up with a plan, and speak up!”"
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Then all the people of Israel came out, and the whole community from Dan to Beersheba, including the Israelites in Gilead, assembled as one man before the Lord at Mizpah.",
      "2": "The pillars of the people from all the tribes of Israel took their places in the assembly of the people of God—four hundred thousand foot soldiers, armed with swords.",
      "3": "(The people of Benjamin heard that the people of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.) The people of Israel said, “Speak up! How did this evil happen?”",
      "4": "Then the Levite, the husband of the woman who had been murdered, answered, “I, along with my concubine, came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night.",
      "5": "But the citizens of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house during the night. They intended to kill me. They abused my concubine, and she died.",
      "6": "So I took hold of my concubine, cut her into pieces, and I sent her to every region of the inheritance of Israel, because the men of Gibeah did this outrageous, foolish deed in Israel.",
      "7": "Look! All of you are descendants of Israel! Consider the matter and give your judgment.”",
      "8": "All the people then rose up as one man. They said, “Not one of us will go to his tent, nor will any of us return to their homes.",
      "9": "Now this is what we will do to Gibeah: We will determine who goes against it by choosing lots.",
      "10": "We will choose ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel—and a hundred out of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand—to gather provisions for the troops. When the men of Israel arrive at Gibeah in Benjamin, Israel can do to the men of Gibeah what they deserve for all the disgraceful things they did in Israel.”",
      "11": "So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city. The various groups were united as if they were one man.",
      "12": "The tribes of Israel sent men through the whole tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What is this evil thing that has been done among you?",
      "13": "Now, hand over the men, these worthless, wicked men from Gibeah! We will put them to death and root out this evil from Israel.”\nBut the people of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the people of Israel.",
      "14": "Instead, the people from all the cities of Benjamin gathered at Gibeah to go out for war against the people of Israel.",
      "15": "On that day the people of Benjamin mustered from their cities twenty-six thousand men armed with swords, not counting those who lived in Gibeah, from which they mustered an additional seven hundred elite men.",
      "16": "From all these troops, there were seven hundred elite soldiers who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a single hair and not miss.",
      "17": "Meanwhile, the men of Israel, apart from Benjamin, mustered four hundred thousand men armed with swords, each of them a trained soldier.",
      "18": "They arose and went up to Bethel, and the people of Israel inquired of God, “Who will go up to lead us into the battle against the Benjaminites?”\nThe Lord said, “Judah will take the lead in the battle.”",
      "19": "The Israelites got up in the morning and set up camp against Gibeah.",
      "20": "The men of Israel went out for war against Benjamin and lined up for battle at Gibeah.",
      "21": "But the Benjaminites came out from Gibeah, and that day they struck down to the ground twenty-two thousand men of Israel!",
      "22": "The men of Israel renewed their courage and again lined up for battle in the same spot where they had lined up on the first day.",
      "23": "The people of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until evening. They inquired of the Lord, “Shall we go out again to engage in battle with the people of Benjamin, our brothers?”\nAgain the Lord said, “Go up against them.”",
      "24": "The Israelites approached the Benjaminites on the second day.",
      "25": "Benjamin came out from Gibeah to confront them on the second day and took down an additional eighteen thousand men from among the Israelites—right down to the ground!—all of them men armed with swords.",
      "26": "After that, all the Israelites, the entire army, went up to Bethel. There they wept and sat before the Lord and fasted all that day until evening. They offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord.",
      "27": "The people of Israel inquired of the Lord. (The Ark of the Covenant of God was there in those days.)",
      "28": "Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, was ministering in front of the ark in those days. He asked, “Shall I again go out to battle against our brothers the Benjaminites, or shall I stop?”\nThe Lord said, “Go up, because tomorrow I will give them into your hand.”",
      "29": "Then Israel positioned men in ambushes all around Gibeah.",
      "30": "The men of Israel went up against the men of Benjamin on the third day, and they lined up against Gibeah as they had done before.",
      "31": "Again the Benjaminites went out to confront the people of Israel. The Benjaminites were drawn away from the city, and they began to strike down some of the people, killing them in the open country as they had done before, along the highway that goes up to Bethel and the one to Gibeah. They killed about thirty men of Israel.",
      "32": "The Benjaminites thought, “They are being struck down before us, just as they were before.”\nBut the Israelites had said, “We will retreat and draw them out of the city to the highways.”",
      "33": "So all the men of Israel fell back from their positions and drew up a battle line at Baal Tamar. Then the Israelites who were hiding in ambush came bursting out from their positions west of Geba.",
      "34": "Ten thousand specially chosen men from all Israel came out against Gibeah. The battle was fierce, and the Benjaminites did not realize that calamity was about to fall upon them.",
      "35": "The Lord struck down Benjamin before Israel, and the Israelites brought Benjamin to ruin on that day. Twenty-five thousand one hundred men, who were armed with swords, fell.",
      "36": "Then the Benjaminites saw that they were beaten.\nThe men of Israel had given ground to Benjamin because they were relying on the men in the ambushes that they had set up near Gibeah.",
      "37": "The hidden attackers struck quickly. They dashed into Gibeah, spread out, and struck the entire city with the edge of the sword.",
      "38": "This was the signal for the men of Israel and for those in the ambush: When they saw a great cloud of smoke coming up from the city,",
      "39": "the men of Israel were to turn back to join the battle.\nBenjamin had begun to strike some of the men of Israel dead, about thirty men. So they said, “Look, they are being struck down before us, as they were in the first battle.”",
      "40": "But as a column of smoke began to rise above the city, the Benjaminites turned to look behind them, and suddenly they saw that the city was going up toward heaven like a burnt offering.",
      "41": "Then the Israelites turned back, and the Benjaminites were horrified because they realized that disaster was falling upon them.",
      "42": "They fled from the men of Israel to escape toward the wilderness, but the battle kept up with them, as Israelites from the cities all around them were striking them down.",
      "43": "The Israelites encircled Benjamin, pursued them, and overran their positions all the way to Nohah, a spot east of Gibeah.",
      "44": "From Benjamin, eighteen thousand fell, all of them strong warriors.",
      "45": "The surviving Benjaminites turned and fled toward the wilderness, to the Rock of Rimmon, but five thousand of these men were picked off along the highways. The Israelites caught up with them at Gidom and struck down two thousand more of their men.",
      "46": "So the total number of Benjaminites that fell that day was twenty-five thousand men armed with swords, all of them powerful warriors.",
      "47": "But the surviving six hundred men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the Rock of Rimmon, and they stayed at the Rock of Rimmon for four months.",
      "48": "The men of Israel had turned back against the Benjaminites and struck them with the edge of the sword. They struck the entire city, including the animals and whatever else could be found. They burned down all the rest of the cities."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Previously the men of Israel had taken an oath at Mizpah: “Not a man from among us will give his daughter to a Benjaminite as his wife.”",
      "2": "The people came to Bethel and remained there before God until evening. They lifted up their voices and wept bitterly.",
      "3": "They said, “Why, Lord God of Israel, has this happened in Israel, that today one tribe has been removed from Israel?”",
      "4": "The next day, when the people rose early, they built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings.",
      "5": "Then the Israelites said, “From all the tribes of Israel, was there anyone who did not come up to the assembly of Israel before the Lord?” For they had taken this solemn oath against anyone who did not come up to the Lord at Mizpah: “He will certainly be put to death.”",
      "6": "Then the people of Israel felt compassion toward Benjamin, their brother, and they said, “One tribe of Israel is cut off today.",
      "7": "What can be done to provide wives for those who remain? We have sworn by the Lord not to give any of our daughters to them as wives.”",
      "8": "So then they asked, “Was there anyone from the tribes of Israel who did not go up to the Lord at Mizpah?” They found that no one from Jabesh Gilead had come to the assembly at the camp.",
      "9": "In fact, when the roll call had been taken, not a man was there from the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead.",
      "10": "So the assembly sent twelve thousand powerful warriors and commanded them, “Go and strike down the people who live at Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, including the women and children.",
      "11": "This is what you are to do: Every male and every woman who has known the bed of a male, you shall devote to destruction.”",
      "12": "They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young women who were virgins, who had never known a man by lying down with a male. They brought the four hundred women to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.",
      "13": "Then the entire assembly sent a message to the Benjaminites who were at the Rock of Rimmon. They extended an offer of peace to them.",
      "14": "The Benjaminites then returned, and the Israelites gave them the women that they had kept alive from Jabesh Gilead.\nBut they did not find enough wives for all of them.",
      "15": "Once more the people had compassion on Benjamin because the Lord had left an empty spot among the tribes of the Lord.",
      "16": "So the elders of the assembly asked, “What shall we do to get wives for those who were spared, since the women from Benjamin have been wiped out?”",
      "17": "They said, “There must be a way to provide an inheritance for the surviving remnant of Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be blotted out from Israel!",
      "18": "But we cannot give them wives from our daughters, because the people of Israel have sworn, ‘Cursed is anyone who gives a woman to Benjamin.’”",
      "19": "But then someone said, “Look! There is an annual festival of the Lord in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, east of the highway that goes from Bethel toward Shechem, and south of Lebonah.”",
      "20": "So they commanded the Benjaminites, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards",
      "21": "and watch. Then when the daughters of Shiloh come out to join in the dances, come out from the vineyards, and each man should seize a wife for himself from the daughters of Shiloh. Then return to the land of Benjamin.",
      "22": "If it happens that their fathers or brothers come to us to complain, we will say to them, ‘Be gracious to them, because we failed to capture a woman for each man during the battle, and you did not break your oath that you would not give your daughters, so you will not incur guilt.’”",
      "23": "So that is what the Benjaminites did. They grabbed and carried off as many women as they needed from among the dancers. Then they went and returned to their family property, rebuilt their cities, and lived in them.",
      "24": "At the same time the Israelites returned from there. Each man returned to the territory of his tribe and clan, each man to his own family property.",
      "25": "In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did whatever was right in his own eyes."
    }
  },
  "Ruth": {
    "1": {
      "1": "During the days of the judges, a famine occurred in the land. So a man left Bethlehem in Judah to stay awhile in the territory of Moab—he, his wife, and his two sons.",
      "2": "The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were from the clan of Ephrath from Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the territory of Moab and remained there.",
      "3": "But Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, so she was left with her two sons.",
      "4": "They then married Moabite wives. The name of the first was Orpah, and the name of the second was Ruth. They lived there for about ten years.",
      "5": "But Naomi’s sons, Mahlon and Kilion, also died. So the woman was left without her two children and without her husband.",
      "6": "Then Naomi set out with her daughters-in-law to return from the territory of Moab, because while she was in the territory of Moab, she had heard that the Lord had graciously visited his people by providing them with food.",
      "7": "So she left the place where she had been, and her two daughters-in-law left with her. They set out on the road to return to the land of Judah.",
      "8": "But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back. Both of you return to your mother’s house. May the Lord show you kindness as you have shown kindness to the dead and to me.",
      "9": "May the Lord grant that each of you finds security in the house of a husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept loudly.",
      "10": "But they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”",
      "11": "Then Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters. Why should you go with me? Am I going to give birth to any more sons who could become your husbands?",
      "12": "Turn back, my daughters. Go! For I am too old to be married to another husband. Suppose I say, ‘I have hope, and I will be married to another husband tonight, and I will even give birth to sons.’",
      "13": "Would you wait for them until they grow up? On the basis of that hope would you give up the chance to marry another husband? No, my daughters. It is much more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has reached out against me.”",
      "14": "They once again wept loudly. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth would not let her go.",
      "15": "Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods. Go back! Follow your sister-in-law.”",
      "16": "But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to abandon you or to turn back from following you. Because wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you make your home, I will make my home. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.",
      "17": "Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely and double it if anything but death separates me from you.”",
      "18": "When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.",
      "19": "Then the two of them traveled until they arrived at Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town became excited over them. The women said, “Is this Naomi?”",
      "20": "But she said to them, “Do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made me very bitter.",
      "21": "I went away full, but the Lord brought me back empty. Why should you call me Naomi? For the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has treated me badly.”",
      "22": "So Naomi returned with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the territory of Moab. When they entered Bethlehem, it was the beginning of the barley harvest."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Now Naomi had a relative of her husband, a wealthy, generous man from the clan of Elimelek. His name was Boaz.",
      "2": "Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “I am going to go out to the fields, so that I can glean ears of grain wherever I may find favor in the eyes of the owner.” Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.”",
      "3": "So Ruth went out and gleaned in the grain fields after the reapers. It happened that she was in the field that belonged to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.",
      "4": "At just that time, Boaz happened to come out from Bethlehem. He said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!”\nAnd they said to him, “The Lord bless you!”",
      "5": "Then Boaz asked his servant who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?”",
      "6": "The servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the territory of Moab.",
      "7": "She said, ‘Please let me follow the reapers and glean and gather stalks into sheaves.’ So she came and has been working from early morning till now—except for a short rest in the shelter.”",
      "8": "Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Do not go off to glean in some other field. In fact, do not leave this one at all! Just stick close to my young women here.",
      "9": "Keep your eyes on the field where the men are reaping so that you can follow my women. I have commanded the young men not to touch you. When you are thirsty, you may go to the jars and drink from whatever the young men draw out.”",
      "10": "Then Ruth bowed down with her face to the ground. She said to Boaz, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, so that you acknowledge me even though I am a foreigner?”",
      "11": "Boaz replied to her, “I have been fully informed about all that you did for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband and how you left behind your father and mother and the homeland of your relatives, and you came to a people whom you did not know previously.",
      "12": "May the Lord reward your work, and may you be paid in full by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge!”",
      "13": "Then Ruth said, “I have found such favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and you have spoken to the heart of your servant girl—although I cannot be compared to one of your servant girls.”",
      "14": "At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some of the food, and dip your piece of bread into the sour wine.” So she sat down beside the reapers, and Boaz heaped up a serving of roasted grain for her. She ate until she was full and had some left over.",
      "15": "When she got up to glean, Boaz ordered his workers, “She may glean even among our sheaves. You are not to humiliate her in any way.",
      "16": "In fact, you can even pull out some stalks from the piles for her, and you can drop them on purpose so that she can glean them, and do not rebuke her at all.”",
      "17": "So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed what she had gleaned. It amounted to almost a bushel of barley.",
      "18": "When she picked it up and went into town, her mother-in-law saw how much she had gleaned. Ruth also took what she had left over from her meal and gave it to Naomi.",
      "19": "Then her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today and where did you work? May the man who took notice of you be blessed!”\nSo she told her mother-in-law in whose field she had worked: “The name of the man in whose field I worked today is Boaz.”",
      "20": "Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose faithfulness has not forsaken the living and the dead!”\nNaomi also said to her, “This man is related to us. He is even one of our family’s redeemers.”",
      "21": "Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stick close to my workers until they have finished all of the harvest on the land that belongs to me.’”",
      "22": "Then Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you can go out with his young women, so that you will not be molested by men in some other field.”",
      "23": "So Ruth stuck close to Boaz’s young women and gleaned until the completion of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest, and she lived with her mother-in-law."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, said to her, “My daughter, shouldn’t I seek security for you so that you will be well taken care of?",
      "2": "Isn’t Boaz, whose young women you have been with, our relative? Look, he will be winnowing barley at the threshing floor tonight.",
      "3": "So bathe, put on perfume, and dress up. Then go down to the threshing floor. Do not present yourself to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.",
      "4": "But when he lies down, take note of the place where he lies down. Then go up to him, uncover his legs, and lie down there. He himself will tell you what you should do.”",
      "5": "Ruth said to her, “All that you say to me, I will do!”",
      "6": "So she went down to the threshing floor, and she did everything that her mother-in-law had commanded her to do.",
      "7": "After Boaz ate and drank, and his heart was happy, he went to lie down at the edge of the grain pile. Then Ruth came up to him quietly, and she uncovered his legs and lay down there.",
      "8": "In the middle of the night, the man was startled and turned over, and there was a woman lying on his legs!",
      "9": "He said, “Who are you?”\nShe said, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread out the skirt of your robe over your servant, for you are a family redeemer.”",
      "10": "Then he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter! You have made your last act of kindness better than the first by not going to look for a young man, whether poor or rich.",
      "11": "So now, my daughter, do not be afraid. I will do everything that you are asking. Indeed, all the people at the city gate know that you are an honorable woman.",
      "12": "Now it is indeed true—certainly I am a family redeemer—but nevertheless there is a redeemer who is closer than I am.",
      "13": "Spend the night here. If in the morning he acts as a redeemer for you, good. Let him redeem. But if he does not want to act as a redeemer for you, then I will act as a redeemer for you myself, as the Lord lives! Lie down here until morning.”",
      "14": "So she lay down at his feet until morning. She got up before it was light enough for anyone to recognize a person.\nBut Boaz thought, “No one should know that a woman came to the threshing floor.”",
      "15": "So he said, “Come here and hold out the shawl that you are wearing.” So she held it out. He measured out six scoops of barley into it for her to carry home. Then he returned to town.",
      "16": "When Ruth came back to her mother-in-law, Naomi said, “How did it turn out, my daughter?”\nThen Ruth told her all that the man had done for her.",
      "17": "She said, “He gave me these six scoops of barley, and he said, ‘You must not return to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”",
      "18": "Then Naomi said, “Wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out. For the man will not rest until he has taken care of this matter today!”"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Boaz went up to the city gate, and he sat down there. Just then, the redeemer about whom Boaz had spoken was passing by. Boaz said, “Come over here! Sit down, my dear friend!” So he came over and sat down.",
      "2": "Then Boaz chose ten men from the elders of the town, and he said, “Sit down here!” They too sat down.",
      "3": "Then he said to the redeemer, “Naomi, who returned from the territory of Moab, is putting up for sale the piece of land that belongs to our brother Elimelek.",
      "4": "On my part, I thought I should call it to your attention so that you may acquire it in the presence of these residents and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you wish to redeem it, redeem it. But if you do not wish to redeem it, declare that to me. I know that there is no one ahead of you in the right to redeem, but I am right after you.”\nSo the man said, “Yes, I will redeem it.”",
      "5": "Then Boaz said, “On the day that you acquire the field from the hand of Naomi, I will acquire from Ruth the Moabite, the wife of the deceased, the means to perpetuate the name of the deceased on his inheritance.”",
      "6": "Then the redeemer said, “I am not able to redeem it for myself, or I would ruin my inheritance. You acquire for yourself my right of redemption, because I am not able to redeem it.”",
      "7": "(In Israel this used to be the custom regarding the transfer of the right of redemption: To confirm every transfer, one man took off his sandal and gave it to the other party. This was the way of ratifying a transfer in Israel.)",
      "8": "So the redeemer said to Boaz, “Acquire it for yourself!” Then he took off his sandal.",
      "9": "Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses today that I have acquired from the hand of Naomi everything that belonged to Elimelek and everything that belonged to Kilion and Mahlon.",
      "10": "Furthermore, Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, I have acquired for myself as a wife, in order to perpetuate the name of the deceased on his inheritance, so that the name of the deceased shall not be cut off from his brothers and from the city gate of his place. You are witnesses today.”",
      "11": "Then all the people and the elders who were in the gatehouse said, “We are witnesses! May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your household like Rachel and like Leah, the two women who built the house of Israel, so that you prosper in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem.",
      "12": "May your house become like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, through the seed whom the Lord will give to you from this young woman.”",
      "13": "Then Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went to her. The Lord enabled her to conceive, and she bore a son.",
      "14": "Then the women said to Naomi:\nBlessed is the Lord, who has not left you without a redeemer today.\nMay his name be proclaimed in Israel!",
      "15": "He will restore your life\nand care for you in your old age,\nbecause your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has given birth to him.\nShe is better for you than seven sons!",
      "16": "Then Naomi took the boy and put him on her lap, and she became his caregiver.",
      "17": "The neighboring women named him, saying, “A son is born to Naomi!” and they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse, the father of David.",
      "18": "Now this is the family history of Perez:\nPerez became the father of Hezron.",
      "19": "Hezron became the father of Ram.\nRam became the father of Amminadab.",
      "20": "Amminadab became the father of Nahshon.\nNahshon became the father of Salmah.",
      "21": "Salmon became the father of Boaz.\nBoaz became the father of Obed.",
      "22": "Obed became the father of Jesse,\nand Jesse became the father of David."
    }
  },
  "1 Samuel": {
    "1": {
      "1": "There was a man from Ramathaim of the Zuphites in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah. He was the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.",
      "2": "He had two wives. One was named Hannah, and the other was named Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.",
      "3": "Every year this man went up from his city to worship and to offer sacrifices to the Lord of Armies at Shiloh. Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were serving there as priests of the Lord.",
      "4": "On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he gave portions of food to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters,",
      "5": "but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved Hannah, but the Lord had kept her from having children.",
      "6": "Hannah’s rival kept taunting her to make her miserable, because the Lord had kept Hannah from having children.",
      "7": "Year after year, when Hannah went up to the Lord’s house, her rival taunted her, so Hannah would weep and would not eat.",
      "8": "Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why is your heart so sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”",
      "9": "Once, when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s temple.",
      "10": "Hannah’s spirit was very distressed, and as she prayed to the Lord, she sobbed and wept many tears.",
      "11": "She made a vow and said, “O Lord of Armies, if you will carefully consider the misery of your servant and remember me, and if you do not forget your servant but give your servant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall ever touch his head.”",
      "12": "As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli was looking at her mouth.",
      "13": "Hannah was speaking silently from her heart. Although her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard. Eli thought she was drunk",
      "14": "and said to her, “How long are you going to be drunk? Get away from your wine!”",
      "15": "Hannah replied, “No, my lord, I am a woman with a very troubled spirit. I have not been drinking wine or beer, but I have poured out my soul to the Lord.",
      "16": "Do not regard your servant as a worthless, wicked woman. I have been speaking like this because of my great misery and because of how I have been grieved.”",
      "17": "Then Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel give you what you have asked for.”",
      "18": "She said, “Let your servant find favor in your sight.” So the woman went on her way. She ate, and her face no longer looked sad.",
      "19": "They got up early in the morning and worshipped the Lord. They then returned to their home at Ramah.\nElkanah was intimate with Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her.",
      "20": "So Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel because she said, “I asked for him from the Lord.”",
      "21": "When this man Elkanah and his entire household went up to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow,",
      "22": "Hannah did not go up with them, because she said to her husband, “Not until the child is weaned. Then I will bring him, so that he can appear before the Lord and remain there permanently.”",
      "23": "Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Do whatever you think is best. Wait until you have weaned him. Yes, then the Lord will establish his word.”\nSo the woman stayed at home, and she nursed her son until she was ready to wean him.",
      "24": "When she had weaned him, she took him up with her. She also took a three-year-old bull, twenty-five pounds of flour, and a container of wine, and she brought him to the House of the Lord in Shiloh. The boy was ⎣with them. And they brought him before the Lord, and his father killed the sacrifice as he regularly did before the Lord, and he brought⎦ the boy.",
      "25": "When they had killed the bull, they presented the child to Eli.",
      "26": "She said, “Excuse me, my lord. As your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood here next to you, praying to the Lord.",
      "27": "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked for.",
      "28": "So now I have also dedicated him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is dedicated to the Lord.” So he worshipped the Lord there."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Hannah prayed and said:\nMy heart rejoices in the Lord!\nIn the Lord, my horn is raised high.\nMy mouth is opened wide against my enemies,\nbecause I find joy in your salvation.",
      "2": "There is no one holy like the Lord.\nYes, there is no one but you,\nand there is no rock like our God.",
      "3": "Do not talk so high and mighty.\nDo not let proud words come out of your mouth,\nbecause the Lord is a God who knows.\nBy him actions are weighed.",
      "4": "The bows of powerful warriors are broken.\nThose who were staggering are now armed with strength.",
      "5": "Those who once were full now hire themselves out for bread,\nbut those who were hungry are satisfied.\nYes, the childless woman has given birth to seven children,\nbut she who had many children is weak with sorrow.",
      "6": "The Lord puts to death, and he makes alive.\nHe brings down to the grave, and he raises up.",
      "7": "The Lord makes some people poor, and he makes others wealthy.\nHe brings some low. He raises others up.",
      "8": "He raises the poor out of the dust.\nHe lifts up the needy from the garbage pile.\nHe makes them sit with nobles.\nHe gives them a glorious throne as a possession.\nThe pillars of the earth belong to the Lord.\nHe has set the world upon them.",
      "9": "He will guard the feet of his favored ones,\nbut the wicked will be put to silence in darkness,\nbecause a person does not prevail by his own strength.",
      "10": "Those who oppose the Lord will be broken to pieces.\nHe will thunder against them in the heavens.\nThe Lord will judge the ends of the earth.\nHe will give strength to his king.\nHe will raise up the horn of his anointed one.",
      "11": "Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, but the young boy served the Lord as an attendant to Eli the priest.",
      "12": "Now the sons of Eli were wicked scoundrels. They did not know the Lord.",
      "13": "The practice of the priests with the people was that whenever anyone offered a sacrifice, while the meat was still boiling, the priest’s servant would come with a three-pronged fork in his hand.",
      "14": "He would thrust it into the basin, kettle, caldron, or cooking pot. The priest would then take for himself everything that the fork brought up. This is the way they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.",
      "15": "Before the people had even burned the fat, the priest’s servant would come and tell the person who was making the sacrifice, “Give me meat for the priest to roast, because he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw meat.”",
      "16": "If the man said to him, “Let us burn the fat first. Then take as much as you want,” the servant would say, “No, you must give it to me right now. If you do not, I will take it by force.”",
      "17": "So the sin of the young men was very serious in the sight of the Lord, because the men were treating the Lord’s offerings with contempt.",
      "18": "But Samuel ministered before the Lord while he was still a young boy, dressed in a special vest made of linen.",
      "19": "His mother would make a little robe for him and bring it to him whenever she came up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice.",
      "20": "Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, “May the Lord give you offspring from this woman in place of the son she asked for, whom she loaned to the Lord.” Then they would go back to their home.",
      "21": "The Lord came to Hannah with his blessing, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. The child Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.",
      "22": "Now Eli was very old. He heard about everything that his sons were doing to all Israel and how they were sleeping with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "23": "So he said to them, “Why do you do such things? I keep hearing from all these people about your evil actions.",
      "24": "No, my sons, it is not a good report that I hear! The people are spreading this report everywhere.",
      "25": "If one man sins against another, God will mediate for him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who will mediate for him?” But they did not listen to the voice of their father, because the Lord desired to put them to death.",
      "26": "The young man Samuel continued to grow, and he increased in favor with both the Lord and with men.",
      "27": "A man of God came to Eli and told him this:\nThis is what the Lord says. Didn’t I clearly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt, subject to the house of Pharaoh?",
      "28": "Out of all the tribes of Israel, I chose him to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, and to wear the special vest before me. I also gave the house of your father all the food offerings from the people of Israel.",
      "29": "Why do you all kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded for my dwelling place? Why do you, Eli, honor your sons more than me? Why do you fatten yourselves with the best of all the offerings from my people Israel?",
      "30": "Therefore this is the declaration of the Lord, the God of Israel: I stated solemnly that your house and the house of your father would walk before me forever. But now the Lord declares, “This will never be! Yes, I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed.”",
      "31": "Look, the days are coming when I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, so that there will never be an old man in your house.",
      "32": "You will see the distress of the dwelling place. Even when things are good for Israel, there shall never be an old man in your house.",
      "33": "Any man of yours whom I do not cut off from my altar will only wear out your eyes with tears and your heart with grief, and all the future generations of your house will die before they reach old age.",
      "34": "This will be the sign for you that will come on your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas: In one day they will both die.",
      "35": "I will raise up a faithful priest for myself, one who will act according to what is in my heart and in my soul. I will build an enduring house for him, and he will walk before my anointed one forever.",
      "36": "Then anyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to the faithful priest to receive a piece of silver and a loaf of bread. The one who is left will say, “Please appoint me to one of the priests’ offices, so that I can eat a scrap of bread.”"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "The boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days. Prophetic vision was not common.",
      "2": "Now it happened that Eli’s eyes had begun to grow dim, so that he could not see. Once when Eli was lying down in his place",
      "3": "and God’s lamp had not yet gone out, Samuel was lying down in the Lord’s temple, where God’s ark was.",
      "4": "The Lord called Samuel, and Samuel said, “I am here.”",
      "5": "He ran to Eli and said, “I am here, since you called me.”\nEli said, “I did not call. Lie down again.” So he went and lay down.",
      "6": "Then the Lord called once more, “Samuel!”\nSo Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “I am here, since you called me.”\nHe answered, “I did not call, my son. Lie down again.”",
      "7": "Now Samuel had not yet experienced the Lord’s presence, that is, the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.",
      "8": "The Lord called Samuel for the third time. So he got up and went to Eli and said, “I am here, since you called me.”\nThen Eli realized that the Lord was calling the young man.",
      "9": "So Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”\nSo Samuel went and once again lay down in his place.",
      "10": "The Lord came and stood there and called as he had the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”\nThen Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”",
      "11": "The Lord said to Samuel, “Look, I am going to do something in Israel that will make both ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.",
      "12": "On that day I am going to carry out against Eli everything that I have spoken against his house, from beginning to end.",
      "13": "I have told him that I am going to judge his house forever because of their guilty behavior, which he knew about. This will happen because his sons brought a curse on themselves, and he did not restrain them.",
      "14": "I have sworn to the house of Eli that the guilt of Eli’s house shall never be atoned for with sacrifice or offering.”",
      "15": "So Samuel lay there until morning. Then he opened the doors to the Lord’s house. Samuel was afraid to tell Eli about the vision.",
      "16": "But Eli called to Samuel, “Samuel, my son!”\nHe said, “I am here.”",
      "17": "Eli said, “What is the message that he has spoken to you? Please do not hide it from me. May God punish you severely and double it, if you hide from me one word of all of the things that he spoke to you.”",
      "18": "So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him.\nEli said, “He is the Lord. Let him do whatever is good in his eyes.”",
      "19": "Samuel continued to grow, and the Lord was with him. The Lord let none of his words fall to the ground.",
      "20": "So all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord.",
      "21": "The Lord continued to appear in Shiloh, because at Shiloh the Lord revealed himself to Samuel by the word of the Lord. ⎣So Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord for all Israel, from one end of the land to the other end.⎦"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "So the word of Samuel came to all Israel.\n⎣Eli was very old, and his sons kept getting worse in their wickedness in the presence of the Lord. In those days the Philistines gathered themselves together for war against Israel.⎦ \nIsrael went out to meet the Philistines in battle. The Israelites camped near Ebenezer, and the Philistines camped at Aphek.",
      "2": "The Philistines formed battle lines to confront the Israelites. As the battle developed, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of the Israelites lined up on the battlefield.",
      "3": "When the people had come back into the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the Lord allowed us to be defeated today before the Philistines? Let us bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, so that it may come into our midst and save us from the hand of our enemies.”",
      "4": "So the people sent word to Shiloh, and from there they brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Armies, who sits above the cherubim. Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were there with the Ark of the Covenant of God.",
      "5": "When the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a shout so loud that the earth shook.",
      "6": "When the Philistines heard the noise of all the shouting, they asked, “Why is there this loud shouting in the camp of the Hebrews?” They learned that the Ark of the Lord had come into the camp.",
      "7": "The Philistines were afraid, so they said, “A god has come into the camp.” They said, “We’re doomed! Nothing like this has happened before.",
      "8": "We are doomed! Who can deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that struck the Egyptians with every kind of plague in the wilderness.",
      "9": "Be strong and act like men, you Philistines, so that you will not become slaves to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Act like men and fight!”",
      "10": "So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. A very great slaughter took place, in which thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell.",
      "11": "God’s ark was taken, and Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, died.",
      "12": "A man from the tribe of Benjamin ran from the battlefield and came to Shiloh that same day. His clothing was torn, and his face was dirty.",
      "13": "When he arrived, Eli was there, sitting on his chair beside the road. He was watching, because his heart was trembling with fear for God’s ark. When the man came into the city and told them what had happened, the whole city was in an uproar.",
      "14": "When Eli heard the noise of the uproar, he said, “What does this noisy commotion mean?”\nThe man came quickly and told Eli what had happened.",
      "15": "Eli was ninety-eight years old. His eyes stared straight ahead because he could not see.",
      "16": "The man said to Eli, “I am the one who came from the battlefield. Today I fled from the battlefield.”\nEli said, “What was the outcome, my son?”",
      "17": "The man who brought the news answered, “Israel has fled from the Philistines, and there has also been a great slaughter among the people. In addition, your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and God’s ark has been captured.”",
      "18": "When the man mentioned God’s ark, Eli fell backwards off his seat, which was by the city gate. He broke his neck, and he died, because he was an old man, and he was overweight. He had judged Israel for forty years.",
      "19": "His daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was pregnant, ready to give birth. When she heard the news that God’s ark had been taken and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she crouched down and gave birth, because labor pains had come upon her.",
      "20": "As her death approached, the women who stood by her said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you have given birth to a son.” But she did not respond or pay attention.",
      "21": "She named the boy Ichabod and said, “The glory has departed from Israel.” Because God’s ark had been taken, and because of the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband,",
      "22": "she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, because God’s ark has been taken.”"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "After the Philistines had captured God’s ark, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.",
      "2": "The Philistines took God’s ark and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it beside Dagon.",
      "3": "When the people of Ashdod got up early the next day, there was Dagon—fallen facedown to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord! So they took Dagon and set him in his place again.",
      "4": "When they got up early the following morning, it had happened again! There was Dagon, fallen facedown in front of the Ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and both of his hands were broken off and were lying on the threshold. Only Dagon’s torso was intact.",
      "5": "That is why the priests of Dagon and any people who enter Dagon’s temple in Ashdod do not step on the threshold of Dagon to this day.",
      "6": "Then the Lord’s hand was heavy against the people of Ashdod. He devastated them and struck them with tumors. He struck Ashdod and its surrounding territory.",
      "7": "When the men of Ashdod saw what was taking place, they said, “The Ark of the God of Israel must not stay with us, because his hand is heavy on us and on our god Dagon.”",
      "8": "They called together a meeting of all the serens of the Philistines and asked, “What shall we do with the Ark of the God of Israel?”\nThey answered, “Let the Ark of the God of Israel be carried over to Gath.” So they carried the Ark of the God of Israel there.",
      "9": "But after they had carried it there, the Lord’s hand was against that city, and there was great panic. He struck the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.",
      "10": "So they sent God’s ark to Ekron.\nWhen God’s ark came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought the Ark of the God of Israel here to kill us and our people.”",
      "11": "They called a meeting of all the serens of the Philistines, and they said, “Send the Ark of the God of Israel away. Let it go back to its own place, so that it does not kill us and our people.” Indeed, the threat of death caused panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there.",
      "12": "The men who did not die were struck with tumors, and the outcry from the city went up to heaven."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "The Lord’s ark remained in the country of the Philistines seven months.",
      "2": "The Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and asked, “What should we do with the Lord’s ark? Advise us how we should send it back to its place.”",
      "3": "They said, “If you send away the Ark of the God of Israel, do not send it away empty, but, by all means, send it to him with a restitution offering. Then you will be healed, and you will know why his hand has not been removed from you.”",
      "4": "Then they said, “What restitution offering should we send to him?”\nThey said, “There are five serens of the Philistines, so five gold tumors and five gold mice should be sent, because the same plague was on all of you and on your serens.",
      "5": "Therefore you should make replicas of your tumors and figurines of the mice that are ruining your land, and you will give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand on you, on your gods, and on your land.",
      "6": "Why harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After the Lord had dealt ruthlessly with them, didn’t the Egyptians let the people go, and they departed?",
      "7": "“So make a new cart and take two cows that are nursing their calves, cows that have never had a yoke on them. Hitch the cows to the cart, and take their calves away from them and send them home.",
      "8": "Then take the Ark of the Lord and place it on the cart. Place the gold objects, which you are sending to him as a restitution offering, into a box beside the ark. Then send it on its way, and let it go on its own.",
      "9": "Watch it. If it goes up on the road toward the border of Israel, to Beth Shemesh, then it is their god who has inflicted this disaster on us. But if not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us. It was a coincidence that this happened to us.”",
      "10": "So that is what the men did. They took two cows that were nursing calves, hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.",
      "11": "Then they put the Ark of the Lord on the cart, along with the box containing the gold mice and the replicas of their tumors.",
      "12": "The cows headed straight up the road toward Beth Shemesh. They went straight along the highway without stopping, lowing as they went. They did not turn aside to the right or to the left. The serens of the Philistines followed them to the border of Beth Shemesh.",
      "13": "The people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. They looked up and saw the Ark, and they rejoiced to see it.",
      "14": "The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh and stopped there, near the large stone that was there. Then the people split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.",
      "15": "The Levites took the Lord’s ark and the box with it, which contained the gold objects, and they put them on the large stone. On that same day, the men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrifices to the Lord.",
      "16": "When the five serens of the Philistines had seen this, they returned to Ekron that same day.",
      "17": "This is the number of gold tumors that the Philistines sent back as a restitution offering to the Lord: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, and one for Ekron.",
      "18": "The gold mice also corresponded to the number of all the cities of the Philistines that belonged to the five serens, the fortified cities along with the rural villages. The objects were placed on the large stone on which they had placed the Ark of the Lord. That stone remains in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh to this day.",
      "19": "The Lord struck some of the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the Ark of the Lord. He struck seventy men. Then the people mourned, because the Lord had struck the people with such a heavy blow.",
      "20": "The men of Beth Shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before this holy God, the Lord? To whom can we send it to get it away from here?”",
      "21": "So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath Jearim. They said, “The Philistines have sent back the Ark of the Lord. Come down and take it up for yourselves.”"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "So the men of Kiriath Jearim came, took the Ark of the Lord, and brought it into Abinadab’s house on the hill. Then they consecrated his son Eleazar to watch over the Ark of the Lord.",
      "2": "So from that day the ark stayed in Kiriath Jearim for a long time—twenty years. And the entire house of Israel deeply longed for the return of the Lord.",
      "3": "Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, put away the foreign gods and the Ashtartes from among you. Direct your hearts to the Lord and serve him only. Then he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”",
      "4": "So the people of Israel removed the Baals and the Ashtartes and served the Lord only.",
      "5": "Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you.”",
      "6": "So Israel gathered together at Mizpah. They drew water and poured it out before the Lord. They fasted that day, and they said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.”\nSamuel acted as judge for the people of Israel at Mizpah.",
      "7": "When the Philistines heard that the Israelites had gathered together at Mizpah, the serens of the Philistines went up against Israel. When the people of Israel heard this, they were afraid of the Philistines,",
      "8": "and the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out for us to the Lord our God, so that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines.”",
      "9": "So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord on behalf of Israel, and the Lord answered him.",
      "10": "As Samuel was offering the burnt offering, the Philistines approached to engage in battle with Israel, but on that day the Lord thundered against the Philistines with a loud roar and threw them into a panic, so they were struck down before Israel.",
      "11": "The men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them down until they arrived at a point below Beth Kar.",
      "12": "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named that place Ebenezer, saying, “The Lord has helped us this far.”",
      "13": "So the Philistines were subdued, and they no longer came into the territory of Israel. The Lord’s hand was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.",
      "14": "The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel. From Ekron all the way to Gath, Israel recovered the territory of those cities from the control of the Philistines. There was also peace between Israel and the Amorites.",
      "15": "Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.",
      "16": "Each year he would travel in a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, and he judged Israel in all those places.",
      "17": "He then would return to Ramah, where his home was, and he would also judge Israel there. He also built an altar to the Lord there."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "When Samuel was old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel.",
      "2": "The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah. They served as judges in Beersheba.",
      "3": "His sons did not follow in his footsteps. Instead, they turned aside to seek dishonest gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.",
      "4": "Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah.",
      "5": "They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons are not walking in your ways. Now appoint a king for us so that he can judge us like all the other nations.”",
      "6": "But in Samuel’s eyes, their request to receive a king to judge them looked evil, so Samuel prayed to the Lord.",
      "7": "And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people regarding everything they have said to you, because it is not you whom they have rejected. I am the one they have rejected as king over them.",
      "8": "This is just like all the actions they have taken from the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, right up to this present day. They have forsaken me and served other gods, and now they are also acting the same way toward you.",
      "9": "So now listen to them. Nevertheless, warn them strongly and show them what the king who reigns over them will do.”",
      "10": "Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people, who had asked him for a king.",
      "11": "He said, “This is what the king who reigns over you will do. He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and with his teams of horses, and they will have to run ahead of his chariots.",
      "12": "He will make them serve as commanders of a thousand soldiers and as commanders of fifty. He will assign some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest. He will assign some to make his weapons and the trappings for his chariots.",
      "13": "He will take your daughters to serve as perfume makers, cooks, and bakers.",
      "14": "He will take your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, even the best of them, and give them to his officials.",
      "15": "He will take a tenth of your seed and of the produce of your vineyards, and he will give it to the members of his court and to his officials.",
      "16": "He will take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men, and your donkeys, and he will use them to do his work.",
      "17": "He will take a tenth from your flocks, and you will become his servants.",
      "18": "In that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you on that day.”",
      "19": "But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel. Instead they said, “No, we want to have a king over us,",
      "20": "so that we also can be like all the nations, and our king can judge us and lead us out to fight our battles.”",
      "21": "Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the hearing of the Lord.",
      "22": "The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to them, and appoint a king for them.”\nSo Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Each of you go home to your own city.”"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "From the tribe of Benjamin there was a man whose name was Kish. He was the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bekorath, the son of Aphiah, a descendant of Benjamin. Kish was a strong warrior and influential person.",
      "2": "He had a son named Saul, who was an impressive young man. Among the men of Israel there was not a better man than Saul. He was a head taller than all the people.",
      "3": "The donkeys of Saul’s father Kish were lost, so Kish said to his son Saul, “Take one of our young men with you, and go look for the donkeys.”",
      "4": "So Saul passed through the hill country of Ephraim and through the land of Shalishah, but they did not find the donkeys. Then they traveled through the land of Sha’alim but found nothing. Then he traveled through the land of the Benjaminites, but they did not find the donkeys.",
      "5": "When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to the young man who was with him, “Come on. Let’s go back. If we don’t, my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and will start worrying about us.”",
      "6": "But the young man said to him, “Wait! In this city there is a man of God, who is highly regarded. Everything he says actually comes true. So let’s go there. Maybe he can tell us which way we should go.”",
      "7": "Then Saul said to his young man, “If we go, what should we bring for the man? Look, the bread in our bags is used up, and we do not have a gift to bring to the man of God. What do we have with us?”",
      "8": "The young man responded to Saul, “Look here. I have a quarter of a shekel of silver in my hand. I will give that to the man of God to tell us which way we should go.”",
      "9": "(In earlier times in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let’s go to the seer,” because the man who is now called a prophet used to be called a seer.)",
      "10": "So Saul said to his servant, “Good advice. Come on! Let’s go!” So they went to the city where the man of God was.",
      "11": "As they went up the ascent to the city, they met some young women coming out to draw water, and they asked them, “Is the seer here?”",
      "12": "They answered them, “Yes, he is. He is there just ahead of you. Hurry! He has just come into the city today, because the people are presenting a sacrifice today at the high place.",
      "13": "As soon as you come into the city, you will find him before he goes up to the high place to eat, since the people will not eat until he comes, because he must bless the sacrifice. After that, those who have been invited will eat. So go up, right now, for this is the time for you to find him.”",
      "14": "So they went up to the city. Just as they were coming into the city, there was Samuel coming toward them on his way to the high place.",
      "15": "Now the Lord had revealed this to Samuel the day before Saul came. He had told him,",
      "16": "“About this time tomorrow I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you are to anoint him to be leader over my people Israel. He will save my people from the hand of the Philistines, for I am looking out for my people, because their cry for help has come to me.”",
      "17": "When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, “There, that is the man I was talking about! He will exercise authority over my people.”",
      "18": "Then Saul approached Samuel in the gateway and said, “Please tell me where the seer’s house is.”",
      "19": "Samuel answered Saul, “I am the seer. Go up to the high place ahead of me, because you and your men are to eat with me today. In the morning I will let you go, and I will tell you everything that is on your heart.",
      "20": "As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, do not be concerned about them, because they have been found. For who is it that all Israel desires? Isn’t it you and your father’s entire house?”",
      "21": "Saul answered, “But I am just a Benjaminite from the smallest of the tribes of Israel. And my family is the least important of all the families in the tribe of Benjamin. So why do you speak to me like this?”",
      "22": "Samuel took Saul and his servant and brought them into the dining hall. He seated them at the head of those who had been invited. There were about thirty men.",
      "23": "Samuel said to the cook, “Bring the portion I gave you, the one I told you to set aside.”",
      "24": "So the cook picked up the thigh and all the meat that was on it and placed it before Saul. Samuel said, “Look here, this has been reserved for you! Set it before you and eat, because ever since I said, ‘I have invited the people,’ it has been kept for you for the appointed time.” So Saul ate with Samuel that day.",
      "25": "When they had come down from the high place and gone into the city, Samuel spoke with Saul on the flat roof of the house.",
      "26": "They got up early, about daybreak, and Samuel called to Saul on the housetop, “Get up, so that I may send you on your way.” Saul got up, and the two of them, Saul and Samuel, went outside together.",
      "27": "As they were going down to the edge of the city, Samuel said to Saul, “Tell the young man to go on ahead of us.” So the young man went on ahead. Then Samuel said, “You stay here, so that I can tell you God’s message.”"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil, poured it on Saul’s head, kissed him, and told him this:\nHasn’t the Lord anointed you to be ruler over his inheritance?",
      "2": "When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel’s tomb, at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will tell you, “The donkeys that you have been looking for have been found. Now your father has stopped worrying about the donkeys and is worried about the two of you. He is asking, ‘What should I do about my son?’”",
      "3": "As you go on farther from there, you will come to the oak tree at Tabor. Three men going up to God’s house at Bethel will meet you there. One will be carrying three young goats, another will be carrying three loaves of bread, and the third will be carrying a container of wine.",
      "4": "They will greet you, ask how you are doing, and give you two loaves of bread, which you are to accept from their hand.",
      "5": "After that, you will come to Gibeah of God, where there is a Philistine garrison. When you come to the city, you will meet a band of prophets coming down from the high place. Musicians with a harp, a hand drum, a flute, and a lyre will be going in front of them, and they will be prophesying.",
      "6": "Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you with power, and you will prophesy with them, and you will become a changed man.",
      "7": "When you have received these signs, do whatever is appropriate for the occasion, for God is with you.",
      "8": "Go down to Gilgal ahead of me. Watch for me. I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice fellowship offerings. Wait seven days, until I come to you. Then I will let you know what you are to do.",
      "9": "As Saul was turning away from Samuel to leave, God gave him a changed heart, and all those signs were fulfilled that day.",
      "10": "When they came to Gibeah, a band of prophets met Saul, and the Spirit of God came upon him with power, and he prophesied among them.",
      "11": "When everyone who had known him previously saw that Saul was prophesying along with the prophets, the people were surprised and said to each other, “What has happened to the son of Kish? Is even Saul among the prophets?”",
      "12": "Someone from that area responded, “Who is their father?” Therefore it became a saying: “Is even Saul among the prophets?”",
      "13": "When Saul had finished prophesying, he arrived at the high place.",
      "14": "Saul’s uncle asked Saul and his servant, “Where did you go?”\nSaul said, “To look for the donkeys. But when we realized that we were not succeeding, we went to Samuel.”",
      "15": "Saul’s uncle said, “Please tell me what Samuel said to you.”",
      "16": "Saul said to his uncle, “He made it clear to us that the donkeys had been found.”\nBut Saul did not tell his uncle anything about the matter of the kingship, about which Samuel had also spoken.",
      "17": "Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah.",
      "18": "He said to the people of Israel, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and from the hand of all the kingdoms that oppressed you.",
      "19": "But today you have rejected your God, the one who saves you out of all your disasters and your distress, and you have said to him, ‘You must set a king over us.’ Now line up in the presence of the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands.”",
      "20": "So Samuel brought forward all the tribes of Israel, and the tribe of Benjamin was chosen.",
      "21": "Then he brought forward the tribe of Benjamin by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was chosen. Then Saul the son of Kish was chosen, but when they looked for him, he could not be found.",
      "22": "Therefore they asked the Lord again, “Has the man arrived here yet?”\nThe Lord answered, “He has. Look, he is is hiding among the baggage.”",
      "23": "So they ran and brought him from there. When he stood among the people, he was a head taller than any of the people.",
      "24": "Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the one the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.”\nAll the people shouted, “Long live the king!”",
      "25": "Samuel told the people the regulations concerning the kingship, and he wrote them on a scroll, which was placed before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each man to his own house.",
      "26": "Saul went home to Gibeah, and the army went with him, those men whose hearts God had touched.",
      "27": "But certain worthless good-for-nothings said, “How can this man save us?” They despised him and brought him no gift, but Saul said nothing."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Nahash the Ammonite went and set up camp against Jabesh Gilead. So all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.”",
      "2": "Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “On this condition I will make a treaty with you: I will gouge out the right eye of every one of you in order to dishonor all Israel.”",
      "3": "The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days, so that we can send messengers throughout all the borders of Israel. Then, if there is no one to rescue us, we will come out to you.”",
      "4": "When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and spoke these words in the hearing of the people, all the people cried out and wept loudly.",
      "5": "Just then Saul came in from the field, following the oxen. Saul asked, “What has upset the people? Why are they weeping?” So they told him about the words of the men of Jabesh.",
      "6": "When Saul heard those words, the Spirit of God rushed upon him with power, and his anger burned intensely.",
      "7": "He took a yoke of oxen and cut them to pieces and sent the pieces throughout all the borders of Israel in the hands of messengers who said, “This is what will be done to the oxen of anyone who does not turn out to follow Saul and Samuel.” The dread of the Lord fell on the people, and they turned out as one man.",
      "8": "Saul counted them in Bezek. The men of Israel totaled three hundred thousand and the men of Judah thirty thousand.",
      "9": "They said to the messengers who had come, “Tell the men of Jabesh Gilead, ‘Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you will be rescued.’”\nThe messengers came and told the men of Jabesh, and they were very happy.",
      "10": "So the men of Jabesh said, “Tomorrow we will come out to you, and you can do with us whatever seems good to you.”",
      "11": "On the next day, Saul split the army into three divisions. They broke into the middle of the Ammonite camp during the last watch before morning and struck them down until the heat of the day. Those who survived were so scattered that no two of them were left together.",
      "12": "Then the people said to Samuel, “Who was it who said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Hand those men over to us, so we can put them to death!”",
      "13": "But Saul said, “No one shall be put to death today, because today the Lord has rescued Israel.”",
      "14": "Then Samuel said to the people, “Come! Let’s go to Gilgal and confirm the kingship there.”",
      "15": "So all the people went to Gilgal, and they made Saul king in the presence of the Lord there at Gilgal. There they sacrificed fellowship offerings before the Lord, and Saul and all the men of Israel held a great celebration there."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Samuel said to all Israel, “You see that I have listened to your voice and to everything that you said to me. I have appointed a king over you.",
      "2": "Now, there he is. The king is walking before you. I am old and gray, but my sons are with you. I have walked before you from my youth till this very day.",
      "3": "“Here I am. Testify against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Have I defrauded anyone? Have I oppressed anyone? From whose hand have I taken a bribe to turn a blind eye to anything? If so, I will restore it for you.”",
      "4": "They replied, “You have not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither have you taken anything from anyone’s hand.”",
      "5": "So he said to them, “The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness today that you have not found anything in my hand.”\nThey said, “He is witness.”",
      "6": "So this is what Samuel said to the people:\nIt was the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron and who brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.",
      "7": "Now then, stand here, so that I may present the case against you before the Lord on the basis of all the righteous acts of the Lord, which he did for you and for your fathers.",
      "8": "When Jacob had gone down into Egypt, your fathers cried out to the Lord, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and settled them in this place.",
      "9": "But they forgot the Lord their God, so he sold them into the hand of Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them.",
      "10": "They cried to the Lord and said, “We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord. We have served the Baals and the Ashtartes, but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve you.”",
      "11": "So the Lord sent Jerubbaal, Bedan, Jephthah, and Samuel, and he delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety.",
      "12": "But when you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites was coming against you, even though the Lord your God was your king, you said to me, “No, we want a king to reign over us.”",
      "13": "Now look, here is the king you have chosen, the king you asked for. You see, the Lord has set a king over you.",
      "14": "If you fear the Lord and serve him and listen to his voice and do not rebel against the mouth of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns over you will be following the Lord your God.",
      "15": "But if you do not listen to the Lord’s voice but rebel against the mouth of the Lord, then the Lord’s hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.",
      "16": "Now then, take your positions here, and see this great thing that the Lord is about to do right in front of your eyes.",
      "17": "Isn’t today the time of wheat harvest? I will call to the Lord, and he will send thunder and rain, so that you may know and see that your wickedness is great, that wickedness which you have done in the Lord’s sight by asking for a king.",
      "18": "Then Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day. Then all the people were very afraid of the Lord and of Samuel.",
      "19": "So all the people said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God for your servants so that we do not die, for we have added to all our sins also this evil, that we asked for a king for ourselves.”",
      "20": "Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid. You have indeed done all this evil. Nevertheless, do not turn away from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.",
      "21": "Do not turn away to pursue empty things that cannot help you or save you, because they are empty.",
      "22": "For the sake of his great name, the Lord will not forsake his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own people for himself.",
      "23": "As for me, it is unthinkable that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you. Instead I will instruct you in the way that is good and right.",
      "24": "Above all, fear the Lord, and serve him in truth, with all your heart, considering the great things he has done for you.",
      "25": "But if you keep doing evil, you will be swept away, both you and your king.”"
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years.",
      "2": "Saul chose for himself three thousand men of Israel. Two thousand were with Saul at Mikmash and in the hill country near Bethel, and one thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah of Benjamin. He sent the rest of the people to their own tents.",
      "3": "Jonathan struck the Philistine garrison that was in Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Saul blew the ram’s horn throughout the land and said, “Let the Hebrews hear!”",
      "4": "All Israel heard that Saul had struck the garrison of the Philistines and that Israel had become a stench to the Philistines. The people were summoned to meet Saul at Gilgal.",
      "5": "The Philistines assembled their forces to fight against Israel with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They came up and camped at Mikmash, east of Beth Aven.",
      "6": "When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble because their army was under pressure, the people hid themselves in caves, in thickets, among the rocks, in dugouts, and in cisterns.",
      "7": "Some of the Hebrews had gone across the Jordan River to the territory of Gad and Gilead, but Saul remained in Gilgal, and all the people who remained with him were shaking with fear.",
      "8": "He waited there seven days, the time specified by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were starting to scatter from Saul.",
      "9": "So Saul said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offering.” He then presented the burnt offering.",
      "10": "No sooner had he finished presenting the burnt offering than Samuel arrived. Saul went out to meet him and greet him with a blessing.",
      "11": "But Samuel said, “What have you done?”\nSaul said, “I saw that the people were scattering from me, that you did not come within the set number of days, and that the Philistines had assembled their forces at Mikmash.",
      "12": "So I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself to offer the burnt offering.”",
      "13": "Samuel said to Saul, “You have acted foolishly. You have not kept the command which the Lord your God gave to you. The Lord would have established your kingship over Israel forever.",
      "14": "But now your kingship will not continue. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and the Lord has appointed him to be ruler over his people, because you have not obeyed the command the Lord gave you.”",
      "15": "Then Samuel set out and went up from Gilgal. ⎣The rest of the people followed Saul to meet the army. They went up from Gilgal⎦ to Gibeah of Benjamin. Saul counted the people who were present with him. There were about six hundred men.",
      "16": "Saul, and his son Jonathan, and the people who were present with them stayed in Geba of Benjamin, but the Philistines camped at Mikmash.",
      "17": "Raiding parties set out from the camp of the Philistines in three groups. One group headed down the road toward Ophrah, toward the land of Shual.",
      "18": "Another group headed down the road to Beth Horon, and the third group headed toward the position on the border that looks down on the Valley of Zeboim, toward the wilderness.",
      "19": "At that time no blacksmith could be found throughout the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines said, “If we allow this, the Hebrews will make swords or spears for themselves.”",
      "20": "So all the Israelites had to go down to the Philistines to get their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles sharpened.",
      "21": "The price was two thirds of a shekel to sharpen plowshares and mattocks and one third of a shekel for pitchforks and axes and to repair ox goads.",
      "22": "The result was that when the day of battle came, no swords or spears were found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan. Only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.",
      "23": "A garrison of the Philistines took up a position by the pass at Mikmash."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "One day Saul’s son Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come on! Let’s go over to the Philistines’ garrison that is on the other side.” But he did not tell his father",
      "2": "Saul, who was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah, under the pomegranate tree that is in Migron. The people who were with Saul amounted to about six hundred men,",
      "3": "including Ahijah son of Ahitub. (Ahitub was the brother of Ichabod and the son of Phinehas, who was the son of Eli, the priest of the Lord in Shiloh.) Ahijah was wearing the special vest.\nThe men did not know that Jonathan was gone.",
      "4": "On each side of the pass which Jonathan needed to cross in order to go over to the Philistine garrison, there was a cliff with a sharp outcropping of rock. The name of one was Bozez, and the name of the other was Seneh.",
      "5": "One cliff rose up on the north side in front of Mikmash, and the other was on the south side in front of Geba.",
      "6": "Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come on! Let’s go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised fellows. It may be that the Lord will exert his power for us, for the Lord is not limited. He can save by many or by few.”",
      "7": "His armor bearer said to him, “Do everything that is in your heart. Give it all you’ve got! I am with you heart and soul.”",
      "8": "Then Jonathan said, “Here’s the plan. We will cross over to them, and we will let them see us.",
      "9": "If they say to us, ‘Stay there until we come to you!’ then we will stay right where we are. We will not go up to them.",
      "10": "But if they say, ‘Come up to us!’ then we will go up, because the Lord has delivered them into our hand. This will be the sign for us.”",
      "11": "So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines, and the Philistines said, “What do you know! The Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have been hiding!”",
      "12": "When Jonathan and his armor bearer appeared, the men of the garrison responded, “Come up to us. We have something to show you!”\nSo Jonathan said to his armor bearer, “Follow me, because the Lord has delivered them into Israel’s hands.”",
      "13": "Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, and his armor bearer followed him. The Philistines fell wounded before Jonathan, and his armor bearer followed him, killing them as he went.",
      "14": "That first blow struck by Jonathan and his armor bearer killed about twenty men within about half an acre of land.",
      "15": "Panic spread throughout the entire Philistine army, both those in the camp and those in the open country. The garrison and the raiding parties also panicked. The earth quaked, and there was a panic sent by God.",
      "16": "Saul’s sentries at Geba of Benjamin looked out and saw the noisy crowd melting away and scattering in every direction.",
      "17": "Then Saul said to the people who were with him, “Take roll call, and see who is missing from us.” When they took roll call, they realized that Jonathan and his armor bearer were not there.",
      "18": "Saul said to Ahijah, “Bring the special vest of God here.” (The special vest of God was with the Israelites at that time.)",
      "19": "While Saul was talking to the priest, the uproar in the camp of the Philistines continued and got even louder, so Saul said to the priest, “Stop drawing lots!”",
      "20": "Saul and all the troops who were with him assembled and joined the battle. There they saw the panicked Philistines striking each other with their swords.",
      "21": "Then the Hebrews from all around, who had previously sided with the Philistines and had joined them in their camp, deserted them to join the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.",
      "22": "Likewise, when all the men of Israel who had hidden themselves in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were fleeing, they joined the battle and stuck to the Philistines in close pursuit.",
      "23": "So the Lord saved Israel that day, and the battle progressed as far as Beth Aven.",
      "24": "The men of Israel were pushed to their limits that day, because Saul had imposed an oath on the people: “Cursed is the man who eats any food until it is evening and I have been avenged on my enemies.” So none of the people tasted any food.",
      "25": "The entire army had come into a forest, and there was honey on the ground.",
      "26": "When the army came into the forest, they saw the honey dripping, but no one put his hand to his mouth, because the people were afraid as a result of the oath.",
      "27": "Jonathan, however, had not heard his father put the people under oath. So he stuck out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, dipped it into the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth, and he was revived.",
      "28": "Then one of the soldiers responded and said, “Your father specifically placed the people under an oath, saying, ‘Cursed is the man who eats food today.’ That is why the people are so weak.”",
      "29": "Then Jonathan said, “My father has caused trouble for the land. See how I have been revived, because I tasted a little of this honey.",
      "30": "How much better it would have been today if the people had eaten freely from the plunder taken from their enemies. The slaughter among the Philistines would have been even greater.”",
      "31": "The Israelites struck down the Philistines that day from Mikmash to Aijalon. The troops were very weak,",
      "32": "so they pounced on the plunder. They took sheep, cattle, and calves and slaughtered them on the spot, and they ate them with the blood still in them.",
      "33": "Saul was told, “Look, the people are sinning against the Lord. They are eating meat with the blood still in it.”\nSaul said, “You have acted unfaithfully. Roll a large stone over here to me right now!”",
      "34": "Then he said, “Spread out among the people and tell them, ‘Have each man bring his ox or his sheep here to me. Kill them here, and eat them, but do not sin against the Lord by eating meat with the blood still in it.’” So that night each person brought his ox with him, and together they killed them there.",
      "35": "Saul built an altar to the Lord. This was the first altar which he built to the Lord.",
      "36": "Saul said, “We will pursue the Philistines by night and take plunder from them until the morning light. We will not allow a man of them to survive.”\nThe people responded, “Do whatever seems good to you.”\nBut the priest said, “We should consult God here.”",
      "37": "So Saul inquired of God, “Shall I pursue the Philistines? Will you deliver them into Israel’s hand?” But God did not answer him that day.",
      "38": "So Saul said, “Come over here, all you pillars of the people, and let us find out what sin has been committed today.",
      "39": "For, as the Lord lives, who saves Israel, even if it is my son Jonathan, he must surely die.” But there was not a man among all the people who responded to him.",
      "40": "Then Saul said to all Israel, “You stand on one side, and I and my son Jonathan will be on the other side.”\nThe people said to Saul, “Do whatever seems good to you.”",
      "41": "So Saul said to the Lord, the God of Israel, ⎣“Why have you not answered your servant today? If the fault is in me or my son Jonathan, respond with Urim, but if the fault is with the men of Israel,⎦ respond with Thummim.”\nThen Jonathan and Saul were chosen, and the people were not chosen.",
      "42": "Saul said, “Cast lots between me and Jonathan my son. ⎣The person the Lord identifies by lot shall be put to death.”\nBut the people said to Saul, “Absolutely not.” But Saul overruled the people, so they cast lots between him and Jonathan his son,⎦ and Jonathan was selected by lot.",
      "43": "Then Saul said to Jonathan, “Tell me what you have done!”\nJonathan told him, “I just tasted a little honey with the tip of the staff that was in my hand, and now I must die?”",
      "44": "Saul said, “May God punish me severely and double it, if you are not put to death, Jonathan.”",
      "45": "The people said to Saul, “Should Jonathan die? He has accomplished this great deliverance for Israel. Absolutely not! As the Lord lives, not one hair of his head shall fall to the ground, because he has worked with God today!” So the people rescued Jonathan, so that he did not die.",
      "46": "Then Saul gave up pursuing the Philistines, and the Philistines went back to their own places.",
      "47": "When Saul had assumed the kingship over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side: against Moab, against the Ammonites, against Edom, against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines. Wherever he turned, he inflicted punishment.",
      "48": "He fought valiantly. He struck the Amalekites and delivered Israel out of the hands of those who had plundered them.",
      "49": "The sons of Saul were Jonathan, Ishvi, and Malkishua. The names of his two daughters were Merab, the firstborn, and Michal, the younger.",
      "50": "The name of Saul’s wife was Ahinoam daughter of Ahima’az. The name of the commander of his army was Abner son of Ner, Saul’s uncle.",
      "51": "Kish was Saul’s father, and Ner, Abner’s father, was the son of Abiel.",
      "52": "There was fierce warfare against the Philistines all the days of Saul. Whenever Saul noticed any heroic man or strong warrior, he would take him into his service."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you to be king over his people Israel. Therefore, listen to the voice of the Lord.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. I will repay Amalek for what they did to Israel when they blocked Israel’s way as it was coming up out of Egypt.",
      "3": "Go and strike Amalek. Devote everything they have to destruction. Do not spare them. Kill both men and women, infants and nursing babies, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.”",
      "4": "So Saul summoned the troops and organized them for battle at Telaim. There were two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men from Judah.",
      "5": "Then Saul came to the city of Amalek and set up an ambush in the ravine.",
      "6": "Saul said to the Kenites, “Go! Leave! Get away from the Amalekites, so that I do not destroy you along with them, because you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.",
      "7": "Saul struck the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which borders Egypt.",
      "8": "He took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and he devoted all the people to destruction with the edge of the sword.",
      "9": "But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the cattle, the fattened calves, and the lambs, along with everything else that was good, because they were not willing to devote them to destruction. But everything that was undesirable and worthless, that they devoted to destruction.",
      "10": "Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel:",
      "11": "“I regret that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has turned back from following me, and he has not carried out my words.” Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night.",
      "12": "Samuel got up to meet Saul early in the morning, but Samuel was told, “Saul went to Carmel, and he set up a monument for himself there. Then he turned and continued down to Gilgal.”\n⎣So Samuel went to Saul, and there he saw Saul, offering a burnt offering to the Lord from the best of the spoils that he had brought from the Amalekites.⎦",
      "13": "When Samuel came to Saul, Saul said to him, “You are blessed by the Lord! I have carried out the word of the Lord.”",
      "14": "Samuel said, “Then what does this mean—this bleating of sheep in my ears and the lowing of cattle that I hear?”",
      "15": "Saul said, “They have been brought here from the Amalekites, because the people spared the best of the sheep and the cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God. But we have completely destroyed the rest.”",
      "16": "Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop right there! Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”\nHe said to him, “Tell me.”",
      "17": "Samuel said, “Though you were insignificant in your own sight, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel. The Lord anointed you king over Israel.",
      "18": "Then the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go and devote the Amalekites, that sinful people, to destruction. Fight against them until they are exterminated.’",
      "19": "Why didn’t you listen to the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord’s sight?”",
      "20": "Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have completed the mission that the Lord gave me. I have captured Agag king of Amalek, and I have completely destroyed the Amalekites.",
      "21": "But the people took some of the plunder: sheep, cattle, and the best of what was devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”",
      "22": "Samuel said, “Does the Lord take as much pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Know this! To obey is better than sacrifice, and to pay attention is better than the fat of rams.",
      "23": "For rebellion is the same as the sin of witchcraft, and arrogance is like having useless idols or consulting household gods. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you as king.”",
      "24": "Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed against the command of the Lord, as well as against your words, because I was afraid of the people, so I listened to their voice.",
      "25": "But now, please pardon my sin and come back with me again, so that I may worship the Lord.”",
      "26": "But Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you, because you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.”",
      "27": "As Samuel turned to leave, Saul grabbed the edge of his robe, and it tore.",
      "28": "Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel away from you today, and he has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.",
      "29": "The Splendor of Israel will not lie or change his mind, because he is not a man, who changes his mind.”",
      "30": "Then Saul said, “I have sinned, but please honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel. Come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God.”",
      "31": "So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshipped the Lord.",
      "32": "Then Samuel said, “Bring Agag the king of the Amalekites here to me!”\nAgag came to him confidently. He said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”",
      "33": "Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women!” Then Samuel cut Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.",
      "34": "Samuel then went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul.",
      "35": "Until the day of his death, Samuel never again came to see Saul. Samuel did, however, mourn for Saul, but the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I see a king for myself among his sons.”",
      "2": "Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.”\nThe Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’",
      "3": "Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will let you know what you are to do. You are to anoint for me the person that I point out to you.”",
      "4": "So Samuel did what the Lord had told him to do and went to Bethlehem. Trembling with fear, the elders of the city came to meet him. They said, “Do you come in peace?”",
      "5": "He said, “Yes, in peace. I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” He consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.",
      "6": "When they had come, he looked at Eliab and said, “Certainly this is the Lord’s anointed.”",
      "7": "But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at how tall he is, because I have rejected him. For the Lord does not look at things the way man does. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”",
      "8": "Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The Lord has not chosen this one either.”",
      "9": "Then Jesse had Shammah pass by. But Samuel said, “The Lord has not chosen this one either.”",
      "10": "Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel. Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.”",
      "11": "Samuel said to Jesse, “Is that all of the young men?”\nJesse said, “There still is the youngest, but he is tending the sheep.”\nSamuel said to Jesse, “Send for him, for we cannot sit down to eat until he comes.”",
      "12": "He sent for him and brought him in. David had red hair and striking eyes, and was good-looking. The Lord said, “Get up! Anoint him, because this is the one.”",
      "13": "So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers. The Spirit of the Lord rushed on David with power from that day forward. After that Samuel set out and returned to Ramah.",
      "14": "The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.",
      "15": "So Saul’s servants said to him, “Please listen to us. An evil spirit from God is tormenting you.",
      "16": "Our lord, please command your servants who are here with you to seek out a man who is skilled at playing the lyre. Then when the evil spirit from God is on you, he will play the lyre, and you will feel better.”",
      "17": "So Saul said to his servants, “Find a man who can play well and bring him to me.”",
      "18": "Then one of the young attendants replied, “As a matter of fact, I have seen a son of Jesse from Bethlehem who is a skillful player. He is a strong, brave man, fit for war. He shows good judgment in what he says and is a handsome man. And the Lord is with him.”",
      "19": "So Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.”",
      "20": "Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a container of wine, and a young goat, and he sent them with his son David to Saul.",
      "21": "David came to Saul and stood before him. Saul loved him, and David became his armor bearer.",
      "22": "So Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Permit David to remain and serve me, for I am very pleased with him.”",
      "23": "Whenever the spirit from God came over Saul, David would take the lyre in his hand and play. So Saul would be soothed and feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Now the Philistines gathered their troops for battle. They gathered at Sokoh, which belongs to Judah, and they camped between Sokoh and Azekah at Ephes Dammim.",
      "2": "Saul and the men of Israel also gathered together and camped in the Valley of Elah. They lined up in battle formation opposite the Philistines.",
      "3": "The Philistines took up a position in front of the mountain on one side of the valley, and the Israelites stationed themselves in front of the mountain on the other side of the valley.",
      "4": "A challenger who represented the Philistines came out from the camp of the Philistines. He was named Goliath of Gath. He was nine feet, six inches tall.",
      "5": "He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he wore scaled body armor, which was made of more than one hundred pounds of bronze.",
      "6": "He had bronze greaves on his shins and a bronze spear slung between his shoulders.",
      "7": "The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spearhead was made of fifteen pounds of iron. His shield bearer went out ahead of him.",
      "8": "He would stand up and shout to the armies of Israel, “Why have you come out to line up in battle formation? I am a Philistine, and you are servants of Saul, aren’t you? Choose a man to represent you, and let him come down to me.",
      "9": "If he is able to fight with me and kill me, we will be your servants. But if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our servants, and you will serve us.”",
      "10": "The Philistine would say, “I defy the ranks of Israel today! Give me a man, and we will fight each other!”",
      "11": "When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they lost their courage and were terrified.",
      "12": "Now David was the son of an Ephrathite from Bethlehem in Judah, whose name was Jesse. Jesse had eight sons. In the days of Saul, Jesse was a very old man.",
      "13": "The three oldest sons of Jesse had accompanied Saul to the battleground. The names of his three sons who went to the battle were his firstborn Eliab, next Abinadab, and third Shammah.",
      "14": "David was the youngest son. The three oldest accompanied Saul.",
      "15": "During this time David went back and forth from Saul to take care of his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.",
      "16": "The Philistine came out each morning and evening for forty days and presented his challenge.",
      "17": "Jesse said to his son David, “Take twenty-five pounds of this roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers. Deliver them quickly to the camp for your brothers.",
      "18": "Also take these ten blocks of cheese to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are doing and bring back some assurance they are okay.”",
      "19": "Now Saul, David’s brothers, and all the men of Israel were in the Valley of Elah to fight with the Philistines.",
      "20": "David got up early in the morning and left the sheep with someone who would watch them. He took the supplies and set out as Jesse had commanded him. He arrived at the outer defense line of the camp just as the army was marching out to line up in battle formation, shouting war cries as they went.",
      "21": "Israel and the Philistines were lining up for battle, one formation against the other.",
      "22": "After David had handed over his provisions to the supply officer, he ran to the battlefront, where he met and greeted his brothers.",
      "23": "As he was talking with them there, he saw the Philistine challenger named Goliath of Gath coming up out of the ranks of the Philistines. He repeated his usual words, and David heard them.",
      "24": "(Whenever they saw the man, all the men of Israel fled from him and were terrified.)",
      "25": "An Israelite had said, “Have you seen this man who has come up? He keeps coming up to taunt Israel. The king will give great riches to the man who kills him. He will give his daughter to him in marriage and make his father’s house exempt from taxes in Israel.”",
      "26": "David spoke to the men who stood near him. He asked, “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine who dares to defy the troops of the living God?”",
      "27": "The people again told him what would be done for the man who killed Goliath.",
      "28": "When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard David speaking to the men, he burned with anger against David. He said, “Why have you come down? Who is taking care of those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and the mischief in your heart. You have come down just to see the battle.”",
      "29": "David said, “What have I done now? Can’t I say anything?”",
      "30": "So David turned away from him toward another person, and he asked the same thing again, and the soldiers again answered him the same way.",
      "31": "When they heard what David said, they reported it to Saul, and he sent for David.",
      "32": "David said to Saul, “Do not let anyone lose heart because of this Philistine! Your servant will go and fight him.”",
      "33": "But Saul said to David, “You cannot go against this Philistine to fight with him, because you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior since he was a youth.”",
      "34": "David said to Saul, “Your servant has been taking care of his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock,",
      "35": "I went after it and struck it and rescued the lamb out of its mouth. When the lion reared up against me, I grabbed it by its mane, struck it, and killed it.",
      "36": "Your servant struck both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has defied the ranks of the living God.”",
      "37": "David added, “The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”\nSaul said to David, “Go then! May the Lord be with you.”",
      "38": "So Saul dressed David in his own gear. He placed a bronze helmet on his head and dressed him in scaled body armor.",
      "39": "David strapped his sword over his gear. David tried to walk around in them, since he had never trained with this kind of equipment before.\nDavid said to Saul, “I cannot go in these, because I have never trained with them.” So David took them off.",
      "40": "Then David took his staff in his hand and picked five smooth stones out of the stream bed and put them into the pouch of his shepherd’s bag. He took his sling in his hand and approached the Philistine.",
      "41": "The Philistine kept walking and got closer and closer to David. The man who was carrying his shield was walking ahead of him.",
      "42": "When the Philistine got a good look at David, he despised him, because David was just a boy, nothing but a good-looking, red-headed boy.",
      "43": "The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come against me with sticks?” The Philistine cursed David by his gods.",
      "44": "The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will feed your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the countryside.”",
      "45": "Then David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Armies, the God of the ranks of Israel, whom you have defied.",
      "46": "Today the Lord will hand you over to me. I will strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth. Then all the earth will know that there is a God in Israel,",
      "47": "and all those gathered here will know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear, for the battle belongs to the Lord, and he will deliver you into our hand.”",
      "48": "Then, when the Philistine started advancing to attack David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.",
      "49": "David put his hand into his bag, took a stone from it, shot it from his sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown to the ground.",
      "50": "So David defeated the Philistine with a sling and a stone. He struck the Philistine and killed him, even though David did not have a sword in his hand.",
      "51": "So David ran, stood over the Philistine, took hold of his sword, drew it out of its sheath, killed him, and cut off his head with it.\nWhen the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.",
      "52": "The men of Israel and Judah got up, cheering loudly, and pursued the Philistines toward the entrance of the valley, all the way to the gates of Ekron. Fatally-wounded Philistines lined the road from Sha’araim all the way to Gath and Ekron.",
      "53": "When the Israelites returned from pursuing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.",
      "54": "David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put the Philistine’s armor and weapons into his tent.",
      "55": "When Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is this young man?”\nAbner said, “As your soul lives, my King, I do not know.”",
      "56": "The king said, “Inquire whose son the young man is!”",
      "57": "As David returned from striking down the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand.",
      "58": "Saul said to him, “Whose son are you, young man?”\nDavid answered, “I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem.”"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan became bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved David as he loved his own soul.",
      "2": "Saul took David into his service that day and would not let him go back to his father’s house anymore.",
      "3": "Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because Jonathan loved David as his own soul.",
      "4": "Jonathan took off the robe that he was wearing and gave it to David, as well as his other gear, including his sword, his bow, and his belt.",
      "5": "David went out wherever Saul sent him, and he was successful. So Saul put him in charge of a group of soldiers. All the people approved, as did Saul’s officials.",
      "6": "As the army was coming back from battle, when David was returning from striking down the Philistine, women came out from all the cities of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful music, with hand drums, and with noisemakers.",
      "7": "The women sang to each other as they played:\nSaul has slain his thousands,\nand David his ten thousands.",
      "8": "Saul became furious, because he resented this statement. He said, “They have credited David with tens of thousands, but to me they have credited only thousands. What more can be given to him but the kingship?”",
      "9": "So Saul eyed David suspiciously from that day on.",
      "10": "On the next day, an evil spirit from God overcame Saul, and in a frenzy he prophesied inside the house. David had a lyre in his hand. He was playing as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand.",
      "11": "He hurled the spear, because he thought, “I will pin David to the wall!” But David escaped from his presence twice.",
      "12": "Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with David but had departed from Saul.",
      "13": "So Saul sent David away from his court and made him a commander over a unit of a thousand. So David led the army out to battle and back again.",
      "14": "David was successful in everything he did, and the Lord was with him.",
      "15": "When Saul saw that David was so successful, he was even more afraid of him.",
      "16": "But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he led them out to battle and back again.",
      "17": "Saul said to David, “Look, here is my oldest daughter Merab. I will give her to you as your wife. Just be a strong warrior for me, and fight the Lord’s battles.” For Saul thought, “It won’t be my hand against him, but it will be the hand of the Philistines against him.”",
      "18": "David said to Saul, “Who am I, and what is the status of my father’s clan in Israel, that I would be able to become the son-in-law of the king?”",
      "19": "When the time came that Saul’s daughter Merab was supposed to have been given to David, she was given to Adriel of Meholah as his wife.",
      "20": "Michal, Saul’s other daughter, loved David. When they told Saul about it, this situation pleased him.",
      "21": "Saul said, “I will give her to him, so that she will be a snare for him, and the hand of the Philistines will be against him.”\nSo Saul said to David, “Today you have another opportunity to become my son-in-law.”",
      "22": "Saul commanded his officials to speak with David privately and to say, “Look, the king is delighted with you, and all his officials love you, so you should become the king’s son-in-law.”",
      "23": "Saul’s officials spoke those words to David’s ears.\nBut David said, “Does it seem to you to be a trivial thing for me to be the king’s son-in-law, since I am a poor man and not highly regarded?”",
      "24": "Then Saul’s officials told him what David had said.",
      "25": "So Saul said, “Tell David that the king desires no price for the bride except one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, for revenge against the king’s enemies.” Saul intended to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.",
      "26": "When Saul’s officials told David these words, David was very pleased to become the king’s son-in-law. Before the deadline,",
      "27": "David got up and went out with his men and killed two hundred men of the Philistines. Then David brought their foreskins and counted them out for the king, so that he could become the king’s son-in-law.\nThen Saul gave his daughter Michal to David as his wife.",
      "28": "Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that Michal, his daughter, loved David.",
      "29": "So Saul was even more afraid of David, and he was hostile to David all the time.",
      "30": "The commanders of the Philistines were regularly going out for battle, and as often as they went out, David was more successful than all the other officers of Saul. So his name was highly regarded."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Saul told his son Jonathan and all his officials that they should kill David. But Saul’s son Jonathan had great admiration and respect for David.",
      "2": "So Jonathan told David, “My father Saul wants to kill you. So be careful tomorrow morning. Settle down in a hiding place and conceal yourself.",
      "3": "I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will talk with my father about you. I will see what the situation is, and I will tell you.”",
      "4": "Jonathan spoke favorably about David to his father Saul. He said to him, “The king should not sin against his servant David, because he has not sinned against you, and his actions have served you very well.",
      "5": "He took his life into his hands when he struck the Philistine, and the Lord brought about a great victory for all Israel. You saw it, and you celebrated. Why then would you sin against innocent blood by killing David without cause?”",
      "6": "Saul listened to the advice of Jonathan, and Saul swore, “As the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death.”",
      "7": "So Jonathan called David and told him about all those things. Then Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he served in his presence as he had before.",
      "8": "Later, war broke out again. David went out and fought against the Philistines and inflicted a severe defeat on them, and they fled from him.",
      "9": "An evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. David was playing the lyre.",
      "10": "Saul tried to pin David to the wall with the spear, but David evaded Saul’s attempt, and Saul’s spear stuck in the wall. That night David fled and successfully escaped.",
      "11": "Saul sent messengers to watch David’s house and to kill him in the morning, but David’s wife Michal told him, “If you do not do something to save your life tonight, by tomorrow you will be put to death.”",
      "12": "So Michal let David down through the window. He took off, got away, and escaped.",
      "13": "Michal took a household idol and laid it in the bed. She put something made of goat hair on its head and covered the statue with clothing.",
      "14": "When Saul sent messengers to capture David, she said, “He is sick.”",
      "15": "So Saul sent the messengers to see David for themselves. He said, “Bring him to me on the bed, so I can kill him.”",
      "16": "When the messengers came in, they saw that the idol was in the bed with the goat hair on its head.",
      "17": "Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me like this and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?”\nMichal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go! Why should I have to kill you?’”",
      "18": "So David ran away and successfully escaped.\nDavid came to Samuel at Ramah and told him about everything that Saul had done to him. So he and Samuel went and stayed in Naioth.",
      "19": "Saul was told, “Look, David is at Naioth in Ramah.”",
      "20": "Saul sent messengers to seize David, but when they saw an assembly of the prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing there as their leader, the Spirit of God came on Saul’s messengers, and they also prophesied.",
      "21": "When Saul was told about it, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. So Saul sent messengers a third time, and they also prophesied.",
      "22": "Then Saul himself went to Ramah and came to the large cistern at Seku. He asked, “Where are Samuel and David?”\nSomeone told him, “They are at Naioth in Ramah.”",
      "23": "So Saul headed for Naioth in Ramah. Then the Spirit of God came on him also, and he walked along prophesying, until he came to Naioth in Ramah.",
      "24": "He also stripped off his clothing and prophesied in the presence of Samuel. He fell down and lay there naked all that day and all that night. Therefore it is said, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”"
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "David fled from Naioth in Ramah. He came to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? Am I guilty of something? What is my sin against your father that makes him seek my life?”",
      "2": "Jonathan said to him, “A curse on me if that happens. You will not die. Look, my father does nothing whether important or unimportant without telling me about it. Why would my father hide this from me? It is not so.”",
      "3": "But David took an oath and said, “Your father certainly knows that I have found favor in your eyes, so he might say, ‘Do not let Jonathan know about this, or he will be very upset.’ But as surely as the Lord lives, and as surely as your soul lives, there is only a step between me and death.”",
      "4": "Then Jonathan said to David, “Ask me for whatever you really want, and I will do it for you.”",
      "5": "David said to Jonathan, “Listen, tomorrow is the new moon, and I am expected to dine with the king, but let me go so that I can hide in the countryside until the evening of the third day.",
      "6": "If your father misses me at all, say, ‘David urged me to excuse him so that he could run to Bethlehem, his hometown, because it is the annual sacrifice there for his entire family.’",
      "7": "If he says, ‘That is fine,’ your servant will be at peace. But if it really displeases him, then you will know that he is planning evil.",
      "8": "You must show kindness to your servant, because you have made a covenant in the name of the Lord with me, your servant. But if I am guilty of anything, kill me yourself. Why should you bring me to your father?”",
      "9": "Jonathan said, “A curse on me if that occurs, because if I knew that my father was planning to harm you, wouldn’t I tell you?”",
      "10": "Then David said to Jonathan, “Who will tell me if your father gives you a harsh response?”",
      "11": "Jonathan said to David, “Come, let’s go out into the field.” So the two of them went out into the field.",
      "12": "Jonathan said to David, “I swear by the Lord, the God of Israel! About this time tomorrow or the day after, when I have tested my father to see if he is favorably inclined toward David, I will send word to you so that you hear about it.",
      "13": "May the Lord punish Jonathan severely and double it, if my father is planning to harm you and I do not disclose it to you and send you on your way, so that you may go in peace. May the Lord be with you, as he has been with my father.",
      "14": "You must show the mercy of the Lord to me, not only while I am still alive, so that I do not die,",
      "15": "but you also must not cut off your mercy from my house forever—no, not even when the Lord has cut off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.”",
      "16": "So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the Lord demand an accounting from David’s enemies.”",
      "17": "Then Jonathan had David repeat the oath, because of the love that he had for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul.",
      "18": "Jonathan said to him, “Tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty.",
      "19": "On the third day, go down quickly to the place where you hid on the previous occasion and stay by the stone named Ezel.",
      "20": "I will shoot three arrows off to the side of it, as if I were shooting at a target.",
      "21": "I will send the boy out and say, ‘Go and find the arrows!’ If I yell to the boy, ‘Hey! The arrows are closer this way. Come and pick them up,’ then you can come to me, because you are safe and, as the Lord lives, there is no danger.",
      "22": "But if I yell to the boy, ‘Hey! The arrows are farther out,’ then go on your way, for the Lord has sent you away.",
      "23": "Concerning this matter that you and I have spoken about, the Lord stands as a witness between you and me forever.”",
      "24": "So David hid in the countryside. When the new moon came, the king sat down to eat his meal.",
      "25": "The king sat at his usual seat next to the wall. Jonathan was across from him, and Abner sat next to Saul, but David’s place was empty.",
      "26": "Nevertheless, Saul did not say anything that day, since he thought, “Something has happened to him to make him ceremonially unclean. That’s what it is—he must be unclean.”",
      "27": "On the day after the new moon, the second day of the month, David’s place was still empty. So Saul asked his son Jonathan, “Why didn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal, either yesterday or today?”",
      "28": "Jonathan answered Saul, “David begged me for permission to go to Bethlehem.",
      "29": "He said, ‘Please let me go, because our family has a sacrifice in the city. My brother has ordered me to be there. Now, if I have found favor in your eyes, please excuse me so I can go and see my brothers.’ That is why he has not come to the king’s table.”",
      "30": "Then Saul’s anger burned against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverted, unfaithful woman! Don’t I know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?",
      "31": "For as long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, you will not be established, nor will your kingship. So send for him and bring him to me, because he must surely die!”",
      "32": "Jonathan answered his father Saul, “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?”",
      "33": "Saul threw his spear at him to hit him. So Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death.",
      "34": "Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger, and he ate no food on the second day of the month, for he grieved for David, because his father had treated David so shamefully.",
      "35": "In the morning Jonathan went out into the field at the time he had set with David. He took a young servant boy with him.",
      "36": "He said to his boy, “Run out and find the arrows that I shoot.” As the boy ran, Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him.",
      "37": "When the boy reached the area where Jonathan’s arrow had landed, Jonathan yelled to the boy, “Isn’t the arrow farther out from you?”",
      "38": "Jonathan shouted to the boy, “Go faster! Hurry up! Don’t be slow!” Jonathan’s boy picked up the arrows and came back to his master.",
      "39": "The boy did not know anything about what was going on. Only Jonathan and David knew.",
      "40": "Jonathan gave his equipment to his boy and told him, “Go on ahead. Carry these things into the city.”",
      "41": "As soon as the boy was gone, David got up from the south side of the mound. He fell down with his face to the ground and bowed three times. They kissed one another and wept together, but David wept more.",
      "42": "Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, because we have both sworn in the Lord’s name. May the Lord stand between you and me and between my offspring and your offspring forever.” David got up and left, and Jonathan went back into the city."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "David came to Ahimelek the priest at Nob. When he came to meet David, Ahimelek was trembling with fear, and he said to David, “Why are you alone? Why isn’t there anyone with you?”",
      "2": "David said to Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and told me, ‘Don’t let anyone know anything about where I am sending you or about your orders.’ I have instructed the young men to wait for me at a certain place.",
      "3": "So what do you have on hand? Please give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is available.”",
      "4": "The priest answered David, “I do not have any ordinary bread, but there is holy bread—I can give it to you only if your young men have kept themselves away from women.”",
      "5": "David answered the priest, “Yes indeed, women have been kept away from us just as they have been on previous occasions. Whenever I go out on a mission, the bodies of the young men are kept holy even if it is only an ordinary journey. How much more then shall their bodies be holy today?”",
      "6": "So the priest gave him holy bread, because there was no bread there except for the Bread of the Presence which had been removed from the presence of the Lord and replaced with hot bread.",
      "7": "Now one of Saul’s servants was present that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite. He was in charge of Saul’s shepherds.",
      "8": "David said to Ahimelek, “Don’t you have a spear or sword on hand here? I didn’t bring my sword or my gear with me, because the king’s mission was so urgent.”",
      "9": "The priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here. It is wrapped in a cloth behind the place where the special vest is kept. If you would like to take that, take it, because there is nothing else here.”\nDavid said, “There is no other like that one. Give it to me.”",
      "10": "David quickly fled from Saul that day and went to Achish king of Gath.",
      "11": "The officials of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Didn’t they dance and sing songs about him, saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?”",
      "12": "David took those words to heart, so he was very afraid of Achish king of Gath.",
      "13": "He changed his behavior in their presence and pretended to be insane while he was in their hands. He scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spit run down his beard.",
      "14": "Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, can’t you see that the man is insane? Why have you brought him to me?",
      "15": "Don’t I have enough madmen? Did you have to bring this madman into my presence? Should I keep this man in my house?”"
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "So David departed from there and escaped to the cave at Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s entire household heard about it, they went down to join him there.",
      "2": "Everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander. There were about four hundred men with him.",
      "3": "David went from there to Mizpah in Moab, and he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and mother come and stay with you, until I find out what God will do for me.”",
      "4": "So he brought them to the king of Moab, and they stayed with him the whole time that David was in the stronghold.",
      "5": "The prophet Gad said to David, “Do not stay in the stronghold. Leave and go to the land of Judah.” So David left and went to the Forest of Hereth.",
      "6": "Saul heard that David and the men with him had been located.\nSaul was sitting under the tamarisk tree on an elevated location in Gibeah. He had his spear in his hand, and all his attendants were standing around him.",
      "7": "Saul said to his attendants who were standing around him, “Listen, you Benjaminites! Will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards? Will he make you all officers over thousands and officers over hundreds?",
      "8": "So why have all of you conspired against me? Why is there no one who informs me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse? Why is there not one of you who sympathizes with me or informs me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, so that he is waiting to ambush me, as he is today?”",
      "9": "Then Doeg the Edomite, who was standing beside Saul’s attendants, replied, “I saw the son of Jesse come to Ahimelek son of Ahitub at Nob.",
      "10": "The priest inquired of the Lord for him and gave him supplies and the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”",
      "11": "Then the king summoned the priest, Ahimelek son of Ahitub, along with all of his father’s house, that is, all the priests who were in Nob, and all of them came to the king.",
      "12": "Saul said, “Listen, you son of Ahitub.”\nHe answered, “I am listening, my lord.”",
      "13": "Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, by giving him bread and a sword and inquiring of God for him, so that he can rise up against me and lie in ambush, as he is doing today?”",
      "14": "Then Ahimelek answered the king, “Who among all your servants is as faithful as David? He is the king’s son-in-law, the head of your elite troops, and is honored in your house.",
      "15": "Have I just begun to inquire of God for him today? Certainly not! The king should not charge anything against his servant or against all the house of my father, for your servant knows nothing at all about this matter, in whole or in part.”",
      "16": "The king said, “You shall certainly die, Ahimelek, you and all your father’s house.”",
      "17": "Then the king said to the bodyguards who were standing around him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand too is with David. They knew that he was fleeing, but they did not inform me.”\nBut the attendants of the king would not raise a hand against the priests of the Lord.",
      "18": "The king said to Doeg, “You turn and attack the priests!”\nDoeg the Edomite turned and attacked the priests. On that day he killed eighty-five men who wore the special linen garment.",
      "19": "He struck Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and nursing babies, as well as cattle, donkeys, and sheep—all of them with the edge of the sword.",
      "20": "But one of the sons of Ahimelek son of Ahitub, whose name was Abiathar, escaped and fled to David.",
      "21": "Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the Lord’s priests.",
      "22": "David said to Abiathar, “On that day when Doeg the Edomite was present, I knew without a doubt that he would tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of all the members of your father’s house.",
      "23": "Stay with me. Do not be afraid, for the one who seeks my life also seeks your life. You will be safe with me.”"
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "David was told, “Here’s news! The Philistines are fighting against Keilah and plundering the threshing floors.”",
      "2": "So David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I go and strike these Philistines?”\nThe Lord said to David, “Go strike the Philistines and save Keilah.”",
      "3": "But David’s men said to him, “Look how afraid we are here in Judah! How much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines!”",
      "4": "Then David inquired of the Lord again, and the Lord answered him, “Set out and go down to Keilah, for I will deliver the Philistines into your hand.”",
      "5": "So David and his men went to Keilah and fought against the Philistines. He took away their livestock and struck a heavy blow against the Philistines. David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.",
      "6": "(When Abiathar son of Ahimelek fled with David to Keilah, he had brought the special vest, which was in his possession.)",
      "7": "When Saul was told that David had gone to Keilah, he said, “God has delivered him into my hand, since David has trapped himself by entering a city that has barred gates.”",
      "8": "Then Saul summoned all the fighting men to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men.",
      "9": "David knew that Saul was planning to harm him, so he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the special vest here.”",
      "10": "Then David said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has heard a specific report that Saul plans to come to Keilah to destroy the city because of me.",
      "11": "Will the citzens of Keilah hand me over to him? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O Lord, God of Israel, please tell your servant.”\nThe Lord said, “He will come down.”",
      "12": "Then David asked, “Will the citizens of Keilah hand me and my men over to Saul?”\nThe Lord said, “They will hand you over.”",
      "13": "Then David and his men, who numbered about six hundred, immediately departed from Keilah and went wherever they could. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up his plan to go there.",
      "14": "David stayed in the strongholds in the wilderness. He remained in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph. Saul searched for him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hand.",
      "15": "David knew that Saul had come to seek his life.\nDavid was at Horesh in the Wilderness of Ziph.",
      "16": "Saul’s son Jonathan set out and came to David at Horesh. There he strengthened his hand in God.",
      "17": "He said to him, “Do not be afraid, because the hand of my father Saul will not find you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows that.”",
      "18": "They both made a covenant before the Lord. Then David stayed at Horesh, and Jonathan returned home.",
      "19": "Then the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Do you know that David is hiding near us in the strongholds at Horesh near the Hill of Hakilah, in the southern part of the badlands?",
      "20": "So now, O King, come down! Come down whenever you wish to come, and our role will be to deliver him up into the king’s hand.”",
      "21": "Saul said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, for you have sympathized with me.",
      "22": "Go and make sure that you know exactly where he is and who has seen him there, for I have been told that he is very wily.",
      "23": "Make sure that you know all the places where he hides. Then come back to me with solid information. Then I will come with you. If he is in the land, you can be sure that I will hunt him down among all the thousands of Judah.”",
      "24": "So Saul’s men set out and went to Ziph ahead of Saul.\nMeanwhile David and his men were in the Wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah, south of the badlands.",
      "25": "Saul and his men went to look for David. When David was told about it, he went down to the rock and stayed in the Wilderness of Maon. When Saul heard that, he pursued David in the Wilderness of Maon.",
      "26": "Saul was going along one side of the mountain, and David and his men were on the other side. David hurried to get away from Saul and his men, who were trying to surround David and his men in order to capture them.",
      "27": "But a messenger came to Saul and said, “Hurry! Come back, because the Philistines have made a raid on the land!”",
      "28": "So Saul turned back from pursuing David and went to confront the Philistines. That is why that place is named Sela Hamahlekoth.",
      "29": "Then David went up from there and stayed in the strongholds of En Gedi."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "When Saul had returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, “Here’s some news. David is in the Wilderness of En Gedi.”",
      "2": "Then Saul took three thousand specially chosen men from all Israel and went to hunt for David and his men along the rocky slopes of the wild goats.",
      "3": "Saul came to some sheep pens that were along that route. Saul went into a cave that was there to relieve himself. At that time David and his men were far back in the interior of the cave.",
      "4": "David’s men said to him, “Look, this is the day the Lord told you about when he said, ‘I will deliver your enemy into your hand, and you will do to him whatever seems good to you.’” So David got up and cut off the edge of Saul’s robe without being noticed.",
      "5": "Afterward, David had a guilty conscience, because he had cut off the edge of Saul’s robe.",
      "6": "He said to his men, “May I be cursed if I do something like this to my master, who is the Lord’s anointed—that I would stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord’s anointed.”",
      "7": "With these words David restrained his men and did not allow them to attack Saul.\nSaul got up, left the cave, and went on his way.",
      "8": "David got up and followed him out of the cave and shouted to him, “My lord the king!”\nWhen Saul looked back at him, David bowed facedown to the ground to show respect.",
      "9": "David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of people who say, ‘Watch out! David is seeking to harm you’?",
      "10": "This very day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord delivered you into my hand in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you, because I said, ‘I will not stretch out my hand against my master, because he is the Lord’s anointed.’",
      "11": "Take a look at this! My father, take a good look at the piece of your robe that is here in my hand. Because I cut off the edge of your robe but did not kill you, you can be sure that I do not have any evil intent and I am not rebelling. I have not sinned against you, even though you keep hunting for me to take my life.",
      "12": "May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge me on you, but my hand will not be against you.",
      "13": "As the ancient proverb says, ‘Out of the wicked come wicked deeds,’ but my hand will not be against you.",
      "14": "Against whom has the king of Israel come out? What are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flea?",
      "15": "May the Lord, therefore, be the judge who renders a verdict between you and me. May he examine my case, plead my cause, and deliver me out of your hand.”",
      "16": "When David had finished speaking these words, Saul responded, “Is that your voice, David, my son?” Saul broke down and wept.",
      "17": "He said to David, “You are more righteous than I, for you have treated me well, but I have treated you badly.",
      "18": "You have made it clear today how you have been good to me, because when the Lord delivered me into your hand, you did not kill me.",
      "19": "If a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away unharmed? May the Lord reward you with good for what you have done for me today.",
      "20": "Now I know without a doubt that you will become king, and that the kingship over Israel will be established in your hand.",
      "21": "So swear to me now by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants after me and that you will not destroy my name from my father’s house.”",
      "22": "David promised this to Saul with an oath.\nSaul went back home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "Samuel died. All Israel gathered together and mourned for him. They buried him at his house in Ramah.\nThen David set out and went down to the Wilderness of Paran.",
      "2": "There was a man in Maon who made his livelihood in Carmel. This man was very wealthy. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep at Carmel.",
      "3": "The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. This woman had good judgment and was beautiful, but her husband was a harsh, unbending man, who behaved badly. He was from the family line of Caleb.",
      "4": "In the wilderness David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep.",
      "5": "So David sent ten young men and told them, “Go up to Carmel. Approach Nabal and wish him peace in my name.",
      "6": "Tell him this: ‘Long life to you! Peace be with you! Peace be with your household! Peace be with all that you have!",
      "7": "Now I hear that you are shearing sheep. Your shepherds have recently been with us, and we did not harm them. Nothing was missing from them the whole time they were in Carmel.",
      "8": "Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor with you, for we have come on a good day. Please give whatever you can to your servants and to your son David.’”",
      "9": "So David’s men came and said all those things to Nabal in the name of David. When they had finished,",
      "10": "Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are so many servants breaking away from their masters these days.",
      "11": "Should I take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have butchered for my shearers and give it to men when I do not know where they come from?”",
      "12": "So David’s men left and went on their way. They came back and told David all these things.",
      "13": "David said to his men, “Each of you, strap on your sword!”\nSo every man strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. About four hundred men followed David, and two hundred stayed with the supplies.",
      "14": "One of Nabal’s young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Listen to me. You need to know what happened. David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them.",
      "15": "Those men have been very good to us, and we have not been harmed, nor have we had anything missing the entire time we were in the countryside with them.",
      "16": "They were a wall around us night and day, the whole time we were among them while we were taking care of the sheep.",
      "17": "So carefully consider what you should do, for they are determined to bring disaster on our master and on his entire household, since he is such a worthless good-for-nothing that no one can talk to him.”",
      "18": "Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two containers of wine, five sheep that were already prepared, a bushel of roasted grain, one hundred clumps of raisins, and two hundred cakes of dried figs. She loaded these supplies on donkeys.",
      "19": "She said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me. I will follow right after you.” But she did not tell her husband, Nabal.",
      "20": "As she rode on her donkey and came down to the secluded trail on the mountain, she saw that David and his men were coming down toward her, and she met them.",
      "21": "Now David had said, “It was all for nothing that I have protected everything that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing from everything that belonged to him. But he has repaid me evil for good.",
      "22": "May God punish the enemies of David severely and double it, if by the morning light I leave alive so much as one person who urinates against a wall.”",
      "23": "When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got off her donkey. She bowed and fell facedown on the ground in David’s presence.",
      "24": "She fell at his feet and said, “To me, my lord—charge the guilt to me! Please let your servant speak to you. Listen to the words of your servant.",
      "25": "Please, my lord, do not pay attention to this worthless good-for-nothing Nabal, for he is exactly what his name suggests. Nabal is his name, and foolishness is never far from him. But I, your servant, did not see my lord’s young men, whom you sent.",
      "26": "Now therefore, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, since the Lord has held you back from the guilt of bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hand, now let your enemies and those who seek to do evil against my lord be like Nabal.",
      "27": "Please distribute this gift that I, your servant, have brought to my lord for the young men who follow my lord.",
      "28": "Please forgive your servant’s offense. For the Lord will certainly make an enduring house for my lord, because my lord is fighting the Lord’s battles. May no evil be found in you all your days.",
      "29": "Though men may rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, may the life of my lord be safely wrapped up in the bundle of the living, with the Lord your God. But the lives of your enemies he will hurl away like a stone from the pocket of a sling.",
      "30": "Then, when the Lord has done for my lord all the good things that he has spoken concerning you, and he has appointed you leader over Israel,",
      "31": "you will not be burdened by grief or a guilty conscience because you, my lord, have shed blood without cause or have avenged yourself. Then, when the Lord has dealt well with you, my lord, remember your servant.”",
      "32": "David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today!",
      "33": "Your good judgment is blessed, and you are blessed, because today you have kept me from the guilt of shedding blood and from avenging myself with my own hand.",
      "34": "For truly, as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, unless you had come quickly to meet me, certainly by the morning light there would not have been left for Nabal so much as one person who urinates against a wall.”",
      "35": "So David received from her hand what she had brought for him. Then he said to her, “Go up to your house in peace. You see, I have listened to your voice and have shown you favor.”",
      "36": "Abigail came to Nabal and saw that he was holding a feast in his house, a feast fit for a king. Nabal was in good spirits, because he had drunk a lot. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light.",
      "37": "In the morning, when the wine had worn off for Nabal, his wife told him about these things, and his heart died within him, and he became like a stone.",
      "38": "About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.",
      "39": "When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has passed judgment on Nabal’s insults against me and has kept his servant from doing evil. The Lord has returned the evil done by Nabal back on his own head.”\nThen David sent messengers to make arrangements with Abigail for him to take her as his wife.",
      "40": "When David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel, they spoke to her and said, “David has sent us to you to bring you to him as his wife.”",
      "41": "She got up and bowed down with her face to the ground. She said, “Behold. I, your humblest servant, am here ready to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.”",
      "42": "Abigail hurried and set out, riding on a donkey, with five young women who were her attendants following her. She went with the messengers of David and became his wife.",
      "43": "David also married Ahinoam of Jezre’el, so they both became his wives.",
      "44": "But Saul gave his daughter Michal, who was David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was from Gallim."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "The Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Do you know that David is hiding at the Hill of Hakilah, which is near the badlands?”",
      "2": "So Saul set out and went down to the Wilderness of Ziph with three thousand men, who were specially chosen from Israel, to search for David in the Wilderness of Ziph.",
      "3": "Saul set up camp near the road at the Hill of Hakilah, which is near the badlands. David, however, stayed in the wilderness. When David heard that Saul had come into the wilderness to search for him,",
      "4": "he sent out scouts, who confirmed that Saul had come.",
      "5": "So David moved out and came to the place where Saul had set up camp. David saw where Saul was sleeping near Abner son of Ner, the commander of his army. Saul was sleeping inside the defensive perimeter of the camp, and the rest of the men were camped around him.",
      "6": "David responded to the situation by saying to Ahimelek the Hittite and to Joab’s brother, Abishai son of Zeruiah, “Who will go down with me into the camp, to Saul?”\nAbishai said, “I will go down with you.”",
      "7": "So during the night David and Abishai passed through the people in the camp, and they saw that Saul was sleeping inside the defensive perimeter of the camp, with his spear stuck into the ground beside his head. Abner and the rest of the men were lying all around him.",
      "8": "Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered your enemy into your hand today. Please let me strike him and pin him to the ground with my spear. One blow! That’s all I’ll need! I won’t need to strike him a second time.”",
      "9": "But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless?”",
      "10": "David continued, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come and he will die, or he will go down into battle and be swept away.",
      "11": "May I be cursed if I stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed. Now go and take the spear that is beside his head and the jar of water, and we will go.”",
      "12": "So David took the spear and the jar of water that were next to Saul’s head, and they left. No one saw them. No one knew anything. No one woke up. They were all sound asleep, because a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen on them.",
      "13": "Then David moved over to a position across from the camp and stood on the top of the mountain some distance away. There was a lot of space between them.",
      "14": "David then shouted to the people and to Abner son of Ner, “Abner, are you going to answer?”\nAbner responded, “Who are you to be shouting at the king?”",
      "15": "David said to Abner, “Aren’t you a man? Who is like you in Israel? So why haven’t you kept watch over your lord, the king? For someone came into the camp to destroy your lord the king.",
      "16": "This thing that you have done is not good. As the Lord lives, you deserve to die, because all of you have not kept watch over your master, the Lord’s anointed. Now look around! Where are the king’s spear and the jar of water that was next to his head?”",
      "17": "Saul recognized David’s voice and said, “Is this your voice, David, my son?”\nDavid said, “It is my voice, my lord the king.”",
      "18": "He added, “Why does my lord pursue his servant? What have I done? What evil is there in my hand?",
      "19": "So please, let my lord the king listen to the words of his servant. If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, let him accept an offering. But if it is other people, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out today so that I cannot remain in my share of the Lord’s inheritance. They keep saying, ‘Go, serve other gods!’",
      "20": "Now therefore, do not let my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of the Lord, for the king of Israel has come out searching for a flea, or like someone who hunts for a partridge in the mountains.”",
      "21": "Then Saul said, “I have sinned. Come back, David my son, for I will not harm you anymore, because my life was precious in your eyes today. I have acted like a fool and have made a terrible mistake.”",
      "22": "David responded, “Look, here is your spear, O King! Let one of the young men come over and get it.",
      "23": "May the Lord deal with every man according to his righteousness and his faithfulness, because the Lord handed you over to me today, but I would not stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed.",
      "24": "Just as your life was precious in my eyes today, so let my life be precious in the Lord’s eyes, and let him deliver me from all persecution.”",
      "25": "Then Saul said to David, “May you be blessed, David my son. You will certainly accomplish great things, and you will certainly remain successful.”\nSo David went on his way, and Saul returned to his own place."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "David said to himself, “Any day now I will be swept away by the hand of Saul. The best plan for me is to escape immediately to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me within the borders of Israel, and I will escape out of his hand.”",
      "2": "So David set out with the six hundred men who were with him and crossed over to Achish son of Maok, king of Gath.",
      "3": "David stayed with Achish at Gath—he and his men, each man with his family, including David with his two wives, Ahinoam from Jezre’el and Abigail from Carmel, who had been Nabal’s wife.",
      "4": "Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, so he did not continue searching for him anymore.",
      "5": "David said to Achish, “If I have now found favor in your eyes, assign me a place to live in one of the towns in the countryside. Why should your servant live in the royal city with you?”",
      "6": "So that day Achish gave him Ziklag. That is why Ziklag belongs to the kings of Judah to this day.",
      "7": "The length of time that David spent in the territory of the Philistines was a year and four months.",
      "8": "David and his men would go out and raid the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites—peoples who had been living in the land for a very long time. Their territory extended from the beginning of Shur all the way to the land of Egypt.",
      "9": "Whenever David attacked a land, he did not leave even one man or woman alive. He would carry off the sheep, the cattle, the donkeys, the camels, and the clothing. Then he would return and come back to Achish.",
      "10": "Achish would ask, “Where have you carried out a raid today?”\nDavid would answer, “Against the Negev of Judah,” or “Against the Negev of the Jerahme’elites,” or “Against the Negev of the Kenites.”",
      "11": "David would not keep even one man or woman alive to bring them to Gath. He said, “If I do, they would inform on us. They would say, ‘This is what David did, and this is what he has been doing the entire time he has been living in the territory of the Philistines.’”",
      "12": "Achish trusted David, and he said, “He has made himself a real stench to his people Israel, so he will remain my servant forever.”"
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "In those days, the Philistines brought together their armies to prepare for war against Israel. Achish said to David, “You certainly understand that you must go along with me in the army, you and your men.”",
      "2": "David said to Achish, “When I do, you will know what your servant can do.”\nAchish said to David, “When you do, I will make you my bodyguard permanently.”",
      "3": "At this time, Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, which was his hometown.\nSaul had banished the mediums and spiritists from the land.",
      "4": "The Philistines joined forces and set up camp at Shunem. Saul brought all Israel together, and they set up camp at Gilboa.",
      "5": "When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was terrified and trembled with fear.",
      "6": "Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him through dreams, or through Urim, or through prophets.",
      "7": "Then Saul said to his attendants, “Find a woman who consults the spirits of the dead for me, so that I can go to her and inquire of her.”\nHis servants said to him, “As a matter of fact, there is a woman at Endor who consults the spirits of the dead.”",
      "8": "So Saul disguised himself and put on different clothing. Then he went with two men, and they visited the woman at night. He said, “Please consult a spirit for me. Bring up for me the person I name to you.”",
      "9": "The woman said to him, “Look, you must know what Saul has done. He has cut off mediums and spiritists from the land. Why then are you setting a death trap for me, to make me die?”",
      "10": "Saul swore to her by the Lord, “As the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this.”",
      "11": "Then the woman said, “Who is it that you want me to bring up for you?”\nHe said, “Bring up Samuel for me.”",
      "12": "When the woman saw Samuel, she screamed and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!”",
      "13": "The king said to her, “Do not be afraid! What do you see?”\nThe woman said to Saul, “I see a powerful spirit coming up out of the earth.”",
      "14": "He said to her, “What does he look like?”\nShe said, “An old man is coming up. He is covered with a robe.” Saul recognized that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground to show respect.",
      "15": "Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”\nSaul answered, “I am in dire straits because the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me. He no longer answers me through prophets or through dreams. That is why I have called you, so that you can let me know what I should do.”",
      "16": "Samuel said, “Why do you ask me, since the Lord has departed from you and has become your adversary?",
      "17": "The Lord has done exactly what he told you through me. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David.",
      "18": "Because you did not obey the Lord’s voice and did not execute his fierce wrath on Amalek, the Lord has done this to you today.",
      "19": "What’s more, the Lord will deliver Israel into the hands of the Philistines, along with you. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also deliver the army of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.”",
      "20": "Saul immediately fell full-length on the ground. Not only was he terrified because of Samuel’s words, but he also had no strength left because he had eaten no food all that day and all that night.",
      "21": "The woman came to Saul and saw that he was terrified. So she said to him, “Look, your servant has obeyed you, and I have taken my life in my hands. I have listened to the words you spoke to me.",
      "22": "Now please listen to your servant, and allow me to set some food in front of you. Eat, so that you will have strength when you go on your way.”",
      "23": "Saul refused and said, “I will not eat.” But his attendants, together with the woman, strongly urged him, and he listened to them. So he got up off the ground and sat on the bed.",
      "24": "The woman had a fattened calf at the house. She quickly butchered it. She took flour, kneaded it, and baked unleavened bread with it.",
      "25": "She set it before Saul and his servants, and they ate. Then they got up and left during the night."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "The Philistines gathered all their armies together at Aphek, and the Israelites camped beside the spring at Jezre’el.",
      "2": "As the serens of the Philistines were marching past with their units of a hundred and units of a thousand, David and his men were marching in the rear of the column with Achish.",
      "3": "The officers of the Philistines said, “What are these Hebrews doing here?”\nAchish said to the officers of the Philistines, “Isn’t this David, the servant of Saul, king of Israel, who has been with me for some time now? I have found no fault in him from the day he defected, right up to today.”",
      "4": "But the officers of the Philistines were angry with him, and the officers of the Philistines said, “Make this man return to the place that you have assigned to him. He must not go down to battle with us, or else he might become an adversary against us during the battle. What better way for this man to reconcile himself to his master than with the heads of these men of ours?",
      "5": "Isn’t this David, about whom they sang to one another as they danced, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?’”",
      "6": "Then Achish called David and said to him, “As the Lord lives, you have been straightforward with me. As far as I am concerned, it would be good to have you accompany me on this campaign, because I have not found anything wrong with you from the day you came to me right up to this day. Nevertheless, in the opinion of the serens you are a liability.",
      "7": "So now return. Go in peace, so that you do not displease the serens of the Philistines.”",
      "8": "David said to Achish, “But what have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day I came into your presence until this day that would disqualify me from going and fighting against the enemies of my lord the king?”",
      "9": "Achish answered David, “I know that, as far as I am concerned, you are as good as an angel of God. Nevertheless, the officers of the Philistines have said, ‘He must not go up to the battle with us.’",
      "10": "So get up early in the morning, along with the servants of your master who have come with you. Get up early in the morning, and leave as soon as it is light.”",
      "11": "So David got up early, and he and his men left early in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines, but the Philistines went up to Jezre’el."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "David and his men arrived at Ziklag on the third day.\nIn the meantime the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it down.",
      "2": "They had taken the women captive, along with everyone who was there, from the least to the greatest. They did not kill anyone, but they carried them off and went on their way.",
      "3": "So when David and his men came to the city, they saw that it had been burned and that their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive.",
      "4": "Then David and the troops who were with him wept loudly, until they had no more strength to weep.",
      "5": "David’s two wives had been taken captive, namely, Ahinoam from Jezre’el and Abigail, who had been the wife of Nabal from Carmel.",
      "6": "David was under a great deal of pressure because his men were talking about stoning him. The spirit of every one of them was very bitter because of their sons and daughters, but David found strength in the Lord his God.",
      "7": "David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelek, “Bring the special vest of the priest here to me.” So Abiathar brought the special vest to David.",
      "8": "David inquired of the Lord, “Should I pursue this band of raiders? Will I overtake them?”\nThe Lord answered him, “Pursue! You will certainly overtake them and recover everything.”",
      "9": "So David set out with the six hundred men who were with him. When they came to the stream called the Besor, the men who were unable to keep up stayed there.",
      "10": "David pursued with four hundred men, because two hundred stayed behind, so exhausted that they could not get across the ravine of the Besor.",
      "11": "They found an Egyptian in the open country and brought him to David. They gave him bread to eat and water to drink.",
      "12": "They also gave him a piece from a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. When he had eaten, he was revived. (He had eaten no bread and had drunk no water for three days and three nights.)",
      "13": "David asked him, “Whose servant are you? Where are you from?”\nThe young man said, “I am from Egypt, a slave to an Amalekite. My master left me behind when I became sick three days ago.",
      "14": "We made a raid on the Negev of the Kerethites, and on the territory of Judah, and on the Negev of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag.”",
      "15": "David said to him, “Will you bring me down to this raiding party?”\nHe said, “Swear to me by God that you will not kill me or hand me over to my master, and I will bring you down to this raiding party.”",
      "16": "When he had brought David to them, there the Amalekites were, scattered all over the place! They were eating, drinking, and celebrating because of the great amount of plunder that they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah.",
      "17": "David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped from there, except four hundred young men who rode off on camels and escaped.",
      "18": "David recovered everything that the Amalekites had taken. David also rescued his two wives.",
      "19": "There was nothing missing, from the least to the greatest, neither sons nor daughters, nor any plunder, nor anything else that they had taken with them. David brought it all back.",
      "20": "David took all the flocks and the herds, which they drove ahead of the other livestock, and the men were saying, “This is David’s plunder.”",
      "21": "When David approached the two hundred men whom they had left at the Besor because they were too exhausted to follow him, they went out to meet David and the men who were with him. David came up to the men who had been left behind and wished them well,",
      "22": "but all the wicked men and worthless troublemakers among those who had accompanied David responded, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them anything from the plunder that we have recovered, except we will give every man his wife and his children, so that he can take them and leave.”",
      "23": "Then David said, “Do not act that way, my brothers, with what the Lord has given to us. He is the one who has preserved us and delivered into our hand the raiders who came against us.",
      "24": "Who can listen to this proposal of yours? No, the same share that is given to the one who goes down to the battle will be given to the one who stays with the supplies. They shall have an equal share.”",
      "25": "So from that day forward, David made this a rule and precedent for Israel that lasts to this day.",
      "26": "When David came to Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were sympathetic to him, and said, “Look, here is a blessing for you from the plunder taken from the Lord’s enemies.”",
      "27": "He sent it to the elders who were in Bethel, Ramoth Negev, Jattir,",
      "28": "Aroer, Siphmoth, Eshtemoa,",
      "29": "and Rakal; to those who were in the towns of the Jerahme’elites and the towns of the Kenites;",
      "30": "to those who were in Hormah, Borashan, and Athak;",
      "31": "to those who were in Hebron and all the other places where David himself and his men had wandered."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "In the meantime, the Philistines were fighting against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from the Philistines and fell mortally wounded at Mount Gilboa.",
      "2": "The Philistines were closing in on Saul and his sons. They struck down Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua, the sons of Saul.",
      "3": "The attack directed at Saul was fierce. The archers targeted him and hit him, and he was seriously wounded.",
      "4": "Then Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through with it, so that these uncircumcised fellows cannot come and run me through and abuse me!”\nBut his armor bearer would not do it, because he was too afraid. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it.",
      "5": "When his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.",
      "6": "So Saul died together with his three sons, his armor bearer, and all his men, all on that same day.",
      "7": "When the men of Israel from the other side of the valley and those from beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled. Then the Philistines came and lived in those cities.",
      "8": "On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip those who had been killed in the battle, they found Saul and his three sons fallen at Mount Gilboa.",
      "9": "They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the temple of their idols and to the people.",
      "10": "They put his armor and weapons in the temple of the Ashtartes, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.",
      "11": "When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,",
      "12": "all the strong, courageous men set out, traveled all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons down from the wall of Beth Shan. They returned to Jabesh and burned them there.",
      "13": "They took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days."
    }
  },
  "2 Samuel": {
    "1": {
      "1": "After the death of Saul, when David had returned from defeating the Amalekites, he stayed at Ziklag for two days.",
      "2": "Then, on the third day, a man arrived from Saul’s camp. His clothing was torn, and there was dirt on his head. When he approached David, he fell to the ground and bowed down to him.",
      "3": "David said to him, “Where are you coming from?”\nHe answered, “I have escaped from the camp of Israel.”",
      "4": "David said to him, “What was the outcome? Tell me!”\nThe man said, “The people fled from the battle. Many of the people were struck down and died. Even Saul and his son Jonathan have died.”",
      "5": "David said to the young man who was talking to him, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?”",
      "6": "The young man who was talking to him said, “I happened to be on Mount Gilboa. There I saw Saul, leaning on his spear. The chariots and charioteers were closing in on him.",
      "7": "When Saul looked behind him, he saw me and called to me and I answered, ‘I am here.’",
      "8": "“He said to me, ‘Who are you?’\n“I said to him, ‘I am an Amalekite.’",
      "9": "“Saul said to me, ‘Please stand beside me and put me to death. I am losing consciousness, but I am still alive.’",
      "10": "So I stood beside him and ended his life, because I knew that he could not live after being so severely wounded. I took the crown on his head and the armlet on his arm, and I brought them here to my lord.”",
      "11": "David and all the men with him grabbed their clothing and tore it.",
      "12": "Until evening they mourned, wept, and fasted for Saul, for his son Jonathan, for the people of the Lord, and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.",
      "13": "David asked the young man who had told him about Saul, “Where are you from?”\nHe said, “I am an Amalekite, who lives here as an alien.”",
      "14": "David asked him, “Why were you not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?”",
      "15": "David called to one of the young men, “Come here. Kill him!” He struck him down, and he died.",
      "16": "David said to him, “Your blood will be on your own head, because your own mouth testified against you when you said, ‘I have killed the Lord’s anointed.’”",
      "17": "David mourned with this funeral song about Saul and his son Jonathan.",
      "18": "He gave orders to teach the men of Judah this song, which was named “The Bow,” so it was recorded in the Book of Jashar.",
      "19": "The splendor of Israel has been slain upon your high places.\nHow the mighty warriors have fallen!",
      "20": "You must not tell about it in Gath.\nYou must not publish it in the streets of Ashkelon.\nIf you do, the daughters of the Philistines will rejoice.\nThe daughters of the uncircumcised will celebrate.",
      "21": "You mountains of Gilboa, may no dew or rain fall on you.\nMay your fields produce no special offerings.\nFor there the shield of the mighty was desecrated.\nThe shield of Saul was not anointed with oil.",
      "22": "From the blood of the slain,\nfrom the fat of the mighty warriors,\nthe bow of Jonathan did not turn back,\nand the sword of Saul never returned empty.",
      "23": "Saul and Jonathan were the most loved and admired during their lives,\nand in their deaths they were not separated.\nThey were swifter than eagles.\nThey were stronger than lions.",
      "24": "Daughters of Israel, weep over Saul.\nHe clothed you in scarlet and luxury.\nHe provided gold ornaments for your clothing.",
      "25": "How the mighty warriors have fallen in the midst of battle!\nJonathan lies slain on your high places!",
      "26": "I grieve over you, my brother Jonathan!\nYou were very dear to me.\nYour love was more wonderful to me than the love of women.",
      "27": "How the mighty warriors have fallen!\nThe weapons of war have perished!"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "After this, David asked the Lord, “Should I go up into one of the cities of Judah?”\nThe Lord said to him, “Go up.”\nDavid said, “Where shall I go up?”\nThe Lord said, “To Hebron.”",
      "2": "So David went there with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezre’el and Abigail of Carmel, who was Nabal’s widow.",
      "3": "David also brought along the men who were with him, each man together with his household, and they settled in the towns around Hebron.",
      "4": "The men of Judah came there and anointed David to be king over the house of Judah.\nDavid was told, “The men of Jabesh Gilead are the ones who buried Saul.”",
      "5": "So David sent messengers to the men of Jabesh Gilead and said to them, “You are blessed by the Lord because you performed this act of mercy and faithfulness for your master Saul by burying him.",
      "6": "Now may the Lord deal with you with mercy and faithfulness. I also will treat you well because you have done this.",
      "7": "Now let your hands be strong and courageous, for your master Saul is dead, and the house of Judah has anointed me to be king over them.”",
      "8": "However, Abner son of Ner, the commander of Saul’s army, had taken Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, to Mahanaim",
      "9": "and made him king over Gilead, Ashuri, and Jezre’el, and over Ephraim, Benjamin, and all Israel.",
      "10": "Ishbosheth, Saul’s son, was forty years old when he became king over Israel, and he reigned for two years.\nBut the house of Judah followed David.",
      "11": "David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah for seven years and six months.",
      "12": "Abner son of Ner and the followers of Ishbosheth son of Saul went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon.",
      "13": "Joab son of Zeruiah and the followers of David went out and confronted them at the pool of Gibeon. They took up positions on the opposite sides of the pool.",
      "14": "Abner said to Joab, “The young men should get up and compete in front of us.”\nJoab said, “Yes, let them do so.”",
      "15": "So twelve representatives for Benjamin and Ishbosheth son of Saul got up and crossed over to confront twelve representatives for David.",
      "16": "Each one grabbed his opponent’s head and thrust his sword into his side. Together, they all fell. So that place, which is near Gibeon, was called Helkath Hatsurim.",
      "17": "A fierce battle took place that day. Abner and the men of Israel were beaten by the followers of David.",
      "18": "Three sons of Zeruiah were there, namely, Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Asahel was a fast runner, like one of the gazelles out in the fields.",
      "19": "Asahel pursued Abner and did not turn aside to the right or to the left from his pursuit.",
      "20": "Abner looked behind him and said, “Is that you, Asahel?”\nHe said, “Yes, it is.”",
      "21": "Abner said to him, “Turn to your right hand or to your left and capture one of the young men for yourself and strip off his equipment for yourself.” But Asahel would not turn aside.",
      "22": "So Abner warned him again, “Turn aside. Stop following me. Why should I strike you to the ground? How could I face Joab your brother?”",
      "23": "But Asahel refused to turn aside, so Abner struck him in the stomach with the pointed butt of his spear. The spear came out his back, and he fell down and died right there. Everyone stopped and just stood there when they came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died.",
      "24": "But Joab and Abishai keep pursuing Abner. The sun was going down when they came to the hill of Ammah in front of Giah, on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon.",
      "25": "The Benjaminites rallied together behind Abner, joined in one formation, and took their stand on the top of one hill.",
      "26": "Abner called to Joab, “Will the sword continue to devour? Do you not know that it will be bitter when all this is over? How long will you delay telling the people to stop pursuing their brothers?”",
      "27": "Joab said, “As God lives, if you had not spoken, surely it would have been morning before the people would have given up pursuing their brothers.”",
      "28": "So Joab blew the ram’s horn, and all the people stopped pursuing Israel. They did not continue to fight.",
      "29": "Abner and his men traveled through the Arabah all that night. They crossed the Jordan, marched through the entire region of Bithron, and came to Mahanaim.",
      "30": "Joab returned from pursuing Abner and gathered together all his troops. Besides Asahel, nineteen of David’s men were missing.",
      "31": "The followers of David had struck dead three hundred sixty of Abner’s men from the tribe of Benjamin.",
      "32": "The men of Judah picked up Asahel and buried him in the tomb of his father at Bethlehem.\nJoab and his men marched all night and arrived at Hebron as it was becoming light."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David kept getting stronger, and the house of Saul kept getting weaker.",
      "2": "Sons were born to David at Hebron. His firstborn was Amnon, who was born to Ahinoam from Jezre’el.",
      "3": "His second was Kileab, who was born to Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel. The third was Absalom, who was the son of Ma’akah, the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur.",
      "4": "The fourth was Adonijah, the son of Haggith. The fifth was Shephatiah, the son of Abital.",
      "5": "The sixth, Ithream, was born to David’s wife Eglah. These were born to David in Hebron.",
      "6": "While the war was going on between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner kept gaining power within the house of Saul.",
      "7": "Saul had a concubine named Rizpah daughter of Aiah. Ishbosheth said to Abner, “Why have you gone to the concubine of my father?”",
      "8": "Abner became very angry because of the words of Ishbosheth and said, “Am I a dog’s head that belongs to Judah? To this day I have acted with loyalty toward the house of your father Saul, to his relatives, and to his friends. In addition, I have not handed you over to David, but today you make accusations against me concerning this woman!",
      "9": "May God punish me severely and double it, if I do not do for David what the Lord has sworn about him",
      "10": "by transferring the kingdom from the house of Saul and establishing the throne of David over both Israel and Judah, from Dan to Beersheba.”",
      "11": "Ishbosheth was not able to say anything to Abner anymore because he was afraid of him.",
      "12": "Abner sent messengers on his behalf to David. They said, “Whose land is it? Make a covenant with me. Look, my hand is with you to turn the allegiance of all Israel to you.”",
      "13": "David said, “Good. I will make a covenant with you, but I require one thing from you. You will not see my face unless you bring to me Michal, the daughter of Saul, when you come.”",
      "14": "David sent messengers to Ishbosheth, Saul’s son. They delivered this demand: “Give me my wife Michal, whom I obtained as my wife with a hundred foreskins of the Philistines.”",
      "15": "Ishbosheth sent and took her away from her husband, Paltiel son of Laish.",
      "16": "Her husband accompanied her to Bahurim, weeping all the way, but Abner told him, “Go back,” so he went home.",
      "17": "Abner also delivered the following message to the elders of Israel: “Day after day you have been seeking to have David as king over you.",
      "18": "Now do it, because the Lord said to David, ‘By the hand of my servant David I will rescue my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and from the hand of all their enemies.’”",
      "19": "Abner also spoke to the tribe of Benjamin. Then he spoke to David in Hebron about everything that Israel and all the house of Benjamin had approved.",
      "20": "Abner and twenty men along with him came to David at Hebron, and David held a feast for Abner and his men.",
      "21": "Abner said to David, “I will go and gather all Israel to my lord the king. They will make a covenant with you. You will rule over all that your heart desires.” David sent Abner away in peace.",
      "22": "Just then the soldiers of David and Joab came back from a raid. They brought a large amount of plunder with them. Abner was no longer with David in Hebron, because David had sent him away in peace.",
      "23": "When Joab and all the army with him arrived, Joab was informed that Abner son of Ner had come to the king and that David had sent him away in peace.",
      "24": "So Joab went to the king and said, “What have you done? Abner came to you. Why have you sent him away? You let him get away!",
      "25": "You know that Abner son of Ner came to deceive you and to learn about your comings and goings and everything that you are doing.”",
      "26": "Joab left David and sent messengers after Abner. They brought him back from the cistern at Sirah without David’s knowledge.",
      "27": "So Abner returned to Hebron, and Joab took him aside into the gatehouse to speak with him. There he stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner was killed because of the blood of Joab’s brother Asahel.",
      "28": "Afterward David heard about it and said, “I and my kingdom are guiltless before the Lord forever concerning the blood of Abner son of Ner.",
      "29": "May his blood splash down on the head of Joab and on the entire house of his father. May the house of Joab never lack a man who has an oozing sore, who is a leper, who holds a spindle, who falls by the sword, or who has no bread.”",
      "30": "Joab and his brother Abishai killed Abner because he had caused the death of their brother Asahel during the battle at Gibeon.",
      "31": "David said to Joab and to all the people who were with him, “Tear your clothing. Put on sackcloth and mourn for Abner.” King David walked behind the stretcher that was carrying his body.",
      "32": "They buried Abner at Hebron, and the king wept loudly at the grave of Abner. All the people also wept.",
      "33": "The king lamented over Abner, “Should Abner have died as a fool dies?",
      "34": "Your hands were not tied up, and your feet were not bound with iron shackles. You have fallen as one falls before the wicked.” All the people continued to weep over him.",
      "35": "All the people came to try to persuade David to eat on that day, but David swore, “May God punish me severely and double it, if I taste bread or anything else before the sun goes down.”",
      "36": "All the people took notice and approved of this, as they approved of everything that the king did.",
      "37": "All the people, all Israel, knew on that day that it was not the king’s idea to kill Abner son of Ner.",
      "38": "The king said to his servants, “Do you not know that a great commander has fallen this day in Israel?",
      "39": "Today I am weak, even though I am the anointed king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too hard for me. I pray that the Lord will pay back the evildoer in proportion to his wickedness.”"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "When Saul’s son heard that Abner had died at Hebron, he lost his courage, and all Israel panicked.",
      "2": "Saul’s son had two men who were commanders of raiding bands. One was named Ba’anah; the second was Rekab. They were Benjaminites, sons of Rimmon from Be’eroth. (Be’eroth is considered part of Benjamin.",
      "3": "The Be’erothites fled to Gittaim. They have lived there as aliens until the present time.)",
      "4": "Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son with crippled feet. This son had been five years old when the report had come from Jezre’el about Saul and Jonathan. His caregiver picked him up and fled. While she was hurrying to escape, he fell and became crippled. His name was Mephibosheth.",
      "5": "Ba’anah and Rekab, the sons of Rimmon from Be’eroth, went out during the heat of the day and came to the house of Ishbosheth while he was lying down for his midday rest.",
      "6": "⎣The doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she had grown drowsy and fallen asleep. So Rekab and his brother Ba’anah slipped in.⎦ They came into the inner part of the house as if they were coming to get wheat. They stabbed Ishbosheth in the stomach. Then Rekab and his brother Ba’anah escaped.",
      "7": "They had gone into the house while Ishbosheth was lying on his bed in the room where he rested. They struck him, killed him, and cut off his head. Taking his head with them, they traveled on the Arabah Road all night.",
      "8": "They brought the head of Ishbosheth to David at Hebron, and they said to the king, “Look! Here is the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy who sought your life. This day the Lord has given my lord the king vengeance on Saul and his offspring.”",
      "9": "David answered Rekab and his brother Ba’anah, the sons of Rimmon from Be’eroth, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life from every evil,",
      "10": "the man who told me, ‘Look! Saul is dead,’ thought that he was bringing good news, but I seized him and killed him at Ziklag. That is what I gave him for his ‘good news.’",
      "11": "So now that wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his own bed, will I not require his blood from your hand! I will wipe you off the face of the earth.”",
      "12": "Then David gave the orders to his young men, and they killed them, cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them beside the pool at Hebron. They took the head of Ishbosheth and buried it in the tomb of Abner in Hebron."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron. They said, “Look, we are your flesh and blood.",
      "2": "Day after day, even when Saul was king, you were the one leading Israel out to battle and back again. And you are the one to whom the Lord said, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel. You will become leader over Israel.’”",
      "3": "So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron in the presence of the Lord. They anointed David king over Israel.",
      "4": "David was thirty years old when he became king, and he ruled as king for forty years.",
      "5": "He was king over Judah at Hebron for seven years and six months. For thirty-three years he was king over all Israel and Judah at Jerusalem.",
      "6": "The king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, who were living in the land. The Jebusites said to David, “You will not get in here, because you could be kept out even by the blind and lame, who say, ‘David will not come in here.’”",
      "7": "Nevertheless, David captured the stronghold of Zion, which became the City of David.",
      "8": "David said on that day, “Anyone who attacks the Jebusites must go up through the water shaft to get at those lame and blind enemies of David.” Therefore the saying came about, “The blind and the lame will not come into the house.”",
      "9": "David lived in the stronghold and called it the City of David. David built up all sides of the stronghold from the Millo inward.",
      "10": "David kept getting greater and greater, because the Lord, the God of Armies, was with him.",
      "11": "Hiram king of Tyre sent representatives to David with cedar logs, carpenters, and stonemasons, and they built a palace for David.",
      "12": "David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and had lifted up his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.",
      "13": "David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he had come from Hebron, and more sons and daughters were born to David.",
      "14": "These are the names of those born to him in Jerusalem: Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon,",
      "15": "Ibhar, Elishua, Nepheg, Japhia,",
      "16": "Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet.",
      "17": "The Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel. So all the Philistines went up to search for David. David, however, heard about it and went down to the stronghold.",
      "18": "The Philistines came and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.",
      "19": "David asked the Lord, “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?”\nThe Lord said to David, “Go up, because I will certainly deliver the Philistines into your hand.”",
      "20": "So David went to Baal Perazim and defeated them there. He said, “The Lord has broken through my enemies before me like a wall of water.” That is why he named that place Baal Perazim.",
      "21": "The Philistines abandoned their idols there, and David and his men carried them away.",
      "22": "The Philistines came up again and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.",
      "23": "David inquired of the Lord, who said, “Do not go directly at them. Go around to their rear. Come upon them opposite the balsam trees.",
      "24": "When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then get ready, because then the Lord has gone out in front of you to strike the army of the Philistines.”",
      "25": "So David did as the Lord commanded him. He struck the Philistines from Gibeon all the way to Gezer."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "David once again gathered all of the thirty thousand specially chosen men of Israel.",
      "2": "Then David and all the people who were with him set out and went to Baale Judah to bring up the Ark of God, who is called by the name “The Lord of Armies, who sits above the cherubim.”",
      "3": "They transported the Ark of God on a new cart. They brought it out from Abinadab’s house, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart",
      "4": "⎣⎦ with the Ark of God on it. Ahio was walking in front of the ark.",
      "5": "David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of instruments, castanets, lyres, harps, hand drums, rattles, and cymbals.",
      "6": "But when they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out for the Ark of God and grabbed it because the oxen stumbled.",
      "7": "The anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his irreverence. So he died there beside the Ark of God.",
      "8": "David was angry because the Lord had burst out so violently against Uzzah, and he called that place Perez Uzzah, as it is called to this day.",
      "9": "David was afraid of the Lord on that day. He said, “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?”",
      "10": "David was not willing to move the Ark of the Lord to himself in the City of David.\nSo David diverted the ark to the house of Obed Edom the Gittite.",
      "11": "The Ark of the Lord remained at the house of Obed Edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed Obed Edom and his whole household.",
      "12": "David was told, “Because of the Ark of God, the Lord has blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that belongs to him.”\nWith rejoicing, David went and brought up the Ark of God from the house of Obed Edom to the City of David.",
      "13": "When those carrying the Ark of the Lord had gone six paces, David sacrificed an ox and a fattened calf.",
      "14": "David danced with all his might before the Lord. He was wearing a linen vest.",
      "15": "David and the entire house of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of a ram’s horn.",
      "16": "When the Ark of the Lord arrived at the City of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked out the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.",
      "17": "They brought the Ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord.",
      "18": "When David finished presenting the burnt offerings and the fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Armies.",
      "19": "He distributed one loaf of bread, one cake of dates, and one cake of raisins to all the people, to the whole crowd from Israel, to men and women, to each and every person. Then all the people left. All of them went to their own houses,",
      "20": "and David returned to bless his house.\nMichal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David. She said, “How the king of Israel has brought honor to himself today by exposing himself in the sight of his female servants, just as a vulgar person exposes himself!”",
      "21": "David said to Michal, “I did this before the Lord, who chose me above your father and all his house, when he appointed me leader over the people of the Lord, over Israel. I will rejoice before the Lord,",
      "22": "and I will make myself even more lowly than this. I will be humble in my own eyes, but among the servant girls you have spoken about, among them I will be honored.”",
      "23": "Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "It happened that when the king was living in his palace, and when the Lord had given him rest from his enemies all around,",
      "2": "the king said to Nathan the prophet, “Look, I live in a house of cedar, but the Ark of God sits under tent curtains.”",
      "3": "Nathan said to the king, “Go and do everything that is in your heart, because the Lord is with you.”",
      "4": "But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan. He said,",
      "5": "“Go and tell my servant David all these things.”\nThis is what the Lord says. Are you the one to build a house for me to live in?",
      "6": "I have not lived in a house from the day I brought the people of Israel up from Egypt until today. I have been moving around in the Tent and the Dwelling.",
      "7": "I have traveled everywhere with all the people of Israel. Did I ever speak a word to any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, or ask them, “Why have you not built a house of cedar for me?”",
      "8": "You are also to say the following to my servant David.\nThis is what the Lord of Armies says. I took you from the pasture, from following sheep, to be ruler over my people, over Israel.",
      "9": "I have been with you wherever you went. I have cut off all your enemies from before you. I will make your reputation great, like that of the great ones on the earth.",
      "10": "I will set up a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them there. They will dwell there, and they will not be disturbed again. Violent men will not afflict them again as they did at the beginning",
      "11": "and ever since the day I appointed judges over my people Israel. I will give you rest from all your enemies.\nThe Lord also declares to you that the Lord himself will make a house for you.",
      "12": "When your days are complete and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up after you your seed, who will come from your own body. I will establish his kingdom.",
      "13": "He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.",
      "14": "I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he sins, I will discipline him with a rod used by men and with blows of the sons of men.",
      "15": "My faithful mercy will not depart from him as I removed it from Saul, whom I removed to make room for you.",
      "16": "Your house will stand firm, and your kingdom will endure forever before you. Your throne will be established forever.",
      "17": "Nathan told David all the words that had been revealed in this vision.",
      "18": "Then King David went and sat before the Lord and said:\nWho am I, Lord God? And what is my house that you have brought me to this point?",
      "19": "Yet this was a small thing in your eyes, Lord God. You have also spoken about the house of your servant for a long time into the future. Is this the law for the man, Lord God?",
      "20": "What more can David say to you? You know your servant, Lord God.",
      "21": "Because of your word and according to the plan of your heart, you have carried out this great thing in order to make your servant aware of it.",
      "22": "Therefore, you are great, Lord God, because there is none like you. There is no God except you, in keeping with everything we have heard with our ears.",
      "23": "Who is like your people Israel, the one people on earth whom God went out to redeem for himself, to make them his people and to make a name for himself? You yourself did great and awe-inspiring things for your land in the presence of your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, in the presence of the nations and their gods.",
      "24": "You established your people Israel for yourself to be your people forever. You, Lord, became their God.",
      "25": "Now, Lord God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and do as you have spoken.",
      "26": "Your name will be great forever. People will say, “The Lord of Armies is God over Israel.” The house of your servant David will be established before you.",
      "27": "You, Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, have whispered into the ear of your servant, saying, “I will build a house for you.” Therefore, your servant has found the heart to pray to you this prayer.",
      "28": "Now, Lord God, you are God. Your words are truth. You have promised this good thing to your servant.",
      "29": "Now, therefore, please bless the house of your servant, so that it will endure forever in your presence. For you, Lord God, have spoken. With your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "After this, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them. David took Metheg Ha’ammah from the control of the Philistines.",
      "2": "He defeated Moab and measured the men with a length of rope after making them lie down on the ground. He measured two lengths to be put to death and one full length to live. The Moabites became subject to David and brought tribute.",
      "3": "David also defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he went to restore his control at the river Euphrates.",
      "4": "David captured seventeen hundred charioteers and twenty thousand foot soldiers from him. David hamstrung all the chariot horses, but he left enough horses for a hundred chariots.",
      "5": "Arameans from Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, but David killed twenty-two thousand men in Aram.",
      "6": "Then David put garrisons in Damascus in the land of Aram, and the Arameans became subject to David and brought tribute.\nThe Lord gave victory to David everywhere he went.",
      "7": "David took the gold shields that belonged to the officials of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem.",
      "8": "From Betah and Berothai, cities of Hadadezer, King David took large amounts of bronze.",
      "9": "Toi king of Hamath heard that David had defeated the entire army of Hadadezer.",
      "10": "So Toi sent his son Joram to King David to petition him for peace and to bless him because he had fought against Hadadezer and defeated him, because Toi had been at war with Hadadezer. In his hand he brought items made of silver and items of gold and items of bronze.",
      "11": "King David dedicated these things to the Lord along with the silver and gold that he had dedicated from all the nations he had subdued:",
      "12": "from Aram, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, from Amalek, and from the spoils of Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah.",
      "13": "David made a name for himself when he returned from striking eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.",
      "14": "He put garrisons in Edom, in all of it, and all the Edomites became subject to David.\nThe Lord gave victory to David wherever he went.",
      "15": "David was king over all Israel, and he treated all his people with justice and fairness.",
      "16": "Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army. Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the record keeper.",
      "17": "Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelek son of Abiathar were priests. Seraiah was the secretary.",
      "18": "Benaiah son of Jehoiada was in charge of the Kerethites and the Pelethites. The sons of David were government ministers."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "David said, “Is there anyone still left from the house of Saul, to whom I may show kindness for the sake of Jonathan?”",
      "2": "There was a servant of Saul’s house named Ziba, so they summoned him to come to David.\nThe king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” He said, “I am.”",
      "3": "The king said, “Isn’t there still a man left who belongs to the house of Saul, to whom I may show the kindness of God?”\nZiba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan. He has crippled feet.”",
      "4": "The king said to him, “Where is he?”\nZiba said to the king, “He is in the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.”",
      "5": "So King David sent and brought him from the house of Makir son of Ammiel from Lo Debar.",
      "6": "When Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, came to David, he bowed facedown to the ground.\nDavid said, “Mephibosheth?” He said, “I am.”",
      "7": "David said to him, “Do not be afraid. I will certainly show kindness to you because of Jonathan, your father. I will return to you all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat bread at my table.”",
      "8": "He bowed down and said, “What is your servant that you have paid attention to a dead dog like me?”",
      "9": "The king called Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “Everything that belonged to Saul and to his entire house I am giving to your master’s son.",
      "10": "You are to work the soil for him, you and your sons and your servants. You are to bring in the crops, so your master’s son will have food to eat. Mephibosheth, your master’s son, will always eat bread at my table.”\n(Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)",
      "11": "Ziba said to the king, “Everything that my lord the king commands his servant, your servant will do.”\nSo Mephibosheth began eating at the king’s table like one of the king’s sons.",
      "12": "Mephibosheth had a young son named Mica. Everyone living in Ziba’s house became servants of Mephibosheth.",
      "13": "So Mephibosheth took up residence in Jerusalem because he was always to eat at the table of the king. He was crippled in both his feet."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "After this, the king of the Ammonites died, and his son Hanun became king in his place.",
      "2": "David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent his officials to express condolences to Hanun concerning his father. David’s officials arrived in the land of the Ammonites.",
      "3": "But the officials of the Ammonites said to Hanun their master, “Do you really think David was honoring your father when he sent messengers to express his sympathy to you? No, David sent his officials to you in order to gather information about the city and to spy on it, in order to overthrow it.”",
      "4": "So Hanun seized the officials of David, shaved off half of each one’s beard, cut off their clothing up to their buttocks, and sent them away.",
      "5": "David was told about this, and he sent messengers to meet them because the men were deeply humiliated. The king said, “Stay in Jericho until your beards have grown. Then return.”",
      "6": "The Ammonites saw that they had become a digusting stench to David, so they sent and hired twenty thousand foot soldiers from Aram Beth Rehob and Aram Zobah, one thousand men from the king of Ma’akah, and twelve thousand men from Tob.",
      "7": "When David heard about it, he deployed Joab and the entire army, the strong warriors.",
      "8": "The Ammonites went out and lined up in battle formation in front of the entrance to the city gate. Aram Zobah and Aram Rehob, as well as the men of Tob and Ma’akah, were lined up by themselves in the open country.",
      "9": "Joab saw that the battle lines were drawn up against him both in front of him and behind him, so he chose some of the best troops of Israel and lined them up to confront the Arameans.",
      "10": "The rest of the men he placed under the command of his brother Abishai and lined them up to face the Ammonites.",
      "11": "He said, “If Aram is too strong for me, then you are to rescue me. If the Ammonites are too strong for you, I will come to rescue you.",
      "12": "Be strong. We must show ourselves to be strong for our people and for the cities of our God. The Lord will do what is good in his eyes.”",
      "13": "Joab and all the people with him advanced to join battle against the Arameans, and the Arameans fled from him.",
      "14": "When the Ammonites saw that Aram had fled, they also fled from Abishai and entered the city. Then Joab returned from fighting against the Ammonites and came back to Jerusalem.",
      "15": "When the Arameans saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they regrouped.",
      "16": "Hadadezer sent for Arameans from beyond the Euphrates. They came to Helam with Shobak, who was the commander of the army of Hadadezer, at their head.",
      "17": "When David was informed, he gathered all Israel, crossed the Jordan, and came to Helam. The Arameans lined up to confront David and fought against him.",
      "18": "The Arameans fled from Israel. David killed seven hundred Aramean charioteers and forty thousand foot soldiers. Shobak, the commander of their army, was wounded, and he died there.",
      "19": "All the kings who were the subjects of Hadadezer saw that they had been defeated by Israel, so they made peace with Israel and became subject to them. Then the Arameans were afraid to try to rescue the Ammonites anymore."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Springtime arrived, the time when kings go out to war. David sent Joab out with his officers and with all Israel. They ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem.",
      "2": "One evening David had gotten up from his couch and was walking around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very good looking.",
      "3": "David sent to inquire about the woman, and he was told, “Isn’t this Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”",
      "4": "David sent messengers to bring her. She came to him, and he lay down with her. (She had been purifying herself from her ceremonial uncleanness.) She then returned to her house.",
      "5": "The woman became pregnant, so she sent a message and told David, “I am pregnant.”",
      "6": "David sent a message to Joab, “Send Uriah the Hittite to me.” So Joab sent Uriah to David,",
      "7": "and Uriah came to him.\nDavid asked how Joab and the troops were doing, and how the war effort was going.",
      "8": "Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”\nWhen Uriah went out from the palace, the king sent a gift to him.",
      "9": "But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all the servants of his master. He did not go down to his own house.",
      "10": "David was informed, “Uriah has not gone down to his house.” So David said to Uriah, “Haven’t you come a long distance? Why didn’t you go down to your house?”",
      "11": "Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are living in shelters, and my master Joab and the servants of my master are camped on the bare ground in the open countryside. Should I go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie down with my wife? By your life, as surely as you live, I will not do such a thing.”",
      "12": "Then David said to Uriah, “Stay here today also. Tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.",
      "13": "David summoned him, and Uriah ate as his guest, and David got him drunk. But in the evening he went and slept on his mat where the servants of his master were. He did not go to his own house.",
      "14": "In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and he sent it in the hands of Uriah.",
      "15": "In the letter he wrote, “Station Uriah opposite the fiercest fighting. Then withdraw from behind him so that he will be struck down and die.”",
      "16": "So when Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew that the enemy’s strongest warriors were.",
      "17": "The men of the city came out and fought against Joab, and some of the troops of David fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.",
      "18": "Joab sent a message to inform David about all the events of the war.",
      "19": "He instructed the messenger, “As you are finishing reporting all the events of the war to the king,",
      "20": "if the king becomes angry and says to you, ‘Why did you go so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know that they would be shooting from on top of the wall?",
      "21": "Who killed Abimelek son of Jerubbesheth? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone from the wall on him, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so close to the wall?’ Then you are to say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite also died.’”",
      "22": "The messenger set out. He came and told David everything that Joab had sent him to say.",
      "23": "The messenger said to David, “Their men gained an advantage over us and drove us back into the open country. But then we gained the upper hand and drove them back all the way to the entrance of the city gate.",
      "24": "The archers shot at your troops from the wall. Some of the servants of the king died. And your servant Uriah the Hittite also died.”",
      "25": "David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Do not take this too hard, because the sword devours people at random. Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it.’ Encourage Joab.”",
      "26": "The wife of Uriah the Hittite heard that her husband was dead, so she mourned for her husband.",
      "27": "When her mourning was completed, David sent for her and brought her to his house, and she became his wife. She gave birth to a son for him. But what David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "So the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came and told him this:\nThere were two men in a city. One was rich and one poor.",
      "2": "The rich man had a large number of flocks and herds.",
      "3": "The poor man did not own anything except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He raised it so that it grew up together with him and his children. It ate from his food and drank from his cup. It slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.",
      "4": "When a traveler came to the rich man, the rich man was unwilling to take an animal from his flock or from his herd to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. So he took the lamb from the poor man and prepared it for the man who had come to him.",
      "5": "David’s anger flared up against that man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this is as good as dead.",
      "6": "In place of that lamb, he will restore four lambs, because he did this and had no pity.”",
      "7": "Nathan told David, “You are the man. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.”\nI anointed you king over Israel. I rescued you from the hand of Saul.",
      "8": "I gave the house of your master to you, and I gave the wives of your master into your embrace. I gave you the house of Israel and the house of Judah. If this was too little, I would have added even more.",
      "9": "Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his eyes? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword. You have taken his wife as your own wife. You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.",
      "10": "So now the sword will not depart from your house forever, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.",
      "11": "This is what the Lord says. Look! I am raising up disaster against you from your own house. Right in front of your eyes I will take your wives and give them to your neighbor, and he will lie down with your wives in the sight of the sun.",
      "12": "Because you acted in secret, I will do this in front of all Israel in broad daylight.",
      "13": "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”\nNathan said to David, “The Lord himself has put away your sin. You will not die.",
      "14": "Nevertheless, because by this deed you have treated the Lord with utter contempt, the child that is born to you shall surely die.”",
      "15": "Then Nathan went to his house.\nThe Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne for David, and the child became sick.",
      "16": "David sought the Lord’s mercy for the child. David fasted and spent the night lying on the ground.",
      "17": "The elders of his household stood beside him to pick him up off the ground, but he was not willing, and he would not eat food with them.",
      "18": "On the seventh day the child died. The servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, because they said, “Look! When the child was living, we spoke to David, but he did not listen to what we said. How will we speak to him now when the child is dead? He might do something harmful.”",
      "19": "When David saw that his servants were whispering together, he understood that the child was dead. So David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “Yes, he is dead.”",
      "20": "Then David got up from the ground, washed, put on lotion, and changed his clothes. He went to the House of the Lord and worshipped. He then went back to his house and asked for food. So they prepared a meal for him, and he ate.",
      "21": "His servants said to him, “What are you doing? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept. But when the child died, you got up and ate food.”",
      "22": "He said, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept because I said, ‘Who knows? Will the Lord be gracious to me and let my child live?’",
      "23": "Now he has died. Why should I fast? Am I able to return him to life again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”",
      "24": "David comforted Bathsheba, his wife. He went to her and lay down with her. She gave birth to a son. David called him Solomon. The Lord loved him,",
      "25": "and the Lord sent a message by the hand of Nathan the prophet that he should be called Jedidiah because of the Lord.",
      "26": "Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and captured the royal city.",
      "27": "He sent messengers to David and said, “I have fought against Rabbah. I have also captured the city’s water supply.",
      "28": "Now gather the rest of the troops, set up camp against the city, and take it. If you do not, I might take the city, and it will be named after me.”",
      "29": "So David gathered all the troops and went to Rabbah. He fought against it and took it.",
      "30": "He removed the gold crown of their king from his head. It weighed seventy-five pounds, and it had a precious stone. It was placed on the head of David.\nHe brought out large quantities of plunder from the city.",
      "31": "He also brought the people out from it and made them work with saws, with iron picks and axes, and at brickmaking. He did the same to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the troops returned to Jerusalem."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister named Tamar. Some time after this, David’s son Amnon fell in love with her.",
      "2": "Amnon was so worked up that he made himself sick because of his sister Tamar. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for Amnon to do anything with her.",
      "3": "Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, who was a son of David’s brother Shimeah. Jonadab was a very clever man.",
      "4": "Jonadab said to Amnon, “Why do you, the king’s son, look so tired every morning? Won’t you tell me?”\nAmnon said to him, “I am in love with Tamar, the sister of my brother Absalom.”",
      "5": "Jonadab said to him, “Lie down on your bed and pretend to be sick. Your father will come to see you. Then you are to say to him, ‘Please! Have my sister Tamar come and give me some food to eat. Have her prepare the food in my presence so that I can watch and eat it from her hand.’”",
      "6": "So Amnon went to bed and pretended to be sick, and the king came to see him. Amnon said to the king, “Please! Have my sister Tamar come and make special flatbread while I am watching. She should make two of them and let me eat them from her hand.”",
      "7": "So David sent a message to Tamar’s house: “Please, go to the house of your brother Amnon and make food for him.”",
      "8": "Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, where he was lying down. She took dough, kneaded it, made the flatbread as he was watching, and baked the loaves.",
      "9": "She took the pan and placed it before him, but he refused to eat.\nAmnon said, “Send everyone away from me.” So everyone left.",
      "10": "Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the bedroom and let me eat from your hand.”\nTamar took the flatbread that she had made and brought it into the room to Amnon her brother.",
      "11": "She brought it to him so he could eat.\nHe grabbed her and said to her, “Come, lie down with me, my sister.”",
      "12": "She said to him, “No, my brother. Do not force me, for such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do such a foolish thing.",
      "13": "And I—how will I get rid of my shame? And you will be like one of the fools in Israel. Now, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you.”",
      "14": "But he would not listen to her. He was stronger than she was, and he forced her to lie down with him.",
      "15": "Then Amnon’s hatred for her was even more intense than the love he had felt for her. Amnon said to her, “Get up. Get out.”",
      "16": "She said to him, “There is no excuse for that. To send me away is a greater wrong than what you already did to me.”\nBut he was not willing to listen to her.",
      "17": "He called the young man who was his servant and said, “Send this woman outside, away from me, and bolt the door behind her.”",
      "18": "She was wearing a special long robe that covered her arms and legs. The virgin daughters of the king wore such robes. His servant put her outside and bolted the door after her.",
      "19": "Tamar put ashes on her head and ripped the robe that she was wearing. She placed her hand on her head, and she went away, weeping loudly as she walked.",
      "20": "Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? Now my sister, do not say anything. He is your brother. Do not take this matter to heart.”\nSo Tamar, a devastated woman, stayed in the house of her brother Absalom.",
      "21": "King David heard about all these things, and he was very angry.",
      "22": "Absalom did not speak with Amnon at all, neither anything bad nor anything good. Absalom hated Amnon because he had raped Tamar, his sister.",
      "23": "Two years passed. Absalom’s sheepshearers were at Baal Hazor, which is near Ephraim. Absalom invited all the king’s sons.",
      "24": "Absalom also came to the king and said, “Look! The sheepshearers are now at work for your servant. Will the king and his servants join your servant, please?”",
      "25": "The king said to Absalom, “No, my son. Not all of us will go. We do not want to be a burden to you.”\nAbsalom pressured him, but David was not willing to go, though he did give Absalom a blessing.",
      "26": "So Absalom said, “If not, can Amnon my brother join us, please?” The king said to him, “Why should he go with you?”",
      "27": "But Absalom kept pressuring him, so David sent Amnon and all the sons of the king with him.",
      "28": "Absalom commanded his servants, “Pay attention to me, and when Amnon is feeling good because of the wine, I will say to you, ‘Strike Amnon.’ Then you are to kill him. Do not be afraid. I am the one who has given you the order. Be strong. Be brave.”",
      "29": "Absalom’s servants did to Amnon exactly what Absalom had commanded. Then all the sons of the king got up. Each of them got on his mule and fled.",
      "30": "While they were on the way, news reached David: “Absalom has killed all the king’s sons. There is not one of them left.”",
      "31": "The king got up, ripped his clothing, and lay down on the ground. All his servants who were standing nearby also ripped their clothing.",
      "32": "Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah, responded, “My lord should not say they have killed all the young men who are sons of the king, for only Amnon is dead. This is what Absalom has been planning from the day Amnon raped Tamar, his sister.",
      "33": "Now my lord the king should pay no attention to the report that says, ‘All the king’s sons are dead,’ because only Amnon is dead.”",
      "34": "Absalom fled.\nThe young man who was serving as the watchman looked up and saw many people coming down the road west of him, along the side of the mountain. ⎣The watchman came and reported to the king, “I see men on the Horonaim road, along the side of the mountain.”⎦",
      "35": "Jonadab said to the king, “Look. The king’s sons have come. It is just as your servant said.”",
      "36": "When he was finished speaking, the king’s sons arrived. They raised their voices and wept loudly. The king and all his servants also wept very bitterly.",
      "37": "Absalom fled. He went to Talmai son of Ammihud, the king of Geshur. King David mourned every day because of his son.",
      "38": "Absalom fled and went to Geshur. He stayed there for three years.",
      "39": "King David longed to reach out to Absalom, because he was no longer mourning for his deceased son Amnon."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Joab son of Zeruiah knew that the heart of the king was attached to Absalom.",
      "2": "So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there. He said to her, “Please act like a mourner and wear mourning clothes. Do not anoint yourself with lotion. Make it look as if you are a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long time.",
      "3": "Go to the king and tell him whatever I tell you to say.” Then Joab put the words in her mouth.",
      "4": "The woman from Tekoa spoke to the king. She fell down with her face to the ground. She bowed down and said, “Help me, O King.”",
      "5": "The king said to her, “What is wrong?”\nShe said, “It’s terrible. I am a widow. My husband is dead.",
      "6": "Your servant had two sons. The two of them had a fight out in the field, and there was no one there to separate them. The one struck the other and killed him.",
      "7": "Now the entire family has risen up against your servant. They are saying, ‘Turn over the one who struck down his brother, so we can put him to death because of the life of his brother whom he killed. In this way we will destroy the heir also.’ They will put out the fire of the one burning coal that is left for me. My husband will not have a name or anything left on the face of the earth.”",
      "8": "The king said to the woman, “Go to your house. I will issue orders on your behalf.”",
      "9": "The woman from Tekoa said to the king, “On me, my lord the king—let the guilt be on me and on the house of my father. The king and his throne will be guiltless.”",
      "10": "The king said, “Bring to me anyone who speaks against you about this, and he will not contact you again.”",
      "11": "She said, “Please, the king should remember the Lord your God and stop the avenger of blood from multiplying the killing, so that they do not destroy my son.”\nDavid said, “As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son will fall to the ground.”",
      "12": "The woman said, “Please allow your servant to speak a word to my lord the king.”\nHe said, “Speak up.”",
      "13": "The woman said, “Why have you planned something like this against the people of God? By his own words the king convicts himself for not returning his own banished one.",
      "14": "We will certainly die. We are like water spilled onto the ground that cannot be gathered up again. But God does not take life. He devises means to restore to himself the one who has been banished.",
      "15": "Now I have come to say this to my lord the king, because the people have made me afraid. Your servant said, ‘I will speak to the king. Perhaps the king will fulfill the request of his servant,",
      "16": "for the king will listen and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who is trying to destroy both me and my son, to remove us from our inheritance from God.’",
      "17": "Your servant said, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king give me rest, because he is like the angel of God—that is what my lord the king is like. He is able to distinguish good and evil.’ The Lord your God will be with you.”",
      "18": "The king answered the woman, “Please, do not withhold the answer to what I am about to ask you.”\nThe woman said, “My lord the king, please speak.”",
      "19": "The king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?”\nThe woman answered, “As your soul lives, my lord the king, nothing veers off to the right or to the left from everything my lord the king has said, for your servant Joab is the one who gave me orders. He also put all these words into the mouth of your servant.",
      "20": "Your servant Joab did this in order to change the way things were going. My lord has wisdom, like the wisdom of the Angel of God. He knows everything that goes on in the land.”",
      "21": "The king said to Joab, “All right! I will do this. Go and bring back the young man Absalom.”",
      "22": "Joab fell down with his face to the ground. He bowed down and blessed the king and said, “Today your servant has become aware that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, because the king has carried out the request of his servant.”",
      "23": "So Joab got up and went to Geshur and brought Absalom back to Jerusalem.",
      "24": "But the king said, “He must go to his own house. He is not to see me face-to-face.” So Absalom went to his own house, and he did not see the face of the king.",
      "25": "There was not a man in all Israel as handsome as Absalom and so greatly praised. From the sole of his foot to the top of his head there was not a blemish on him.",
      "26": "When he shaved the hair on his head (periodically he cut it off because it became too heavy for him), the hair weighed five pounds.",
      "27": "Three sons and one daughter were born to Absalom. The daughter’s name was Tamar. She was an attractive woman.",
      "28": "Absalom lived in Jerusalem for two years, but he did not see the king face-to-face.",
      "29": "Absalom sent to Joab in order to ask him to go to the king on his behalf, but Joab was not willing to come to him. Absalom sent again, a second time, but Joab was still not willing to come.",
      "30": "So Absalom said to his servants, “See that field of Joab next to mine, where he has barley. Go and set it on fire.” So Absalom’s servants set the field on fire. ⎣Joab’s servants came to him with their clothing torn and said to him, “The servants of Absalom have set your field on fire.”⎦",
      "31": "Joab got up and went to Absalom’s house. He said to him, “Why have your servants set my field on fire?”",
      "32": "Absalom said to Joab, “I sent this message to you: Come here. I want to send you to speak to the king and to say for me, ‘Why did I come from Geshur? It would be better for me to still be there.’ Now I want to see the king face-to-face. If I am guilty of anything, let him put me to death.”",
      "33": "So Joab went to the king and gave him the message.\nThen the king summoned Absalom, and he came to the king. He bowed down to the king with his face to the ground, and the king kissed Absalom."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "After this, Absalom acquired for himself a chariot, horses, and fifty men to run in front of him.",
      "2": "Absalom would get up early and stand beside the road by the gatehouse. Absalom would call out to every man who had a legal issue to bring before the king for judgment, and he would say, “What city are you from?” The person would say, “Your servant is from such-and-such of the tribes of Israel.”",
      "3": "Absalom would say to him, “Your claims are good and valid, but there is no one from the king to listen to you.”",
      "4": "Then Absalom would say, “I wish someone would make me a judge in the land. Then everyone who has a legal issue or needs a judgment could come to me, and I would give him justice.”",
      "5": "Whenever someone approached to bow down to him, he would reach out, take hold of him, and kiss him.",
      "6": "Absalom acted this way to everyone of Israel who came to the king for judgment. In this way Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.",
      "7": "After four years Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go to Hebron and fulfill my vow, which I have made to the Lord,",
      "8": "because when I was at Geshur in Aram, your servant vowed, ‘If the Lord will really return me to Jerusalem, I will serve the Lord.’”",
      "9": "The king said to him, “Go in peace.” So he set out and went to Hebron.",
      "10": "But Absalom sent agents throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “When you hear the sound of the ram’s horn, you are to say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron.’”",
      "11": "Two hundred men from Jerusalem who had been invited went along with Absalom. They went innocently, since they did not know what was going on.",
      "12": "While he was offering sacrifices, Absalom summoned David’s advisor, Ahithophel of Giloh, to come from Giloh, his hometown. The conspiracy gained strength as more and more people were going over to Absalom.",
      "13": "A messenger came to David and said, “The hearts of the men of Israel are following Absalom.”",
      "14": "So David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, “Get ready. We must flee, or we will not escape from Absalom. Hurry up and go, so that he does not come quickly, overtake us, bring down disaster on us, and strike the city with the edge of the sword.”",
      "15": "The officials of the king said to him, “Here we are. We, your servants, will do everything our lord the king decides.”",
      "16": "So the king set out with his entire household, but he left ten concubines to watch over the house.",
      "17": "The king and all his people set out. They stopped at a house some distance away.",
      "18": "All his troops were passing by in front of David. All the Kerethites, Pelethites, and Gittites—six hundred men from Gath who had come under his command—were passing by in front of the king.",
      "19": "The king said to Ittai from Gath, “Why are you going with us? Go back and stay with King Absalom, because you are a foreigner and an exile from your home.",
      "20": "You arrived just yesterday. Today should I cause you to wander with us, when I myself do not have a plan as to where I am going? Go back and take your fellow soldiers with you. May the Lord’s mercy and faithfulness be with you.”",
      "21": "Ittai answered the king, “As the Lord lives and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king will be, whether it leads to death or life, there your servant will be.”",
      "22": "David said to Ittai, “Go ahead then. March on.” So Ittai from Gath and all his men and all the dependents who were with them marched by.",
      "23": "All the people of the land wept loudly as all the troops were marching by. The king crossed over the stream bed of the Kidron. All the people kept marching by in the direction of the wilderness.",
      "24": "Next came Zadok and all the Levites with him, who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of God. They set down the Ark of God, and Abiathar offered up sacrifices until all the people finished passing by, as they left the city.",
      "25": "The king said to Zadok, “Return the Ark of God to the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back and let me see it in its proper dwelling place.",
      "26": "But if he says, ‘I have no pleasure in you,’ look, here I am. Let him do to me whatever is good in his eyes.”",
      "27": "The king said to Zadok the priest, “Aren’t you a seer? Go back to the city in peace. You two priests, take your sons with you—your son Ahima’az and Abiathar’s son Jonathan.",
      "28": "Listen, I will be waiting at the fords in the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me.”",
      "29": "So Zadok and Abiathar carried the Ark of God back to Jerusalem, and they remained there.",
      "30": "David went up along the ascent to the top of the Mount of Olives. As he walked along with his head covered, he was weeping, and he was walking barefoot. All the people who were with him also covered their heads. As they went up, they were weeping as they walked along.",
      "31": "David had been told, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David said, “Please, Lord, make the advice of Ahithophel foolish.”",
      "32": "David arrived at the summit, where he worshipped God.\nHushai the Arkite was there to meet him. His robe was torn, and he had dirt on his head.",
      "33": "David said to him, “If you cross over with me, you will become a burden to me.",
      "34": "But if you return to the city and you say to Absalom, ‘Let me be your servant, O King. In the past I was a servant of your father. Now I will be your servant,’ then you can defeat the advice of Ahithophel for me.",
      "35": "Are not Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, with you there? Tell every word that you hear in the house of the king to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests.",
      "36": "Their two sons, Zadok’s son Ahima’az and Abiathar’s son Jonathan, are there with them. Through those two, the three of you will be able to send me every word that you hear.”",
      "37": "Hushai, the friend and advisor of David, went to the city, just as Absalom also was entering into Jerusalem."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "David moved a little beyond the summit. There Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, met him with a string of saddled donkeys. On them there were two hundred loaves of bread, one hundred cakes of raisins, one hundred cakes of summer fruit, and a container of wine.",
      "2": "The king said to Ziba, “Why do you have these?”\nZiba said, “The donkeys are for the household of the king to ride on. The bread and fruit are for the young men to eat. The wine is to provide something to drink for those who become exhausted in the wilderness.”",
      "3": "The king said, “So where is the grandson of your master?”\nZiba said to the king, “Well, he is staying in Jerusalem because he said, ‘Today the house of Israel will return the kingdom of my grandfather to me.’”",
      "4": "The king said to Ziba, “All right then. Everything that was Mephibosheth’s belongs to you.”\nZiba said, “I bow down before you. May I find favor in your sight, my lord the king.”",
      "5": "King David came to Bahurim. There he was confronted by a man from the family of the house of Saul. His name was Shimei son of Gera. He was rushing out and calling down curses.",
      "6": "He threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David, as well as at all the people and all the warriors on David’s right and on his left.",
      "7": "This is what Shimei said as he cursed: “Get out! Get out, you bloody, worthless man!",
      "8": "The Lord has avenged upon you all the blood of the house of Saul, whom you replaced as king. The Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. Just look at you now, sunk in disaster, because you are a bloody man.”",
      "9": "Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head.”",
      "10": "The king said, “What do you and I have in common, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the Lord has told him, ‘Curse David,’ then who can say, ‘Why have you done this?’”",
      "11": "Then David said to Abishai and to all his followers, “Listen to me! My son, who came from my own body, is seeking my life. How much more now, this Benjaminite! Leave him alone. Let him curse. Perhaps the Lord has told him to do so.",
      "12": "Perhaps the Lord will look on my misery and will return something good to me in exchange for his cursing this day.”",
      "13": "So David and his men kept traveling down the road, and Shimei kept following along, on the side of the hill opposite him, walking along, cursing, throwing stones, and flinging dirt at him.",
      "14": "The king and all the people who were with him traveled until they became exhausted, and then they stopped in order to recover.",
      "15": "Absalom and all the people, the men of Israel, arrived at Jerusalem. Ahithophel was with him.",
      "16": "When Hushai the Arkite, David’s confidant, came to Absalom, Hushai said to Absalom, “Long live the king! Long live the king!”",
      "17": "Absalom said to Hushai, “Is this your loyalty for your friend? Why didn’t you go with your friend?”",
      "18": "Hushai said to Absalom, “No. The person who has been chosen by the Lord, by this people, and by all the men of Israel—this is the one with whom I will be and with whom I will remain.",
      "19": "Besides, whom should I serve if not the king’s son? As I have served your father, so I will serve you.”",
      "20": "Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give us your advice. What should we do?”",
      "21": "Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Go to your father’s concubines, whom he has left to watch over the palace. Let all Israel hear that you have become disgusting to your father, so that the hands of all who are with you may be strengthened.”",
      "22": "So they pitched a tent on the roof for Absalom, and Absalom went to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.",
      "23": "In those days the advice that Ahithophel gave was viewed as if it had come from God. All the advice of Ahithophel was viewed that way, both by David and also by Absalom."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me choose twelve thousand men. I will set out to pursue David tonight.",
      "2": "I will come upon him when he is tired and weak and cause him to panic. All the people with him will flee. Then I will strike down only the king.",
      "3": "I will bring back the rest of the people to you. The life of the man whom you are seeking will gain the return of all of them. All the rest of the people will be safe.”",
      "4": "Ahithophel’s plan seemed good to all the elders of Israel.",
      "5": "But Absalom said, “Call Hushai the Arkite. We should also hear what he has to say.”",
      "6": "So Hushai came to Absalom, and Absalom said to him, “This is what Ahithophel has said. Shall we do it? If you disagree, speak up.”",
      "7": "Hushai said to Absalom, “This time the advice Ahithophel has given is not good.”",
      "8": "Hushai continued, “You know your father and his men. They are fierce warriors, like an enraged bear in the open country who has lost her cubs. Your father is a fighter. He will not spend the night with the people.",
      "9": "Certainly, by now he has hidden himself in one of the caves or in some other place. What if he attacks and some of our men fall first? Whoever hears about it will say, ‘There has been a slaughter among the followers of Absalom.’",
      "10": "Even the very brave, whose hearts are like the heart of a lion, will melt with fear, because all Israel knows that your father is a fierce warrior, and that those who are with him are brave men.",
      "11": "So, I advise you to gather all Israel to you from Dan to Beersheba, as many as the sand beside the sea, and that you personally lead them into battle.",
      "12": "We should attack the king in whatever place he is found. We will come down on him like the dew that falls upon the ground. There will not even be one survivor from him and from all the men with him.",
      "13": "If he withdraws into a city, all Israel should bring ropes to that city. We will drag it into the valley until there will not be even one pebble found there.”",
      "14": "Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Arkite is better than the advice of Ahithophel.”\nThe Lord had arranged to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel, so that the Lord could bring disaster upon Absalom.",
      "15": "Then Hushai told Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, “This is what Ahithophel advised Absalom and the elders of Israel. But this is what I have advised.",
      "16": "Now send a message quickly and tell David, ‘Do not stay tonight at the fords in the wilderness. Also, be sure to cross over the river, or the king and all the people who are with him will be swallowed up.’”",
      "17": "Jonathan and Ahima’az were to wait at En Rogel because they could not risk being seen going into the city. A female servant was to go out and inform them. Then they could go and tell King David.",
      "18": "However, a young man saw them and told Absalom. So the two of them quickly went to the house of a man at Bahurim. He had a well in his courtyard, and they climbed down into it.",
      "19": "His wife took a cover, spread it over the mouth of the well, and scattered grain on it. Nobody knew that she did it.",
      "20": "Absalom’s servants came to the woman at the house and said, “Where are Ahima’az and Jonathan?”\nThe woman said to them, “They have passed by toward the river.” Absalom’s servants pursued them but did not find them, so they returned to Jerusalem.",
      "21": "When they left, Ahima’az and Jonathan climbed out of the well. They went and reported to King David, and they said to him, “Get up and cross over the river quickly because this is what Ahithophel advised against you.”",
      "22": "So David and all the people who were with him set out and crossed the Jordan, beginning at the first light of day and continuing until everyone had crossed over the Jordan.",
      "23": "When Ahithophel saw that his advice had not been followed, he saddled his donkey, set out, went to his house in his hometown, and set his household in order. Then he hanged himself. He died, and he was buried in the tomb of his father.",
      "24": "David went to Mahanaim, and Absalom crossed over the Jordan with all the men of Israel.",
      "25": "Absalom had put Amasa in command of the army instead of Joab. (Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra, an Ishmaelite who had gone to Abigal, the daughter of Nahash, the sister of Zeruiah, the mother of Joab.)",
      "26": "Israel and Absalom set up camp in the land of Gilead.",
      "27": "When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, Makir son of Ammiel from Lo Debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim",
      "28": "brought beds, basins, pottery, wheat, barley, flour, roasted grain, beans, lentils,",
      "29": "honey, cheese curds, sheep, and cheese from cow’s milk for David and for the people with him to eat, because they said, “The people are hungry, tired, and thirsty in the wilderness.”"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "David organized the troops who were with him. He appointed leaders over units of a thousand and units of a hundred.",
      "2": "Then David sent the troops out: one third under the command of Joab; one third under the command of Abishai, who was the son of Zeruiah and the brother of Joab; and one third under the command of Ittai from Gath.\nThe king said to the troops, “I myself will definitely also go with you.”",
      "3": "But the troops said, “You will not go, because if we flee, they will not target us. Even if half of us die, they will not target us, for there are ten thousand others like us. No. It is better now that you support us from the city.”",
      "4": "So the king said to them, “Whatever seems best to you, I will do.”\nThe king stood beside the city gate. All the troops marched out by units of a hundred and a thousand.",
      "5": "The king gave orders to Joab, Abishai, and Ittai: “For my sake, act gently with the young man Absalom.” All the troops heard the king giving orders to the leaders concerning Absalom.",
      "6": "The troops went out into the countryside to confront Israel. The battle took place in the Forest of Ephraim.",
      "7": "The men of Israel were defeated there by the followers of David. There was a great slaughter there on that day—twenty thousand.",
      "8": "The battle was spread over the entire area. The forest devoured more people than the sword did on that day.",
      "9": "Absalom encountered the forces of David. As Absalom was riding on his mule, the mule went under the thick branches of a large terebinth tree, and Absalom’s head caught in the terebinth. He was caught between heaven and earth, and the mule he was riding kept going.",
      "10": "A man noticed Absalom and told Joab, “Listen! I saw Absalom hanging in a terebinth tree!”",
      "11": "Joab said to the man who had told him, “What! You saw him! Why didn’t you strike him to the ground right there? Then I would have given you ten shekels of silver and a belt.”",
      "12": "But the man said to Joab, “Even if I had one thousand shekels of silver weighed out into my hands, I would not reach my hand out against the king’s son. We heard the king command you, Abishai, and Ittai, ‘Watch out for the young man Absalom for me.’",
      "13": "If I had acted irresponsibly with my life—and nothing is hidden from the king—you would not have stood by me.”",
      "14": "Joab said, “I will not waste time with you like this.” He took three small spears in his hand, and he hurled them into Absalom’s heart while he was still alive in the middle of the terebinth tree.",
      "15": "Ten young men, the ones carrying Joab’s armor and weapons, surrounded Absalom and struck and killed him.",
      "16": "Then Joab blew the ram’s horn, and the people turned back from pursuing Israel, because Joab restrained them.",
      "17": "They took Absalom and threw him into a large pit in the forest. They raised a huge pile of stones over him.\nAll Israel fled, everyone to his own tent.",
      "18": "During his lifetime Absalom had set up a monument for himself in the Valley of the King, because he said, “I do not have a son to keep my name alive in people’s memory.” He named the monument after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.",
      "19": "Ahima’az son of Zadok said, “Let me run and carry the good news to the king that the Lord has delivered him from the power of his enemies.”",
      "20": "But Joab said to him, “You are not the man to carry the news today. You may carry the news some other day, but today you should not carry the news, because the king’s son is dead.”",
      "21": "Joab then told a Cushite, “Go, tell the king what you saw.”\nThe Cushite bowed down to Joab and then set out running.",
      "22": "But Ahima’az son of Zadok said to Joab again, “No matter what, I really want to run behind the Cushite.”\nJoab said, “Why do you want to do this? My son, there is no good news that will bring you any gain for running.”",
      "23": "But Ahima’az said, “No matter what, let me run.” So Joab said to him “All right, run then.” Ahima’az ran on the road that followed the plain, and he passed the Cushite.",
      "24": "David was sitting between the inner and outer gates of the city. The watchman went up onto the roof of the gatehouse next to the wall. While he was standing watch, he saw a man running all by himself.",
      "25": "The watchman called out and told the king. The king said, “If he is alone, he is bringing good news.” The man kept coming and got closer.",
      "26": "Then the watchman saw another man running. The watchman called down to the gatekeeper, “Look! There is another man running all by himself!”\nThe king said, “This one also is bringing good news.”",
      "27": "The watchman said, “The way the first man is running looks like the way Ahima’az son of Zadok runs.” The king said, “He is a good man. He is coming with good news.”",
      "28": "Ahima’az called out to the king, “Peace.” Then he bowed down to the king with his face to the ground and said, “Blessed is the Lord your God, who delivered up the men who raised their hand against my lord the king.”",
      "29": "The king asked, “Is the young man Absalom safe?”\nAhima’az said, “I saw a great uproar at the time when Joab sent the other servant of the king and me, your servant. I do not know what it was about.”",
      "30": "The king said, “Step aside. Stay here.” So he stepped aside and just stood there.",
      "31": "The Cushite arrived and said, “There is good news for my lord the king, because the Lord has delivered you this day from the power of all who rose up against you.”",
      "32": "The king asked the Cushite, “Is the young man Absalom safe?”\nThe Cushite said, “May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up against you with evil intentions be like that young man.”",
      "33": "The king was shocked. He went up to the room over the gatehouse. As he was going, he wept and said, “My son Absalom, my son, my son! O Absalom, I wish I had died instead of you. O Absalom, my son, my son.”"
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Joab was told, “The king is weeping and mourning over Absalom.”",
      "2": "The victory that day became an occasion for mourning for all the people, because that day the people heard that the king was mourning for his son.",
      "3": "That day the people were sneaking into the city quietly, the way people who are ashamed of fleeing from the battle would sneak in quietly.",
      "4": "The king covered his face and cried with a loud voice, “My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son.”",
      "5": "Joab came to the king at the house and said, “Today you have put to shame all your followers, who today have saved your life, the lives of your sons and daughters, and the lives of your wives and concubines.",
      "6": "You love those who hate you and hate those who love you. You have demonstrated clearly today that your officers and followers are nothing to you. Today I have no doubt that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead, you would be pleased.",
      "7": "Now get up. Go out. Speak to the hearts of your followers. For by the Lord, I swear that if you do not go out, not a man will remain with you tonight, and this disaster will be greater for you than all the disasters that have come upon you from your youth until now.”",
      "8": "So the king got up and took his seat by the gate. All the people were told, “Look! The king is sitting in the gate.” So all the people came into the presence of the king.\nIsrael had fled, every man to his own home.",
      "9": "All the people in all the tribes of Israel were quarreling and saying, “The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies. He saved us from the hand of the Philistines. Now he has fled out of the land from Absalom.",
      "10": "But Absalom, whom we anointed over us, has died in battle. Now why are you silent about bringing back the king?”",
      "11": "King David sent a message to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests. He said, “Speak to the elders of Judah. Ask them, ‘Why will you be the last to bring the king back to his palace?’ The plan that all Israel has been discussing has been reported to the king at his house.",
      "12": "You are my brothers. You are my flesh and blood. Why will you be the last to bring back the king?”",
      "13": "He also said, “Say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my flesh and blood? May God punish me severely and double it, if you are not the permanent commander of my army in place of Joab.’”",
      "14": "David turned the hearts of all the men of Judah as if they were one man. They sent to the king and said, “Return, you and all your servants.”",
      "15": "So the king returned and came to the Jordan. The men of Judah came out to Gilgal to meet the king and to bring the king across the Jordan.",
      "16": "Shimei son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David.",
      "17": "One thousand men from Benjamin were with him. Also, Ziba, the manager of the house of Saul, came, along with his fifteen sons and his twenty servants. They rushed down to the Jordan ahead of the king.",
      "18": "They crossed over the ford to escort the household of the king across and to make a good impression on the king.\nShimei son of Gera bowed down before the king when he was crossing over the Jordan.",
      "19": "He spoke to the king: “My lord, do not consider me guilty. Do not remember the wrong your servant did on the day that my lord the king went out from Jerusalem, and do not take it to heart,",
      "20": "for I, your servant, know that I have sinned. Look! I have come today, the first one from the whole house of Joseph to come down to welcome my lord the king.”",
      "21": "Abishai son of Zeruiah answered, “Shouldn’t Shimei be put to death because he cursed the anointed of the Lord?”",
      "22": "But David said, “What do we have in common, you sons of Zeruiah? For today you are my adversaries. Should any man in Israel be put to death today? Do I not know that today I am king over Israel?”",
      "23": "The king said to Shimei, “You will not die.” The king took an oath concerning him.",
      "24": "Mephibosheth, grandson of Saul, also came down to welcome the king. He had not taken care of his feet or his beard and had not washed his clothing from the day the king departed until the day he came back in safety.",
      "25": "When he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, the king said to him, “Why didn’t you go with me, Mephibosheth?”",
      "26": "Mephibosheth answered, “Your servant said, ‘Because I am crippled, I need to have the donkey saddled so that I can ride on it and go with the king.’ But, my lord the king, my servant deceived me.",
      "27": "He has slandered your servant to my lord the king. However, my lord the king is like an angel of God. Do what is right in your eyes.",
      "28": "All the house of my father deserved death from my lord the king, but you included your servant among those who eat at your table. What further right do I have to cry out again to the king?”",
      "29": "The king said to him, “Why say more about your situation? I say that you and Ziba are to divide the land.”",
      "30": "Mephibosheth said to the king, “Let him take everything, now that my lord the king has come safely to his house.”",
      "31": "Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim. He crossed over the Jordan, escorting the king back over the Jordan.",
      "32": "Barzillai was very old, eighty years old. He had provided food for the king during his stay at Mahanaim because he was a very wealthy man.",
      "33": "The king said to Barzillai, “Cross over with me. I will provide for you as my guest in Jerusalem.”",
      "34": "But Barzillai said to the king, “How many years am I going to be alive? Why should I go up with the king to Jerusalem?",
      "35": "Today I am eighty years old. Can I tell the difference between good and bad? Can your servant taste what I eat and what I drink? Can I still hear the voice of the male and female singers? Why should your servant become a further burden to my lord the king?",
      "36": "Let your servant cross over the Jordan with the king for a short distance. Why will the king pay me back with such a reward?",
      "37": "Please, let your servant return and die in my own city near the grave of my father and my mother. But look! Here is your servant Kimham. Let him cross over with my lord the king. Do for him whatever seems good to you.”",
      "38": "So the king said, “Kimham shall go over with me, and I will do for him whatever seems good to you. All that you want from me, I will do for you.”",
      "39": "So all the people crossed over the Jordan, and the king also crossed over. Then he kissed Barzillai and blessed him. Barzillai then returned to his own home.",
      "40": "The king went over to Gilgal, and Kimham crossed over with him.\nAll the people of Judah, as well as half the people of Israel, escorted the king over.",
      "41": "But suddenly all the men of Israel came and said to the king, “Why have our brothers, the men of Judah, stolen you and brought the king and his household over the Jordan, along with all the men of David?”",
      "42": "All the men of Judah responded to the men of Israel, “It is because the king is closely related to us! Why has this angered you? Have we eaten at the king’s expense? Or have we received anything for ourselves?”",
      "43": "The men of Israel responded to the men of Judah, “Ten shares of the king belong to us! That is more of David than you have the right to. Why do you despise us? Were we not the first to speak about bringing our king back?”\nBut the response of the men of Judah was even harsher than the words of the men of Israel."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "A worthless troublemaker named Sheba son of Bikri, a Benjaminite, was present. He blew the ram’s horn and said, “We have no share with David, and no inheritance with the son of Jesse. Every man to his own tent, Israel!”",
      "2": "So all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bikri. But the men of Judah stuck with their king and accompanied him from the Jordan to Jerusalem.",
      "3": "David arrived at his palace in Jerusalem. The king took the ten concubines whom he had left to take care of the house and put them in a residence that was under guard. He provided for them but did not go to them anymore. They were confined until the day of their death—a life of widowhood.",
      "4": "The king said to Amasa, “You have three days to bring all the men of Judah to me and to be here yourself.”",
      "5": "So Amasa went to summon Judah, but he took longer than the time that David had set for him.",
      "6": "So David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bikri will do more damage to us than Absalom. You take the soldiers of your lord. Pursue Sheba, so that he does not find fortified cities for himself, and we lose him.”",
      "7": "So Joab’s men, the Kerethites, the Pelethites, and all the elite troops followed Abishai. They went out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba son of Bikri.",
      "8": "When they were by the large stone that is at Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. Joab was wearing his battle dress and had a belt with a sheathed dagger fastened around his waist. As he went forward, the dagger fell out.",
      "9": "Joab said to Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” With his right hand Joab grabbed Amasa’s beard to kiss him.",
      "10": "Amasa was not on guard against the dagger that was in Joab’s other hand. With it Joab struck Amasa in the abdomen, and Amasa’s intestines spilled out on the ground. It did not take another blow to kill him.\nJoab and his brother Abishai resumed their pursuit of Sheba son of Bikri.",
      "11": "One of Joab’s young officers stood beside Amasa. He said, “Who favors Joab? Who is for David? Follow Joab.”",
      "12": "Amasa was still wallowing in his blood in the middle of the highway. Someone saw that all the people were stopping when they came upon Amasa and saw him, so he dragged Amasa off the highway into the field and threw a garment over him.",
      "13": "When Amasa was removed from the highway, everyone followed Joab to pursue Sheba son of Bikri.",
      "14": "Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel to Abel Beth Ma’akah, and all the Berites were gathered together and they followed him.",
      "15": "All the men who were with Joab besieged Sheba in Abel Beth Ma’akah. They constructed a siege ramp against the rampart of the city, and they started battering the wall to make it fall down.",
      "16": "A wise woman called out from the city, “Listen! Listen! Please tell Joab, ‘Come here and let me speak to you.’”",
      "17": "He approached her, and the woman said, “Are you Joab?”\nHe said, “I am.”\nShe said to him, “Listen to the words of your servant.”\nHe said, “I am listening.”",
      "18": "She said, “In former times they always said, ‘Let them ask in Abel.’ That is how they settled things.",
      "19": "I am one of the peaceful, faithful people of Israel. You are seeking to put to death a whole city that is a mother in Israel. Why do you want to swallow up the inheritance of the Lord?”",
      "20": "Joab answered, “May I be cursed, yes, cursed, if I am here to swallow up or destroy.",
      "21": "That is not the case. The fact is, a man from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name is Sheba son of Bikri, lifted up his hand against King David. Just give him up, and I will withdraw from the city.”\nThe woman said to Joab, “Certainly! His head will be thrown over the wall to you.”",
      "22": "So the woman went to all the people with her wisdom, and they cut off the head of Sheba son of Bikri and threw it to Joab. Then he blew the ram’s horn, and they dispersed from the city, every man to his tent. Joab then returned to the king in Jerusalem.",
      "23": "Joab was over the whole army of Israel. Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and the Pelethites.",
      "24": "Adoram was in charge of forced labor. Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the record keeper.",
      "25": "Sheva was the secretary, and Zadok and Abiathar were the high priests.",
      "26": "Also Ira the Jairite was a government minister for David."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "There was a famine in the days of David for three years in a row.\nDavid sought the favor of the Lord, and the Lord said, “There is blood guilt on Saul and on his house because he put the Gibeonites to death.”",
      "2": "So the king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them.\n(The Gibeonites were not related to the people of Israel, but they were a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had given them a sworn promise, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.)",
      "3": "David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How will I make atonement to you so you will bless the heritage of the Lord?”",
      "4": "The Gibeonites said to him, “The issue between us and Saul and his house cannot be settled with silver and gold. Nor is it up to us to put anyone in Israel to death.”\nSo David said, “Well then, what are you saying I should do for you?”",
      "5": "They said to the king, “From the man who consumed us and who planned to destroy us so that we would have no place in all the territory of Israel,",
      "6": "we ask you to give us seven of his male descendants. Allow us to hang them up before the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, who was the chosen of the Lord.”\nThe king said, “I will grant it.”",
      "7": "The king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul.",
      "8": "The king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Saul to whom Rizpah daughter of Aiah had given birth, and the five sons of Merab, the daughter of Saul, to whom she gave birth for Adriel son of Barzillai, the Meholathite.",
      "9": "David handed them over to the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the Lord. The seven of them died together. They were put to death in the first days of the harvest, at the beginning of the barley harvest.",
      "10": "Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself near the rock. From the beginning of the grain harvest until rain started falling on them from the sky, she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day nor the wild animals by night.",
      "11": "David was informed about what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.",
      "12": "So David went and got the bones of Saul and the bones of Saul’s son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hanged them on the day when the Philistines killed Saul at Gilboa.",
      "13": "He brought the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from there. They also gathered the bones of the men who had been hanged.",
      "14": "Then they buried the bones of Saul and Saul’s son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the tomb of Kish, Saul’s father. They did everything the king commanded. After that, God responded to the prayers for the land.",
      "15": "War occurred again between the Philistines and Israel. So David went down with his troops and fought against the Philistines. David became very tired.",
      "16": "Ishbi Benob was one of the descendants of Rapha the giant. His bronze spear weighed more than seven pounds, and he was equipped with a new weapon. He said that he was going to kill David.",
      "17": "Abishai son of Zeruiah came to David’s aid. He attacked the Philistine and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, “You are not to go out to battle with us anymore, so that you do not put out the lamp of Israel.”",
      "18": "After this, there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob, in which Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was also descended from Rapha the giant.",
      "19": "There was yet another battle with the Philistines at Gob. Elhanan son of Jair, the Bethlehemite, killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear shaft was like a weaver’s beam.",
      "20": "There was war again in Gath. There was a very tall man who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha the giant.",
      "21": "When he taunted Israel, Jonathan son of Shimeah, the brother of David, killed him.",
      "22": "These four were descended from Rapha the giant in Gath. They fell at the hand of David and his servants."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "David spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the grasp of all his enemies, even from the grasp of Saul.",
      "2": "He said:\nThe Lord is my rocky cliff,\nmy stronghold, and my deliverer.",
      "3": "My God is my rock. I take refuge in him.\nHe is my shield and the horn of my salvation,\nmy high fortress, my refuge, and my savior.\nYou save me from violence.",
      "4": "I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise,\nand I am saved from my enemies.",
      "5": "The waves of death swirled around me.\nFloodwaters of destruction rolled over me.",
      "6": "The ropes of the grave wrapped around me.\nThe traps of death threatened me.",
      "7": "In my distress I called to the Lord.\nTo my God I cried out.\nHe heard my voice from his temple.\nMy cry for help reached his ears.",
      "8": "Then the earth shook and quaked,\nand the foundations of the heavens trembled.\nThey shook because the Lord was angry.",
      "9": "Smoke rose from his nostrils,\nand fire out of his mouth devoured.\nCoals were set on fire by it.",
      "10": "Then he tore open the heavens and came down.\nA dark cloud was under his feet.",
      "11": "He rode upon a cherub, and he flew.\nHe soared on the wings of the wind.",
      "12": "He made the darkness around him his shelter,\nthe dark rain clouds of the sky.",
      "13": "From the brightness in front of him, coals of fire burned.",
      "14": "Then the Lord thundered in the heavens.\nThe Most High raised his voice.",
      "15": "Then he shot his arrows and scattered the enemy.\nHe hurled great bolts of lightning and routed them.",
      "16": "Then the sources of the sea were revealed,\nand the foundations of the world were uncovered\n    by the rebuke of the Lord,\n    by the breath of wind from his nostrils.",
      "17": "He reached down from on high and took hold of me.\nHe drew me out of deep waters.",
      "18": "Because they were too strong for me,\nhe rescued me from my powerful enemies,\nfrom those who hate me.",
      "19": "They confronted me on the day of my disaster,\nbut the Lord supported me.",
      "20": "Then he brought me out into a wide open space.\nHe rescued me because he delighted in me.",
      "21": "The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness.\nAccording to the cleanness of my hands, he has repaid me,",
      "22": "because I have kept the ways of the Lord.\nI have not done evil and departed from my God.",
      "23": "So all his just decrees remain before me,\nand I have not turned away from his statutes.",
      "24": "I have been blameless with him.\nI have kept myself from guilt.",
      "25": "The Lord has repaid me according to my righteousness,\naccording to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.",
      "26": "To the merciful you reveal yourself as merciful.\nTo the blameless person you reveal yourself as blameless.",
      "27": "To the pure you reveal yourself as pure,\nbut to the crooked you reveal yourself as crafty.",
      "28": "Yes, you save humble people,\nbut your eyes are on the proud, and you bring them down.",
      "29": "Yes, you are my lamp, O Lord.\nThe Lord turns my darkness to light.",
      "30": "For with you I can charge against a battalion,\nand with my God I can jump over a wall.",
      "31": "This God—his way is blameless.\nThe speech of the Lord is pure.\nHe is a shield for all who take refuge in him.",
      "32": "For who is God besides the Lord?\nAnd who is the Rock except our God?",
      "33": "This God wraps me with strength\nand makes my way smooth.",
      "34": "By making my feet like those of a deer,\n    he enables me to stand on high places.",
      "35": "Because he trains my hands for battle,\n    my arms can draw a bronze bow.",
      "36": "Then you give me the shield of your salvation.\nYour response makes me great.",
      "37": "You widen the path under my feet,\nso that my ankles do not give way.",
      "38": "I pursued my enemies, and I destroyed them.\nYes, I did not turn back until they were wiped out.",
      "39": "I wiped them out. I crushed them.\nThey could not rise again.\nThey fell beneath my feet.",
      "40": "You wrapped me with strength for battle.\nYou made those who rose up against me bow down to me.",
      "41": "You made my enemies turn their backs and flee.\nI destroyed those who hate me.",
      "42": "They cried for help, but there was no one to save them.\nThey cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them.",
      "43": "So I ground them as fine as dust of the earth.\nI scattered them and trampled them down like mud in the streets.",
      "44": "You delivered me from the accusations of my people.\nYou preserved me as the head of nations.\nA people I did not know serve me.",
      "45": "Foreigners cringe before me.\nAs soon as they hear me, they obey me.",
      "46": "Foreigners fall exhausted.\nThey come trembling from their strongholds.",
      "47": "The Lord lives! Blessed be my Rock!\nMay God, the Rock who saves me, be exalted!",
      "48": "This God, who avenges me, subdues peoples under me.",
      "49": "You delivered me from my enemies.\nYes, you exalted me above those who rose against me.\nYou rescued me from the violent man.",
      "50": "Therefore, I will thank you among the nations, Lord.\nTo your name I will make music.",
      "51": "By providing great salvation for his King,\nhe shows mercy to his Anointed One,\nto David and to his Seed forever."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "These are the last words of David,\nthe oracle of David, the son of Jesse,\nthe oracle of the man raised up high,\nthe man anointed by the God of Jacob,\nthe pleasant singer of Israel’s songs.",
      "2": "The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me.\nHis word is on my tongue.",
      "3": "The God of Israel has spoken.\nTo me the Rock of Israel has said,\n“The one who rules over people with righteousness,\nwho rules in the fear of God,",
      "4": "he is like the light of the morning when the sun rises,\nlike a morning without clouds,\nlike brightness after rain, which produces grass from the earth.”",
      "5": "But my house is not like this with God.\nNevertheless, he has made an everlasting covenant with me,\n    completely ordered and secure.\nCertainly he will make it spring up for my salvation, to fulfill my desires.",
      "6": "Worthless, wicked men are all like thorns to be thrown away.\nNo one even picks them up with his hand.",
      "7": "Anyone who touches them uses an iron tool or the shaft of a spear.\nThey are completely burned up in the fire, right where they are.",
      "8": "These are the names of the elite warriors of David:\nJashobeam son of Hakmon was leader among the Three. He lifted up his spear and killed eight hundred at once.",
      "9": "After him came Eleazar son of Dodo, the Ahohite. As one of the three elite warriors, he was with David when they defied the Philistines gathered there for battle. The men of Israel retreated,",
      "10": "but he took a stand and struck down the Philistines until his hand got tired and froze to the sword. The Lord brought about a great victory on that day. The people of the army returned to Eleazar but only to strip the fallen.",
      "11": "After him came Shamma son of Agee, the Hararite. The Philistines were gathered at Lehi. In that location there was a parcel of land full of lentils. The people fled from the Philistines,",
      "12": "but Shamma took his stand in the middle of that parcel of ground and defended it. He struck down the Philistines, and the Lord brought about a great victory.",
      "13": "Three of the Thirty went down and came to David at the Cave of Adullam at the time of the grain harvest. A band of Philistines was camping in the Valley of Rephaim.",
      "14": "David was then in the stronghold, and the garrison of the Philistines was in Bethlehem.",
      "15": "David expressed a deep craving, “Who will give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate?”",
      "16": "So the three elite warriors broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate. They took it and brought it to David, but he was not willing to drink it, so he poured it out to the Lord.",
      "17": "He said, “May I be cursed, Lord, if I would do this. This is the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives!” He would not drink it. These are the things the three elite warriors did.",
      "18": "Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was the leader of the Thirty. He wielded his spear against three hundred, all of whom were killed. His reputation equaled that of the Three.",
      "19": "In fact, he was praised more than the Three, and he became their commander, but he did not belong to the Three.",
      "20": "Benaiah son of Jehoiada, an energetic warrior from Kabze’el, performed great deeds. He struck the two Lions of God from Moab. He also went down and killed a lion in the middle of a cistern on a snowy day.",
      "21": "He killed an impressive Egyptian, who was armed with a spear. Benaiah went down against him with a staff, snatched the spear from the hand of the Egyptian, and killed him with his own spear.",
      "22": "These were the accomplishments of Benaiah son of Jehoiada. His reputation equaled that of the Three.",
      "23": "He was praised more than the Thirty, but he did not belong to the Three. David placed him over his bodyguard.",
      "24": "Among the Thirty were:\nAsahel, the brother of Joab,\nElhanan son of Dodo from Bethlehem,",
      "25": "Shammah the Harodite,\nElika the Harodite,",
      "26": "Helez the Paltite,\nIra son of Ikkesh from Tekoa,",
      "27": "Abiezer from Anathoth,\nMebunnai the Hushathite,",
      "28": "Zalmon the Ahohite,\nMaharai the Netophathite,",
      "29": "Heleb son of Ba’anah the Netophathite,\nIttai son of Ribai from Gibeah in Benjamin,",
      "30": "Benaiah a Pirathonite,\nHiddai from the ravines of Ga’ash,",
      "31": "Abi-Albon the Arbathite,\nAzmaveth the Barhumite,",
      "32": "Eliahba the Sha’albonite,\nthe sons of Jashen,\nJehonathan,",
      "33": "Shammah the Hararite,\nAhiam son of Sharar the Ararite,",
      "34": "Eliphelet son of Ahasbai\nthe son of the Ma’akathite,\nEliam son of Ahithophel the Gilonite,",
      "35": "Hezro the Carmelite,\nPa’arai the Arbite,",
      "36": "Igal son of Nathan from Zobah,\nBani the Gadite,",
      "37": "Zelek the Ammonite,\nNaharai of Be’eroth, the armor bearer of Joab son of Zeruiah,",
      "38": "Ira the Ithrite,\nGareb the Ithrite,",
      "39": "Uriah the Hittite.\nIn all there were thirty-seven."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "The anger of the Lord burned against Israel again, and he incited David against them so that he said, “Go count Israel and Judah.”",
      "2": "The king said to Joab, the commander of his army, “Travel through all the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and register the fighting men. Then I will know how many there are.”",
      "3": "Joab said to the king, “The Lord your God will make the people a hundred times larger, however many they may be, and the eyes of my lord the king will see it. But why does my lord the king have such a strong desire to do this?”",
      "4": "But the word of the king overruled Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to register Israel.",
      "5": "They crossed the Jordan and camped in Aroer on the south side of the city that is in the middle of the canyon. Next they went to Gad and then to Jazer.",
      "6": "Then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi. After that, they came to Dan Ja’an and around to Sidon.",
      "7": "Then they came to the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites. After that they went out to the Negev of Judah at Beersheba.",
      "8": "So they went throughout all the land, and then came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.",
      "9": "Joab reported the numbers from the registration of the fighting men to the king. Israel had eight hundred thousand soldiers who could draw a sword. Judah had five hundred thousand men.",
      "10": "David had a guilty conscience after he had counted the fighting men. So David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But, Lord, please take away the guilt of your servant, because I have acted very foolishly.”",
      "11": "When David got up in the morning, the word of the Lord came to Gad the prophet, David’s seer. The Lord said,",
      "12": "“Go tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says. I am laying out three choices before you. Choose one of them for yourself, and I will carry it out against you.’”",
      "13": "So Gad went to David and told him about this. He said, “Shall seven years of famine in your land come upon you, or three months of fleeing with your enemies pursuing you, or three days of plague in your land? Now consider this and decide what answer I should return to the one who sent me.”",
      "14": "David said to Gad, “This puts me in a difficult position. Please! Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great. But do not let me fall into the hands of man.”",
      "15": "So the Lord sent a plague against Israel from the next morning until the appointed time. Seventy thousand people from Dan to Beersheba died.",
      "16": "The angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, but the Lord relented and did not bring the disaster. He said to the angel who was carrying out the destruction among the people, “Enough. Now hold back your hand.”\nThe angel of the Lord was near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.",
      "17": "David said to the Lord, as he was watching the angel striking the people, “Look! I am the one who sinned. I am guilty. But these sheep—what have they done? Please! Let your hand be against me and against the house of my father.”",
      "18": "Gad came to David on that day and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”",
      "19": "So David went up and obeyed Gad’s instructions as the Lord had commanded.",
      "20": "Araunah looked up and saw the king and his servants coming toward him. So Araunah went out and bowed down to the king with his face to the ground,",
      "21": "and he said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”\nDavid said, “To purchase the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the Lord, so the plague will be held back from the people.”",
      "22": "Araunah said to David, “My lord the king can take it and offer whatever seems good to him. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, as well as the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood.",
      "23": "O King, Araunah is giving all this to the king.” Araunah also said to the king, “The Lord your God will accept you.”",
      "24": "But the king said to Araunah, “No. I insist on purchasing it from you for what it is worth. I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that I did not pay for.”\nSo David purchased the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.",
      "25": "He built an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings there. The Lord heard the requests for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel."
    }
  },
  "1 Kings": {
    "1": {
      "1": "When King David was old and advanced in years, his servants covered him with blankets, but he could not get warm.",
      "2": "So they said to him, “Let your servants search for a young woman, a virgin, for my lord the king. She will attend to the king and be his nurse. She will lie close to him and keep my lord the king warm.”",
      "3": "So they searched the whole territory of Israel for a beautiful young woman. They found Abishag from Shunem and brought her to the king.",
      "4": "The young woman was very beautiful, and she served as the king’s nurse, but the king was not intimate with her.",
      "5": "Adonijah son of Haggith was pushing himself forward, saying, “I will become king.” He obtained a chariot and charioteers and fifty men to run ahead of him.",
      "6": "His father had never rebuked him by saying, “Why are you acting like this?”\nAdonijah also was very handsome and had been born next in line after Absalom.",
      "7": "Joab son of Zeruiah and Abiathar the priest conspired with Adonijah and gave him their support.",
      "8": "But Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, along with Shimei, Rei, and David’s elite warriors, did not join with Adonijah.",
      "9": "Adonijah sacrificed sheep, cattle, and specially fattened calves at the Stone of Zoheleth, which was near En Rogel Spring. He invited all of his brothers, the king’s sons, and all of the king’s officials from Judah.",
      "10": "But he did not invite the prophet Nathan, Benaiah, the elite warriors, or his brother Solomon.",
      "11": "Nathan said to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, “Haven’t you heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king, and our lord David does not know about it?",
      "12": "Now let me give you some advice on how to save your life and the life of your son Solomon:",
      "13": "Go to King David and say to him, ‘My lord the king, didn’t you swear to me your servant and promise me, “Your son Solomon will be king after me, and he will sit on my throne”? Then why has Adonijah become king?’",
      "14": "Then, while you are still there speaking with the king, I will come in after you and confirm your words.”",
      "15": "So Bathsheba went to the king in his chamber. The king was very old, and Abishag from Shunem was taking care of him.",
      "16": "Bathsheba knelt and bowed down before the king. The king said, “Why have you come?”",
      "17": "She said, “My lord, you swore to your servant by the Lord your God and promised, ‘Your son Solomon will be king after me, and he will sit on my throne.’",
      "18": "But now, look, Adonijah has become king, and you, my lord the king, did not know about it.",
      "19": "He has sacrificed cattle, specially fattened calves, and sheep in abundance. He has invited all the king’s sons, as well as Abiathar the priest and Joab the commander of the army. But he has not invited your servant Solomon.",
      "20": "Now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are upon you, waiting for you to tell them who will sit on my lord the king’s throne after him.",
      "21": "If you do not, when my lord the king rests with his fathers, then I and my son Solomon will be treated like traitors.”",
      "22": "Just then, while she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet came in.",
      "23": "The king was told, “The prophet Nathan is here.” Nathan went in and bowed down to the ground before the king.",
      "24": "Nathan said, “Did you, my lord the king, say, ‘Adonijah will be king after me, and he will sit on my throne’?",
      "25": "Today he has gone out and sacrificed a great many cattle, specially fattened calves, and sheep. He has invited all the king’s sons, the commanders of the army, and Abiathar the priest. They are even eating and drinking with him and saying, ‘Long live King Adonijah!’",
      "26": "But he has not invited me your servant, Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, or your servant Solomon.",
      "27": "Has this command about who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him really come from my lord the king, even though you have not made this known to your servants?”",
      "28": "Then King David responded, “Call Bathsheba for me.” She came in and stood before the king.",
      "29": "The king swore, “As surely as the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life from every tight spot,",
      "30": "just as I swore to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, that Solomon your son will be king after me and he will sit on my throne in my place, I will indeed make it happen this very day.”",
      "31": "Bathsheba knelt down on the ground and bowed before the king and said, “May my lord King David live forever!”",
      "32": "King David said, “Call in Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada.” So they came in before the king.",
      "33": "The king said to them, “Take your lord’s servants with you. Have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon Spring.",
      "34": "There Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet are to anoint him as king over Israel. Then you are to blow the ram’s horn and say, ‘Long live King Solomon!’",
      "35": "Then you are to follow him, as he goes in and sits on my throne, and he will be king in my place. I decree that he will be leader over Israel and Judah.”",
      "36": "Then Benaiah son of Jehoiada responded to the king, “Amen! May the Lord, the God of my lord the king, confirm this!",
      "37": "Just as the Lord was with my lord the king, so may he also be with Solomon. May he make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David!”",
      "38": "So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites, and the Pelethites went out. They had Solomon ride on the mule that belonged to King David and brought him down to Gihon Spring.",
      "39": "Then Zadok the priest took the horn of olive oil from the Tent and anointed Solomon. After that they blew the ram’s horn, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!”",
      "40": "All the people followed Solomon. The people were playing flutes and rejoicing so greatly that the ground shook from the sound.",
      "41": "When Adonijah and all his guests heard it, they stopped eating. Joab heard the sound of the ram’s horn and asked, “Why is the noise from the city so loud?”",
      "42": "Just then, while he was still speaking, Jonathan, son of Abiathar the priest, came in. Adonijah said, “Come in, for you are a worthy man, and you must be bringing good news.”",
      "43": "Jonathan responded to Adonijah:\nNot at all! Our lord King David has made Solomon king!",
      "44": "The king sent Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites, and the Pelethites with Solomon, and they placed him on the king’s mule.",
      "45": "Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed him as king at Gihon, and they went up from there rejoicing. The city is in an uproar. That is the noise you have been hearing.",
      "46": "Also, Solomon has taken his seat on the throne of the kingdom.",
      "47": "The king’s servants have come to bless our lord King David, saying, “May your God treat the name of Solomon even more favorably than your name, and may his throne be greater than your throne.”\nThe king bowed in worship on his bed,",
      "48": "and the king spoke the following words: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who today has provided someone to sit upon my throne and has permitted my eyes to see it.”",
      "49": "Then all of Adonijah’s guests quickly got up, and each one went his own way.",
      "50": "Adonijah was afraid of Solomon, so he went and held on to the horns of the altar.",
      "51": "Solomon was told, “Adonijah is so afraid of King Solomon that he has grabbed the horns of the altar, and he is saying, ‘Let King Solomon swear to me this day that he will not kill his servant with the sword.’”",
      "52": "Solomon said, “If he is a worthy man, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, but if he is caught planning evil, he will die.”",
      "53": "Then King Solomon had Adonijah brought down from the altar. He came in and bowed down to King Solomon, and Solomon told him, “Go to your house.”"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "The day of David’s death was approaching, so he gave the following commands to his son Solomon:",
      "2": "I am about to go the way of all the earth. Now, be strong and act like a man!",
      "3": "Fulfill your duties to the Lord your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his statutes, his commands, his ordinances, and his decrees as they are written in the Law of Moses, so that you may have success in everything you do and everywhere you turn,",
      "4": "in order that the Lord may keep this word that he spoke to me: “If your sons are careful to walk before me faithfully with their whole heart and soul, then you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.”",
      "5": "Furthermore, you know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me—what he did to two commanders of the army of Israel, to Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. He killed them, spilling blood in peacetime as if it were happening in war. He spattered that blood on the belt around his waist and on the sandals on his feet, as if it were war.",
      "6": "Deal with him according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray hair go down to the grave in peace.",
      "7": "Keep faith with the sons of Barzillai from Gilead, and let them eat at your table, because they did the same for me when I fled from your brother Absalom.",
      "8": "Watch out for Shimei son of Gera from Bahurim of the tribe of Benjamin, since he is still with you. He cursed me bitterly on the day I went to Mahanaim. But when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord, “I will not kill you with the sword.”",
      "9": "But now, do not leave him unpunished, for you are a wise man. You will know what you should do to him. Bring his gray hair down to the grave in blood.",
      "10": "David rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David.",
      "11": "David was king over Israel for forty years. He was king in Hebron for seven years, and he was king in Jerusalem for thirty-three years.",
      "12": "Solomon was seated on the throne of his father David, and his kingship was firmly established.",
      "13": "Adonijah son of Haggith came to Solomon’s mother Bathsheba. She said to him, “Do you come in peace?”\n“Yes, in peace,” he answered.",
      "14": "Then he said, “May I have a word with you?”\nShe said, “Yes. Speak up.”",
      "15": "He said, “You know that the kingship was mine, and all Israel looked for me to be king. But things changed, and the kingship went to my brother instead, because the Lord gave it to him.",
      "16": "But now, I am asking you for one request. Do not turn me away.”\nShe said, “Tell me what it is.”",
      "17": "He said, “Ask King Solomon (for he will not turn you down) to give me Abishag from Shunem as my wife.”",
      "18": "Bathsheba said, “Very well, I will speak to the king for you.”",
      "19": "So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. The king met her and bowed down to her. Then he sat on his throne and also set up a throne for the king’s mother, and she sat at his right hand.",
      "20": "She said, “I am asking you for one small request. Do not turn me down.”\nThe king answered her, “Ask, mother, for I will not turn you down.”",
      "21": "She said, “Please give Abishag from Shunem to your brother Adonijah as his wife.”",
      "22": "King Solomon answered his mother, “Why do you ask for Abishag from Shunem to be given to Adonijah? You might as well ask for the kingship for him. After all, he is my brother, my older brother! Yes, request it for him and for Abiathar the priest and for Joab son of Zeruiah!”",
      "23": "Then King Solomon swore by the Lord, “May God punish me severely and double it, if Adonijah does not pay with his life for this request that he has made!",
      "24": "Now, as surely as the Lord lives, who has appointed me and seated me on the throne of my father David and has established my house just as he said he would, Adonijah will die today!”",
      "25": "Then King Solomon gave an order to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and he struck down Adonijah and killed him.",
      "26": "To Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go to your estate in Anathoth because you deserve to die. But I will not kill you today because you carried the Ark of the Lord God before my father David and because you shared in all my father’s sufferings.”",
      "27": "So Solomon drove Abiathar out from serving as priest for the Lord to fulfill the word of the Lord which had been spoken against the house of Eli in Shiloh.",
      "28": "When the news reached Joab, he fled to the Tent of the Lord and held on to the horns of the altar, for he had supported Adonijah, although he had not supported Absalom.",
      "29": "When King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the Tent of the Lord and that he was there by the side of the altar, Solomon sent word to ⎣Joab, saying, “What happened to you that caused you to flee to the altar?” Joab said, “Because I was afraid of you, I fled to the Lord.” So Solomon sent word to⎦ Benaiah son of Jehoiada, “Go! Strike him down!”",
      "30": "Benaiah went to the Tent of the Lord and called to Joab, “The king says, ‘Come out!’”\nJoab answered, “No. I will die here.”\nSo Benaiah reported back to the king, “This is what Joab said, and this is how I responded.”",
      "31": "The king said to him, “Do just as he said. Strike him dead and bury him. Remove from me and from my father’s house the blood that Joab shed without cause.",
      "32": "The Lord has brought the blood he shed back on his own head, because he struck down two men who were more righteous and better than he was. He killed them with the sword, but my father David did not know about it. The blood of Abner son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah,",
      "33": "has come back on Joab’s head and on the heads of his descendants forever. But for David and his descendants and his house and his throne, there will be peace forever from the Lord.”",
      "34": "So Benaiah son of Jehoiada went up and struck him down and killed him. He buried him at his house in the wilderness.",
      "35": "Then the king put Benaiah son of Jehoiada in Joab’s place over the army. He placed Zadok the priest into Abiathar’s position.",
      "36": "The king summoned Shimei and said to him, “Build a house for yourself in Jerusalem and live there. Do not go out of the city—ever!",
      "37": "On the day you go out and cross the Kidron Valley, you can be sure that you will die. Your blood will be on your own head.”",
      "38": "Shimei said to the king, “Your decision is good. Your servant will do just as my lord the king has said.” So Shimei lived in Jerusalem for some time.",
      "39": "At the end of three years, two of Shimei’s slaves fled to Achish son of Ma’akah, the king of Gath. Shimei was told, “Listen! Your slaves are in Gath.”",
      "40": "So Shimei saddled his donkey and went to Achish of Gath to look for his slaves. Then he brought them back from Gath.",
      "41": "Solomon was told that Shimei had left Jerusalem and had gone to Gath and returned.",
      "42": "The king summoned Shimei and said to him, “Did I not swear to you by the Lord and warn you that you could be sure that on the day you dared to go out of Jerusalem you would die? And didn’t you answer me, ‘Your decision is good. I have heard what you said’?",
      "43": "Why then did you not keep your oath to the Lord and obey the command I gave you?”",
      "44": "The king also said to Shimei, “In your heart you know all the evil that you did to my father David. Now the Lord has brought your evil back on your own head.",
      "45": "Now may King Solomon be blessed, and may David’s throne be firmly established before the Lord forever.”",
      "46": "Then the king gave a command to Benaiah son of Jehoiada. He went out and struck down Shimei and killed him. In this way the kingship was firmly established in the hands of Solomon."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Solomon had made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt. He married Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into the City of David until he had finished building his own house, the Lord’s house, and the wall around Jerusalem.",
      "2": "The people were still offering sacrifices at the high places because a house for the Name of the Lord had not yet been built in those days.",
      "3": "Solomon loved the Lord, so he followed the instructions of his father David, though he was still offering sacrifices and burning incense at the high places.",
      "4": "So the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, because it was the most important high place. Solomon offered one thousand whole burnt offerings on that altar.",
      "5": "The Lord appeared to Solomon in Gibeon in a dream at night.\nGod said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”",
      "6": "Solomon said, “You have shown great mercy and faithfulness to your servant, my father David, just as he walked before you in truth, righteousness, and uprightness of heart toward you. You have shown this great mercy and faithfulness to him and have given him a son who is seated on his throne to this very day.",
      "7": "O Lord my God, now you have made your servant king in the place of my father David, but I am a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in.",
      "8": "And I, your servant, am among your people whom you have chosen, a great people, who cannot be counted or numbered because they are so many.",
      "9": "Now give to your servant a perceptive heart to judge your people, to distinguish between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours?”",
      "10": "In the eyes of the Lord, Solomon’s request was good.",
      "11": "So God said to him, “Because you have asked for this, and you have not asked for a long life, nor have you asked for riches, nor have you asked for the lives of your enemies, but you have asked for discernment to reach just verdicts,",
      "12": "therefore I will act according to your words. Yes, I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you before you, nor will anyone like you rise up after you.",
      "13": "In addition, I will give you what you have not asked for: such riches and honor that there will not be anyone like you among the other kings throughout all your days.",
      "14": "If you walk in my ways by keeping my statutes and commands just as your father David did, then I will give you a long life.”",
      "15": "Then Solomon woke up and realized it was a dream. So Solomon went to Jerusalem and stood before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. He offered whole burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and he made a feast for all his officials.",
      "16": "Later, two prostitutes came and stood before the king.",
      "17": "One woman said, “Hear me, my lord! This woman and I live in the same house. While she was living in the house, I gave birth.",
      "18": "Three days after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. We were together. There was no one else in the house with us. Only the two of us were there.",
      "19": "One night this woman’s son died because she lay on top of him.",
      "20": "Then she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while I, your servant, was sleeping. She laid him next to her, and her dead son she laid next to me.",
      "21": "When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, there he was—dead! But when I examined him closely in the morning, I saw it was not my son, to whom I had given birth!”",
      "22": "But the other woman said, “No! The living child is really my son, and your son is the dead one!”\nBut the first one kept saying, “No! Your son is really the dead one, and my son is the living one!” They kept arguing like this before the king.",
      "23": "The king said, “This woman says, ‘My son is the living one, and your son is the dead one.’ But this other woman says, ‘No, your son is really the dead one, and my son is the living one.’”",
      "24": "So the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword to the king.",
      "25": "Then the king said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to this woman and half to that woman.”",
      "26": "But the woman to whom the living child belonged spoke up, because her feelings for her son were very strong. She said, “Listen to me, my lord. Give her the living child. Please don’t kill him.”\nBut the other woman said, “He will be neither mine nor yours. Cut him in two!”",
      "27": "The king answered, “Give the living child to the first woman, and do not kill him. She is his mother.”",
      "28": "All Israel heard about the judgment which the king had rendered. They were filled with awe in his presence, because they saw that God’s wisdom was in him to administer justice."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "So King Solomon ruled over all Israel.",
      "2": "These were his officials:\nAzariah son of Zadok was the priest.",
      "3": "Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, were the secretaries.\nJehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the record keeper.",
      "4": "Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the army.\nZadok and Abiathar were priests.",
      "5": "Azariah son of Nathan was supervisor over the governors.\nZabud son of Nathan, a priest, was the king’s personal advisor.",
      "6": "Ahishar was the palace administrator,\nand Adoniram son of Abda was in charge of forced labor.",
      "7": "Solomon had twelve governors, who were over all Israel. They supplied provisions for the king and for his palace. Each of them was assigned one month of the year during which he was responsible for supplying provisions.",
      "8": "These were their names:\nBen Hur in the hill country of Ephraim,",
      "9": "Ben Deker in Makaz and in Sha’albim, Beth Shemesh, and\nElon Beth Hanan,",
      "10": "Ben Hesed in Arubboth (Sokoh and all the land of Hepher were his),",
      "11": "Ben Abinadad in all the heights of Dor (Taphath daughter of\nSolomon was his wife),",
      "12": "Ba’ana son of Ahilud in Ta’anach and Megiddo, and in all Beth\nShan, which is beside Zarethan, below Jezre’el, from Beth Shan to\nAbel Meholah, up to the other side of Jokmeam,",
      "13": "Ben Geber in Ramoth Gilead (the villages of Jair son of Manasseh\nin Gilead belonged to him, and the region of Argob in Bashan\nbelonged to him, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars),",
      "14": "Ahinadab son of Iddo in Mahanaim,",
      "15": "Ahima’az in Naphtali (he was married to Solomon’s\ndaughter Basemath),",
      "16": "Ba’ana son of Hushai in Asher and in Be’aloth,",
      "17": "Jehoshaphat son of Paruah in Issachar,",
      "18": "Shimei son of Ela in Benjamin,",
      "19": "Geber son of Uri in the land of Gilead (this included the land of both\nSihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan, but there was\nonly one governor for that land).",
      "20": "Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea. They were eating, drinking, and rejoicing.",
      "21": "Solomon was ruling all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, up to the border of Egypt. They sent tribute and workers to Solomon all the days of his life.",
      "22": "Solomon’s provisions for one day were one hundred eighty bushels of fine flour and three hundred sixty bushels of plain flour,",
      "23": "ten stall-fed cattle, twenty pasture-fed cattle, and one hundred sheep, not to mention deer, gazelle, roebucks, and fattened poultry.",
      "24": "Since Solomon was ruling over everything west of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kingdoms west of the River, he had peace on all sides.",
      "25": "Judah and Israel lived in safety, with every man sitting under his own vine and fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba, throughout Solomon’s days.",
      "26": "Solomon had four thousand teams of horses for his chariots and twelve thousand charioteers.",
      "27": "His governors supplied provisions for King Solomon and for all those who gathered at King Solomon’s table. Each governor was responsible for one month, so the court lacked nothing.",
      "28": "They brought the barley and straw for the horses and steeds to the location assigned to each one of them.",
      "29": "God gave Solomon wisdom and very great understanding and breadth of knowledge like the sand on the seashore.",
      "30": "Solomon’s wisdom was greater than all the wisdom of the men of the East and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.",
      "31": "He was wiser than any man, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, wiser than Heman, Kalkol, or Darda, the sons of Mahol. His name was known in all the surrounding nations.",
      "32": "He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered one thousand and five.",
      "33": "He spoke about trees, from the cedars of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He also spoke about animals, birds, reptiles and other crawling things, and fish.",
      "34": "From all the peoples and from all the kings of the earth who heard about Solomon’s wisdom, people came to listen to his wisdom."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon because he heard that Solomon had been anointed king in his father’s place, and because Hiram had been a dear friend of David all his days.",
      "2": "Solomon sent the following message to Hiram.",
      "3": "You know that my father David was not able to build a house for the Name of the Lord his God, because of the wars that swirled around him until the Lord put his enemies under the soles of his feet.",
      "4": "But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side. I have no adversary and face no dangerous situations.",
      "5": "Listen to this! I intend to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God, just as the Lord told my father, “Your son, whom I will put on your throne in your place, will build the house for my Name.”",
      "6": "Now give the order to cut cedar logs for me from Lebanon. My servants will work with your servants, and I will reimburse you whatever you specify as the pay for your servants, for you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut lumber like the Sidonians.",
      "7": "When Hiram heard Solomon’s words, he was very happy and he said:\nBlessed be the Lord this day because he has given David a wise son to rule over this great people.",
      "8": "So Hiram sent word to Solomon:\nI have heard the message you sent me. I will provide all the cedar and fir logs that you desire.",
      "9": "My servants will bring the logs down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will put them into the sea as rafts and float them to the place that you tell me. Then we will dismantle them there, and you can transport them up from there. In exchange, you will provide all the food I desire for my palace.",
      "10": "So Hiram gave Solomon all the cedar and fir that he desired.",
      "11": "In return, Solomon gave Hiram one hundred twenty thousand bushels of wheat as provisions for his palace and one hundred twenty thousand gallons of beaten olive oil. Solomon gave this amount to Hiram every year.",
      "12": "The Lord gave wisdom to Solomon just as he had promised him, so there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and they made a treaty.",
      "13": "King Solomon drafted a labor force from all over Israel. It numbered thirty thousand men.",
      "14": "He sent ten thousand men per month to Lebanon in shifts. They would spend one month in Lebanon. Then for two months they would be at home. Adoniram was in charge of this forced labor.",
      "15": "Solomon had seventy thousand men to transport materials and eighty thousand men to quarry stones in the mountains,",
      "16": "not counting the officials who were overseeing the work for Solomon. There were thirty-three hundred men supervising the people who were doing the work.",
      "17": "The king gave a command, and they quarried large, high-quality stones to serve as a foundation for the temple building, which was made of trimmed stones.",
      "18": "Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the men from Gebal cut and prepared the wood and stones to construct the temple building."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "In the four hundred eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, during the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month named Ziv, which is the second month, Solomon began to build the house for the Lord.",
      "2": "The house which King Solomon built for the Lord was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high.",
      "3": "The porch in front of the temple building was thirty feet wide, the same as the width of the building. It extended out fifteen feet from the front of the building.",
      "4": "He made latticed windows high on the walls of the building.",
      "5": "He added a structure along the outer walls of the building, all the way around the three sides of the building. It was built against the walls of both the front room and the inner room of the sanctuary. In this structure he constructed three levels of storage rooms, all the way around the building.",
      "6": "The width of the rooms on the lowest story was seven and a half feet. The rooms of the middle story were nine feet wide, and the rooms of the third story were ten and a half feet wide, because he had built three receding ledges into the outside wall of the temple building all the way around, so that the floor beams of each story would not have to be inserted into the walls of the main building.",
      "7": "While the building was under construction, only stones that had been finished at the quarry were used in the building. No hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the building while it was under construction.",
      "8": "The entrance into the lowest story of the side rooms was on the south side of the building. Winding stairs went up to the middle floor, and also from the middle floor to the third floor.",
      "9": "So Solomon finished building the house, and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar.",
      "10": "He built the floors for the storerooms that were all around the house. Each story was seven and a half feet high. Each story was supported by cedar timbers which rested on the receding ledges constructed along the walls of the building.",
      "11": "The word of the Lord came to Solomon. He said,",
      "12": "“In regard to this house which you are building, if you walk according to my statutes and carry out my ordinances and keep all my commands by walking according to them, you will be the one through whom I will fulfill my promise which I spoke to your father David.",
      "13": "I will dwell among the descendants of Israel, and I will not forsake my people Israel.”",
      "14": "So Solomon finished building the house.",
      "15": "He paneled the inside walls of the building with cedar boards, from the floor of the building to the rafters of the ceiling. He covered the inside walls with wood. He also covered the floor of the building with boards of fir wood.",
      "16": "Thirty feet from the back wall of the building he built a wall of cedar boards from the floor to the ceiling. He built this wall inside the building to create an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.",
      "17": "The front part of the building became a main room sixty feet long.",
      "18": "Gourds and open flowers were carved into the cedar on the inside of the building. Everything was covered with cedar. No stone was visible.",
      "19": "He prepared the inner room of the sanctuary inside the building as a place to set the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.",
      "20": "The inner sanctuary was thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty feet high, and he overlaid it with pure gold.\nHe also overlaid the cedar altar with gold.",
      "21": "So Solomon covered the inside of the building with pure gold. He stretched gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid the sanctuary with gold.",
      "22": "He overlaid the whole building with gold, until the whole building had been covered. He also overlaid the whole altar, which was in front of the inner sanctuary, with gold.",
      "23": "For the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood. Each one was fifteen feet tall.",
      "24": "Seven and a half feet was the length of one wing of a cherub, and seven and a half feet was the length of the other wing of a cherub. The distance from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other was fifteen feet.",
      "25": "The other cherub also was fifteen feet wide. Both of the cherubim were the same size and looked the same.",
      "26": "One cherub was fifteen feet tall, and so was the other cherub.",
      "27": "He set the cherubim inside the inner sanctuary of the house. The wings of the cherubim were stretched out, so that the outer wing of the first one touched the wall, and the outer wing of the other cherub touched the opposite wall, and their wings touched one another in the middle of the room.",
      "28": "He overlaid the cherubim with gold.",
      "29": "He decorated the walls on all sides of both rooms of the building with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.",
      "30": "He overlaid the floor of the building with gold in both the inner and outer rooms.",
      "31": "For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, he made olive wood doors with five-sided frames.",
      "32": "He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold. He shaped sheets of hammered gold to cover the cherubim and the palm trees.",
      "33": "He did the same for the entrance to the front room. It had door posts of olive wood that were four-sided",
      "34": "and two doors of fir wood. The door on one side was made with two folding leaves, and the door on the other side was made with two folding leaves.",
      "35": "He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers on them, and he overlaid them with gold leaf, shaped to the carvings.",
      "36": "He built the inner courtyard with three courses of cut stone and one course of cedar beams.",
      "37": "The foundation of the Lord’s house was laid in the fourth year, in the month named Ziv.",
      "38": "In the eleventh year, in the month named Bul, which is the eighth month, all the parts of the house were finished according to all its specifications. Solomon had spent seven years building it."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "It took Solomon thirteen years to finish building his whole palace complex.",
      "2": "He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon. It was one hundred fifty feet long. It was seventy-five feet wide and forty-five feet high. It had four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams on top of the pillars.",
      "3": "It was roofed with cedar above the forty-five beams that rested on the pillars, fifteen beams in each row.",
      "4": "There were three rows of windows with recessed frames on each side of the building.",
      "5": "All the doors and posts were made with square beams. They were arranged in groups of three.",
      "6": "He built a pillared entry hall. It was seventy-five feet wide and forty-five feet deep. There was another porch in front of the pillars, and more pillars and a canopy in front of them.",
      "7": "He made another hall, named the Hall of Justice. The throne from which he judged cases was located there. The hall was covered with cedar from floor to ceiling.",
      "8": "His house in which he lived was made the same way. It was on the other side of a courtyard behind the Hall of Pillars. Solomon also made another house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.",
      "9": "All of these were made of high-quality stone, precisely cut to the exact measure, trimmed with saws on both sides. Such stones were used from the foundation to the edge of the roof, from the outside of the complex to the great courtyard on the inside.",
      "10": "The foundation was made of high-quality stones, huge stones, twelve or fifteen feet long.",
      "11": "Above this were high-quality stones, precisely cut, with layers of cedar wood in between.",
      "12": "The great courtyard all the way around had three courses of cut stone and then a course of cedar beams, like the inner courtyard of the House of the Lord and the porch of that building.",
      "13": "King Solomon sent for Hiram from Tyre.",
      "14": "He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, but his father was a craftsman in bronze from Tyre. Hiram too was filled with wisdom, understanding, and skill for all kinds of work in bronze. He came to King Solomon and performed the work for him.",
      "15": "He cast two bronze pillars, each twenty-seven feet tall. Their circumference was eighteen feet.",
      "16": "He made two capitals of cast bronze to set on top of the pillars. The height of one capital was seven and a half feet, and the height of the other capital was seven and a half feet.",
      "17": "The capitals that sat on top of the pillars were decorated with a latticework of interwoven chains. There were seven rows of decoration on one capital and seven rows on the other capital.",
      "18": "This is how he made the pillars: He made two rows of pomegranates to go above the latticework on the capitals that were on top of the pillars. He did this for each pillar.",
      "19": "The capitals that were on top of the pillars for the porch were shaped like lilies, six feet tall.",
      "20": "On top of each pillar, above the bulge, beside the latticework, there were two hundred pomegranates arranged in rows all the way around.",
      "21": "He set up the pillars on the porch of the temple building. He set up one pillar on the south and named it Jakin, and he set up the other pillar on the north and named it Boaz.",
      "22": "The tops of the pillars were shaped like lilies. In this way the work for the pillars was finished.",
      "23": "He made the sea of cast metal. It was round, fifteen feet from rim to rim. It was seven and a half feet high. Its circumference was forty-five feet.",
      "24": "Under its rim all the way around there were round, gourd-shaped ornaments, one every two inches, all the way around the sea. The ornaments were in two rows, cast as one piece with the sea.",
      "25": "The sea stood on twelve cattle, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The sea was set on them. All their hindquarters faced toward the center of the sea.",
      "26": "The sea was three inches thick. Its rim was shaped like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held twelve thousand gallons.",
      "27": "He made ten bronze carts. Each cart was six feet long and six feet wide and four and a half feet tall.",
      "28": "This is how the carts were constructed: They had side panels between supporting frames.",
      "29": "The panels between the frames were decorated with lions, cattle, and cherubim. On the frames, both above and below the lions and cattle, there were wreaths hanging down.",
      "30": "Each cart had four bronze wheels with bronze axles, and at each of the four corners of the cart there were supports for the basin, with wreaths beside each of them.",
      "31": "The opening on top of the cart within a crowning structure was a foot and a half deep. The opening was round. It had a supporting pedestal a little more than two feet tall. Around the opening there were engravings, and the panel that surrounded the opening was square, not round.",
      "32": "The four wheels were underneath the side panels, and the axles for the wheels were inserted through the cart. The height of each wheel was twenty-seven inches.",
      "33": "The wheels were made like a chariot wheel. Their axles, rims, spokes, and hubs were all of cast metal.",
      "34": "There were supports at each of the four corners of each cart. The supports were part of the cart itself.",
      "35": "In the top of the cart there was a round opening nine inches deep. On top of the cart the supports and its panels were one piece with it.",
      "36": "On the panels between the supports he engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees wherever there was room, with wreaths all around.",
      "37": "That is how he made the carts. All of them were cast with the same mold, so they had the same size and shape.",
      "38": "He made ten bronze basins. Each basin contained two hundred forty gallons. Each basin was six feet in diameter, and there was one basin for every one of the ten carts.",
      "39": "He placed five carts on the south side of the temple and five on the north side of the temple. He set the sea on the south side of the temple near the southeast corner.",
      "40": "Hiram made the basins, the shovels, and the sprinkling bowls.\nSo Hiram completed all the work that he had been assigned by King Solomon for the House of the Lord:",
      "41": "the two pillars, the two globe-shaped capitals on top of the pillars, the two latticeworks that covered the two globe-shaped capitals that were on top of the pillars,",
      "42": "the four hundred pomegranates for the two latticeworks (two rows of pomegranates for each latticework to cover the globe-shaped capitals that were on top of the pillars),",
      "43": "the ten carts, the ten basins on the carts,",
      "44": "the one sea, the twelve cattle under the sea,",
      "45": "the pots, the shovels, and the sprinkling bowls. All these items, which Hiram made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord, were burnished bronze.",
      "46": "The king had them cast in clay molds in the ground, in the plain of the Jordan, between Succoth and Zarethan.",
      "47": "Solomon did not weigh all the vessels, because there were so many of them. The weight of the bronze was never determined.",
      "48": "Solomon made all the furnishings that were in the House of the Lord: the gold altar and the table for the Bread of the Presence, which was also gold.",
      "49": "The lampstands were placed in front of the inner room of the sanctuary, five on the south side, and five on the north. They also were made of pure gold, as were the flowers, the lamps, and the gold tongs,",
      "50": "the basins, the snuffers, the sprinkling bowls, the small dishes, and the fire pans of pure gold, and the gold hinges, both those for the doors of the inner sanctuary, that is, the Most Holy Place, and also those for the doors of the front room.",
      "51": "In this way all the work that King Solomon did for the House of the Lord was finished. Solomon brought the things which David his father had dedicated, the silver, the gold, and the vessels, and put them in the treasuries of the House of the Lord."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, all the heads of tribes, and the leading fathers of the people of Israel to appear before him in Jerusalem, in order to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the City of David, that is, from Zion.",
      "2": "All the men of Israel assembled before King Solomon in the month of Ethanim, during the festival. It was the seventh month.",
      "3": "Then all the elders of Israel came, and the priests lifted up the ark.",
      "4": "They brought up the Ark of the Lord, the Tent of Meeting, and all the holy vessels which were in the tent. The priests and the Levites brought them up.",
      "5": "King Solomon, along with the whole congregation of Israel who had gathered with him in front of the ark, was sacrificing sheep and cattle, too many to be counted.",
      "6": "The priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, to the Most Holy Place, under the wings of the cherubim,",
      "7": "for the cherubim were spreading their wings over the place for the ark, so that the cherubim covered the ark and its poles with their wings.",
      "8": "The poles were so long that the ends of the poles could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from outside. They are there to this day.",
      "9": "There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets, which Moses had placed there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt.",
      "10": "When the priests came out from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the House of the Lord.",
      "11": "The priests were not able to take their positions to minister in the presence of the cloud, because the Glory of the Lord had filled the House of the Lord.",
      "12": "Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he dwells in thick darkness.",
      "13": "I have truly built a majestic house for you, a place for you to dwell forever.”",
      "14": "Then the king turned and blessed the whole congregation of Israel, while the whole congregation of Israel was standing there.",
      "15": "Then Solomon said:\nBlessed is the Lord, the God of Israel. What he said with his mouth to my father David, he has fulfilled with his hand.\nThe Lord said,",
      "16": "“From the day I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I did not choose a city from all the tribes of Israel in which to build a house for my Name to be there, ⎣nor did I choose any man to be a leader over my people Israel; but now I have chosen Jerusalem for my Name to be there,⎦ and I have chosen David to be over my people Israel.”",
      "17": "It was on my father David’s heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "18": "However, the Lord said to my father David, “It was on your heart to build a house for my Name. That was a good thing to desire.",
      "19": "But you will not build the house. Your son, who will come from your own body, will build the house for my Name.”",
      "20": "So the Lord kept his word which he had spoken, and I arose in the place of my father David. I am seated on the throne of Israel, just as the Lord said. I have built this house for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "21": "I have established a place there for the Ark, which contains the covenant of the Lord, which he made with our fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.",
      "22": "Then Solomon stood in front of the altar in the presence of the whole congregation of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven.",
      "23": "He said:\nO Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in the heavens above or on the earth below. You keep the covenant of mercy and faithfulness with your servants who walk before you with all their heart.",
      "24": "You have kept the word which you spoke to your servant, my father David. What you have said with your mouth you have fulfilled with your hand, as it is today.",
      "25": "Now, Lord God of Israel, guard for your servant, my father David, the promise you made to him when you said, “You will never fail to have a man sitting on the throne of Israel in my presence, if your sons guard their ways by walking in my law just as you have walked before me.”",
      "26": "Now, O God of Israel, let the words which you spoke to your servant, my father David, be confirmed.",
      "27": "But will God really dwell on the earth? In truth, the heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this house, which I have built!",
      "28": "But turn your face toward the prayer of your servant and toward his plea for mercy. O Lord my God, listen to the cry and the prayer which your servant offers before you today.",
      "29": "Let your eyes be open toward this house night and day, toward this place where you said, “My Name will be there,” to hear the prayer which your servant offers toward this place.",
      "30": "When you hear the plea for mercy of your servant and of your people Israel, which they pray toward this place, then hear in your dwelling place in heaven—hear and forgive.",
      "31": "When a man sins against his neighbor, and his neighbor places him under an oath, and the oath is presented before your altar in this house,",
      "32": "then hear from heaven and take action. Provide justice for your servants by declaring the wicked person guilty and bringing his ways down on his own head, and by declaring the righteous person innocent and dealing with him according to his righteousness.",
      "33": "When your people Israel are defeated by their enemies because they sinned against you, and when they return to you and praise your Name and pray and seek your favor in this house,",
      "34": "then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land which you gave to their fathers.",
      "35": "When the heavens are shut up, and there is no rain because they sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place, and they praise your Name and turn from their sin because you have humbled them,",
      "36": "then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Yes, teach them the good way in which they are to walk, and provide rain for the land which you gave to your people as an inheritance.",
      "37": "When there is famine in the land, when there is plague, when there is blight or mildew or locusts or grasshoppers, when their enemies are in the land besieging their gates, in every disease, in every sickness,",
      "38": "hear every prayer and every plea for mercy which any individual presents or which your whole people Israel presents. When each one knows the affliction of his own heart, when he spreads out his hands toward this house,",
      "39": "hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive. Then act and give to each person according to all his ways, because you know his heart (yes, you alone know the heart of every human being),",
      "40": "so that they may fear you all the days they live on the soil which you gave to our fathers.",
      "41": "Also for the foreigner, who is not one of your people Israel, but who comes from a distant land because of your Name",
      "42": "(for they will hear about your great Name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm, and they will come and pray toward this house),",
      "43": "for that foreigner, hear in heaven, which is your dwelling place, and do everything for which that foreigner cries out to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your Name and fear you, just as your people Israel do, and because they know that your Name is proclaimed in this house which I have built.",
      "44": "When your people go out for battle against their enemy on whatever way you send them, and when they pray to the Lord facing toward the city which you have chosen and toward the house which I have built for your Name,",
      "45": "then from heaven hear their prayer and their plea for mercy, and provide justice for them.",
      "46": "When they sin against you (for there is no one who does not sin) and you become angry with them, and you give them up to their enemies, and their captors exile them to an enemy land, whether distant or near,",
      "47": "when they are in the land where they were exiled and they turn their hearts back, and they repent and pray to you in the land of their exile and say, “We have sinned and become guilty and done evil,”",
      "48": "when they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies where they were exiled, and they pray in the direction of their land, which you gave to their fathers, toward the city which you chose and toward the house which I have built for your Name,",
      "49": "then hear their prayers and their plea for mercy from heaven, your dwelling place, and provide justice for them.",
      "50": "Pardon your people who have sinned against you and all their rebellious deeds that they have committed against you. Have compassion by causing their enemies to show them compassion.",
      "51": "For they are your people and your possession, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron-smelting furnace.",
      "52": "Let your eyes be open to the plea for mercy from your servant and to the plea for mercy from your people Israel. Hear them whenever they cry out to you.",
      "53": "For you singled them out for yourself as your possession from all the peoples of the earth, just as you said through Moses your servant when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.",
      "54": "When Solomon finished offering all these prayers and pleas for mercy to the Lord, he got up from the altar of the Lord, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven.",
      "55": "Then he stood and blessed the whole congregation of Israel with a loud voice:",
      "56": "Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel, just as he said he would. Not one word has failed from all his good words which he spoke through Moses his servant.",
      "57": "May the Lord our God be with us, just as he was with our fathers. May he never leave us or abandon us.",
      "58": "May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to listen to his commands, regulations, and ordinances, which he commanded to our fathers.",
      "59": "May these words which I have prayed before the Lord be near the Lord our God day and night so that he provides justice for his servant and for his people Israel forever,",
      "60": "so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God. There is no other.",
      "61": "May your hearts be fully committed to the Lord our God, in order to walk in his regulations and to keep his commands, just as is the case today.",
      "62": "Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord.",
      "63": "Solomon sacrificed fellowship offerings to the Lord: twenty-two thousand cattle and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the House of the Lord.",
      "64": "On that day the king consecrated the center of the courtyard which was in front of the House of the Lord, so that he could offer whole burnt offerings and grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings there, because the bronze altar which was before the Lord was too small to hold the whole burnt offerings and grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings.",
      "65": "At that time Solomon kept the festival, and all Israel kept the festival with him. They were a great congregation that had come from throughout the land, from Lebo Hamath to the Stream of Egypt before the Lord our God. ⎣⎦ The festival lasted seven days, and then seven days more, fourteen days in all.",
      "66": "On the eighth day he sent them home, and they blessed the king. Then they went home, and their hearts were glad because of all the good which the Lord had done for his servant David and for his people Israel."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "When Solomon had finished building the house for the Lord and the house for the king, and he had done all that he desired,",
      "2": "the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, just as he had appeared to him in Gibeon.",
      "3": "The Lord said to him:\nI have heard your prayer and the plea for mercy that you offered before me. I have consecrated this house, which you built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.",
      "4": "As for you, if you walk before me in purity of heart and with integrity as your father David did, so that you carry out everything that I command you, and you keep all my statutes and my ordinances,",
      "5": "then I will maintain your royal throne over Israel forever, just as I said to your father David, “You will not fail to have a man upon the throne of Israel.”",
      "6": "But if any of you or your sons turn away from me and do not keep my commands and statutes, which I set before you, but you serve other gods and bow down to them,",
      "7": "then I will cut off Israel from the face of the ground which I gave them. I will take my presence away from the house which I consecrated for my Name. Israel will become proverbial as an object of ridicule for all peoples.",
      "8": "Though this house is now exalted, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, “Why did the Lord do this to this land and to this house?”",
      "9": "They will reply, “Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods and worshipped and served them. That is why the Lord brought all this evil on them.”",
      "10": "At the end of twenty years, when Solomon had completed these two buildings, the house of the Lord and the house of the king,",
      "11": "King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee, because Hiram king of Tyre had been supplying Solomon with cedar and fir wood and with as much gold as he desired.",
      "12": "So Hiram left Tyre to see the towns which Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased.",
      "13": "He said, “What kind of towns are these towns which you have given me, my brother?” He called them the Land of Kabul, a name they have to this day.",
      "14": "Hiram had sent the king one hundred twenty talents of gold.",
      "15": "This is the account of the forced labor, which King Solomon raised to build the house for the Lord, his own house, the Millo, and the walls of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.",
      "16": "(Pharaoh king of Egypt had come up and captured Gezer. He burned it and killed the Canaanites who were living in the city. Then he gave it as a wedding present to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.)",
      "17": "So Solomon built Gezer, lower Beth Horon,",
      "18": "Baalath, Tadmor in the wilderness,",
      "19": "all of Solomon’s towns for storehouses, the towns for his chariots, the towns for charioteers, and everything Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land he ruled.",
      "20": "All the people who remained from the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not part of the people of Israel—",
      "21": "their descendants who remained in the land, whom the Israelites were not able to destroy completely—were drafted for forced labor by Solomon. They are serving right up to this day.",
      "22": "But Solomon did not press the people of Israel into service. Rather, they were his warriors, his government officials, his staff, his military officers, the commanders of his chariots, and his charioteers.",
      "23": "These were the officials who were overseeing Solomon’s work. Five hundred fifty officials were overseeing the people doing the work.",
      "24": "Pharaoh’s daughter moved up from the City of David to the house Solomon built for her. Then he built the Millo.",
      "25": "Three times a year Solomon offered whole burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar which he had built before the Lord, and he burned incense before the Lord. In this way he completed the temple.",
      "26": "King Solomon built a fleet at Ezion Geber, which is near Elat on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom.",
      "27": "Then, along with that fleet, Hiram sent his servants, men who worked on ships and who knew the sea, to serve with the servants of Solomon.",
      "28": "They went to Ophir, and they obtained four hundred twenty talents of gold there and brought it to King Solomon."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "The Queen of Sheba heard about Solomon’s fame, which was connected with the fame of the Lord, so she came to test him with hard questions.",
      "2": "She came to Jerusalem with a very great entourage—with camels carrying spices and a large quantity of gold and precious stones. She came to Solomon and told him everything that was on her heart.",
      "3": "Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her.",
      "4": "The Queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon, the house which he built,",
      "5": "and the food on his table. When she saw the council meeting of his officials, the careful attention of his ministers, as well as their attire, his cupbearers, and the whole burnt offerings which he offered at the House of the Lord, it took her breath away.",
      "6": "She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your accomplishments and your wisdom is true.",
      "7": "I did not believe the report until I came and saw it with my own eyes. The truth is, not even half of it was told to me! Your wisdom and wealth surpass the report which I heard.",
      "8": "Blessed are your men, blessed are your servants, who stand before you continually hearing your wisdom!",
      "9": "May the Lord your God be blessed, who was pleased to put you on the throne of Israel. Because the Lord loves Israel forever, he made you king to administer justice and righteousness.”",
      "10": "Then she gave the king one hundred twenty talents of gold and a great quantity of spices and many precious stones. There was never again anything comparable to the huge amount of spices and incense which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.",
      "11": "In addition, Hiram’s fleet brought gold from Ophir and a great quantity of almug wood and also precious stones.",
      "12": "The king made the almug wood into steps for the Lord’s house and for the house of the king, as well as lyres and harps for his singers. So much fine almug wood has never been brought or seen to this present day.",
      "13": "King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all she desired, whatever she asked for, besides what he had given to her from his royal resources. Then she and her servants returned to her country.",
      "14": "The weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was six hundred sixty-six talents,",
      "15": "not counting what he collected from merchants and traders and from all the Arabian kings and the governors of the land.",
      "16": "King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold. He put seven and a half pounds of gold into each large shield.",
      "17": "He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold. He put almost four pounds of gold into each small shield. The king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.",
      "18": "The king made a large ivory throne and overlaid it with fine gold.",
      "19": "There were six steps to the throne. The throne had a rounded back and armrests on either side of the seat. Two lions were standing beside the armrests.",
      "20": "Twelve lions were standing on the steps, one on each end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any kingdom.",
      "21": "All of Solomon’s drinking vessels were gold, and all of the utensils in the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. No silver was used, because it was considered of little value in Solomon’s days,",
      "22": "because Solomon’s merchant fleet was at sea with Hiram’s fleet, and once every three years the fleet returned, carrying gold and silver, ivory, monkeys, and peacocks.",
      "23": "King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and wisdom.",
      "24": "The whole world sought an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom which God put in his heart.",
      "25": "They each brought gifts: articles of gold and silver, clothing, scents, spices, horses and mules, year after year.",
      "26": "Solomon accumulated chariots and charioteers until he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand charioteers. He stationed them in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.",
      "27": "The king made silver as plentiful as stone in Jerusalem and cedar wood as abundant as sycamore trees in the Shephelah.",
      "28": "Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue. The king’s dealers bought them from Kue for the market price.",
      "29": "A chariot could be imported from Egypt for six hundred silver shekels and a horse for one hundred fifty. In this same way they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter, including Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites.",
      "2": "They came from the nations about which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You must not enter into marriage with them, and they must not enter into marriage with you, or they will turn your hearts after other gods.” Solomon clung to them in love.",
      "3": "He had seven hundred wives who held the rank of princess and three hundred concubines. So they turned his heart away.",
      "4": "When Solomon became old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, so that his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord as the heart of his father David had been.",
      "5": "Then Solomon followed Ashtarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the detestable god of the Ammonites.",
      "6": "So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not devote himself to the Lord as his father David had done.",
      "7": "Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab, on the hill east of Jerusalem and for Molek, the detestable god of the Ammonites.",
      "8": "He did the same for all his foreign wives, who were burning incense and making sacrifices to their gods.",
      "9": "So the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.",
      "10": "The Lord had given him the command not to follow other gods, but Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command.",
      "11": "So the Lord said to Solomon, “Because this is your attitude, and because you did not keep my covenant and my statutes which I commanded you, I will surely rip the kingdom out of your hands and give it to your servant.",
      "12": "However, I will not do it during your lifetime because of your father David. I will rip it from your son’s hand.",
      "13": "But I will not rip away the whole kingdom. One tribe I will give to your son for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”",
      "14": "Then the Lord raised up Hadad the Edomite, from the royal line of Edom, as an adversary for Solomon.",
      "15": "Earlier, while David was at war with Edom, when Joab the commander of the army went up to bury the dead, he struck down every male in Edom.",
      "16": "For six months Joab and all Israel stayed there until he exterminated every male in Edom.",
      "17": "But while Hadad was a young boy, he had fled with some Edomites from among his father’s servants to go to Egypt.",
      "18": "So they set out from Midian and went to Paran. They took some men with them from Paran and went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt. He gave Hadad a house and decreed an allowance of food for him and gave him land.",
      "19": "Hadad found great favor in the eyes of Pharaoh, so Pharaoh gave him the sister of his own wife, the sister of Queen Tahpenes, as his wife.",
      "20": "The sister of Tahpenes bore him a son named Genubath. Tahpenes weaned him in the house of Pharaoh, so Genubath was in the house of Pharaoh with Pharaoh’s own sons.",
      "21": "Later Hadad heard that David rested with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was dead. So Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Send me back to my own country.”",
      "22": "Pharaoh said to him, “What are you lacking here with me, so that you want to go back to your own country?”\nHe said, “Nothing, but please let me go.”",
      "23": "God also raised up another adversary for Solomon, Rezon son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, Hadadezer king of Zobah.",
      "24": "After David had destroyed Zobah’s army, Rezon gathered men around himself and was the commander of a band of raiders. They went to Damascus and lived there and ruled Damascus.",
      "25": "He was Israel’s adversary during all the days of Solomon, in addition to all the difficulties which Hadad caused. He was hostile to Israel, and he ruled over Aram.",
      "26": "Jeroboam son of Nebat was an Ephraimite from Zeredah. His mother’s name was Zeruah. She was a widow. Jeroboam was Solomon’s official, but he rebelled against the king.",
      "27": "This is the account of how he rebelled against the king.\nWhen Solomon was rebuilding the Millo and repairing the gap in the wall in the city of his father David,",
      "28": "Jeroboam showed that he was a very capable man. When Solomon saw that the young man was a capable worker, he appointed him over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph.",
      "29": "At that time, when Jeroboam left Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh met him on the road. Ahijah was wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone in the field.",
      "30": "Ahijah took the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces.",
      "31": "He told Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, because this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.”\nLook, I am tearing the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand, and I will give you ten tribes.",
      "32": "But one tribe will remain with him for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel.",
      "33": "This is because they have abandoned me and worshipped Ashtarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites. They have not walked in my ways by doing what is upright in my eyes and keeping my commands and judgments as his father David did.",
      "34": "I will not take the whole kingdom from his hand because I appointed him leader for all the days of his life for the sake of my servant David, whom I chose and who kept my commands and statutes.",
      "35": "However, I will take the kingdom from his son’s hand, and I will give ten tribes to you.",
      "36": "To his son I will give one tribe in order that there may be a lamp for my servant David before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name.",
      "37": "But I will take you, and you will be king over all that your soul desires. You will be king over Israel.",
      "38": "If you listen to all that I command you, and if you walk in my ways and do what is right in my eyes, keeping my decrees and my statutes, just as my servant David did, then I will be with you, and I will build an enduring house for you, just as I built for David. I will give Israel to you.",
      "39": "Now I will humble the seed of David because of this, but not forever.",
      "40": "As a result Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Shishak king of Egypt. He stayed in Egypt until Solomon died.",
      "41": "As for the rest of Solomon’s acts, everything he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon?",
      "42": "Solomon was king over all Israel in Jerusalem for forty years.",
      "43": "Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David, his father. His son Rehoboam ruled as king in his place."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Rehoboam went to Shechem, because all Israel had gone there to make him king.",
      "2": "When Jeroboam son of Nebat was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon, he heard about this, and he returned from Egypt.",
      "3": "So the people sent for him.\nThen Jeroboam and the entire assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam,",
      "4": "“Your father made our yoke heavy. Now lighten your father’s harsh service and the heavy yoke he laid on us, and we will serve you.”",
      "5": "Rehoboam said to them, “Leave me for three days and then return to me.” So the people left.",
      "6": "Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was alive. He asked, “What answer do you advise me to give to these people?”",
      "7": "They said to him, “If today you become a servant to this people—if you serve them and answer them with kind words—then they will be your servants for all time.”",
      "8": "But he rejected the advice which the old men offered him. Instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him.",
      "9": "He said to them, “What answer do you advise that we should give to these people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father laid on us’?”",
      "10": "The young men who had grown up with him said, “This is what you should say to this people who said to you, ‘Your father laid a heavy yoke on us. Now lighten our yoke.’ Tell them this: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.",
      "11": "My father imposed a heavy yoke on you. I will make your yoke heavier. My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.’”",
      "12": "So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, because the king had said, “Come back to me on the third day.”",
      "13": "The king answered the people harshly, because he had rejected the advice which the old men had offered.",
      "14": "He spoke to them as the young men advised him: “My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke. My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.”",
      "15": "The king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events was from the Lord, in order to fulfill his word, which the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah from Shiloh.",
      "16": "All Israel saw that the king had not listened to them. So the people answered the king:\nWhat share do we have in David?\nNo portion in the son of Jesse!\nTo your tents, Israel!\nNow look after your own house, David!\nSo Israel went to their tents.",
      "17": "Rehoboam continued to rule over the people of Israel who were living in the cities of Judah.",
      "18": "King Rehoboam sent out Adoram, who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, was able to get in his chariot to flee to Jerusalem.",
      "19": "So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David until this day.",
      "20": "When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. No tribe was left which followed the house of David, except the tribe of Judah alone.",
      "21": "When Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, he assembled the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand specially chosen soldiers, to fight against the house of Israel and to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.",
      "22": "But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God:",
      "23": "“Say the following to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin and to the rest of the people.",
      "24": "This is what the Lord says. Do not attack and do not fight against your brothers, the people of Israel. Go home, every one of you, for this turn of events is from me.”\nSo they listened to the word of the Lord, and they returned home, just as the Lord said.",
      "25": "But Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and he lived there. From there he also went out and fortified Penuel.",
      "26": "But Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingship will go back to the house of David.",
      "27": "If this people goes up to offer sacrifices at the House of the Lord in Jerusalem, then the hearts of the people will return to their master, Rehoboam king of Judah. Then they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”",
      "28": "After the king sought advice, he made two golden calves and said to the people, “Going up to Jerusalem is too much trouble for you. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!”",
      "29": "He set up one in Bethel and the other one in Dan.",
      "30": "This sin took hold, and the people traveled as far as Dan to worship.",
      "31": "Jeroboam also made shrines on the high places, and he appointed priests from all kinds of people, even though they were not Levites.",
      "32": "Jeroboam instituted a festival in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival that is held in Judah. He offered sacrifices on the altar. He did this in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. He appointed priests in Bethel for the high places he had made.",
      "33": "He instituted sacrifices on the altar which he had made in Bethel, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month which he chose on his own. He instituted a festival for the people of Israel. He went up to the altar to send offerings up in smoke."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "At that moment, by the word of the Lord, a man of God came from Judah to Bethel while Jeroboam was standing in front of the altar to send offerings up in smoke.",
      "2": "He cried out against the altar by the word of Lord, “Altar! Altar! This is what the Lord says. Listen! A son will be born to the house of David. Josiah will be his name. On you he will slaughter the priests of the high places, who are burning offerings on you, and human bones will be burned on you.”",
      "3": "On that day he gave them a sign: “This is the sign which the Lord announces: This very altar will be torn apart, and the ashes on it will be poured out.”",
      "4": "When King Jeroboam heard this message that the man of God had proclaimed against the altar at Bethel, he pointed at him from the altar and cried, “Seize him!” But the hand that the king pointed at the man withered, and he could not pull it back.",
      "5": "Then the altar was torn apart, and the ashes poured out from the altar in fulfillment of the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.",
      "6": "Then the king responded to the man of God, “Intercede before the Lord your God and pray on my behalf that my hand may be restored for me.” So the man of God interceded before the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored for him, so that it was like it had been before.",
      "7": "Then the king said to the man of God, “Come to the palace with me and eat something, and I will give you a gift.”",
      "8": "But the man of God said to the king, “Even if you gave me half your wealth, I would not go with you, and I would not eat bread or drink water in this place.",
      "9": "For this is what I was commanded by the word of the Lord: Do not eat bread and do not drink water, and do not return by the way you came.”",
      "10": "So he left by a different road. He did not go back the same way he had come to Bethel.",
      "11": "Another prophet, an old man, was living in Bethel. His sons came and told him everything that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also reported to their father the words he had spoken to the king.",
      "12": "Then their father said to them, “Which road did he take?” So his sons showed him the road which the man of God from Judah had taken.",
      "13": "He told his sons, “Saddle my donkey.” So they saddled his donkey, and he got on it.",
      "14": "He went after the man of God and found him sitting under a terebinth tree.\nHe said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?”\nHe answered, “I am.”",
      "15": "The old prophet said to him, “Come with me to my house and have something to eat.”",
      "16": "But he said, “No, I cannot return with you, or go with you, or eat bread and drink water with you in this place.",
      "17": "For I was told by the word of the Lord, ‘Do not eat bread and do not drink water there, and do not return by the same road you came on.’”",
      "18": "But the old prophet said to him, “I also am a prophet, just like you, and an angel told me by the word of the Lord, ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” But he was lying to him.",
      "19": "Then the man of God returned with him and ate bread in his house and drank water.",
      "20": "While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought the man of God back.",
      "21": "He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, saying, “This is what the Lord says. Because you have rebelled against the mouth of the Lord and have not obeyed the command which the Lord your God gave you,",
      "22": "but instead you came back and ate bread and drank water in the place about which he had told you, ‘Do not eat bread or drink water there,’ your corpse will not enter the tomb of your fathers.”",
      "23": "Then after he ate and drank, the old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back.",
      "24": "As the man of God went on his way, a lion attacked him and killed him. His corpse was left lying on the road, and his donkey remained standing next to it. The lion was also standing next to the corpse.",
      "25": "Then some men who were passing by saw the corpse lying on the road, and the lion was standing next to the corpse. They came and told the story in the city where the old prophet lived.",
      "26": "When the prophet who had brought the man of God back from his journey heard this, he said, “This is the man of God who rebelled against the mouth of the Lord. Now the Lord has given him to the lion. It mauled him and killed him according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to him.”",
      "27": "He said to his sons, “Saddle my donkey.” So they saddled it.",
      "28": "Then he went and found the corpse of the man of God lying on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside the corpse. The lion had not eaten the corpse nor had it mauled the donkey.",
      "29": "The old prophet picked up the corpse of the man of God, placed it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn and to bury it.",
      "30": "He laid the corpse in his own tomb, and they mourned over him, “Oh, my brother!”",
      "31": "After he had buried him, the old prophet said to his sons, “When I die and you bury me, lay my bones to rest beside the bones of the man of God, in the same tomb where he is buried.",
      "32": "For the message which he proclaimed by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines of the high places in the cities of Samaria will certainly come true.”",
      "33": "Even after this, Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but he continued to appoint all kinds of people as priests for the high places. He ordained anyone who wanted to be a priest for the high places.",
      "34": "This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam, which erased and exterminated it from the face of the earth."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "At that time, Jeroboam’s son Abijah became very sick.",
      "2": "So Jeroboam told his wife, “Go and disguise yourself so that you will not be recognized as Jeroboam’s wife. Then go to Shiloh. That is where the prophet Ahijah is. He is the one who told me that I would become king over this people.",
      "3": "Take with you ten loaves of bread, some baked goods, and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.”",
      "4": "So Jeroboam’s wife did as she was told. She went to Shiloh and came to Ahijah’s house. Now Ahijah was no longer able to see due to old age. His eyes stared straight ahead.",
      "5": "The Lord had told Ahijah, “Be ready! Jeroboam’s wife is coming to inquire from you about her son because he is seriously ill. When she comes, you will say this and this to her. But when she comes, she will be disguised.”",
      "6": "When Ahijah heard her footsteps as she came to the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you disguised? I am a messenger with bad news for you.",
      "7": "Go and tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.”\nI raised you up from among the people, and I appointed you leader over my people Israel.",
      "8": "I tore the kingdom from the house of David and gave it to you. But you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart by doing only what was right in my eyes.",
      "9": "You have done more evil than all those who came before you, and you have made for yourself other gods and images of cast metal, provoking me to anger. You threw me behind your back.",
      "10": "Therefore, listen to this! I myself will bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will exterminate everyone in Israel connected to Jeroboam, all those who urinate against the wall, both bound and free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as completely as manure is burned.",
      "11": "The dogs will eat those who belong to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds of the air will eat those who die in the country, because the Lord has spoken.",
      "12": "As for you, go home. As soon as your feet enter the city, the boy will die.",
      "13": "All Israel will mourn for him, and they will bury him. Indeed, from those who belong to Jeroboam he alone will be buried in a tomb, because in the house of Jeroboam some good is found in him before the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "14": "Then the Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will cut off the house of Jeroboam. This is the day. Indeed, it begins right now.",
      "15": "The Lord will strike Israel until it sways like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and he will scatter them beyond the River, because they made their Asherah poles, provoking the Lord to anger.",
      "16": "Yes, he will give Israel up because of the sins which Jeroboam himself committed and which he caused Israel to commit.",
      "17": "So Jeroboam’s wife got up, set out, and traveled to Tirzah. When she crossed the threshold of the house, the boy died.",
      "18": "They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke through his servant, the prophet Ahijah.",
      "19": "As for the rest of Jeroboam’s acts, the wars he fought and the way he ruled, you can find them written in the annals of the kings of Israel.",
      "20": "Jeroboam was king for twenty-two years. He rested with his fathers. Then his son Nadab became king in his place.",
      "21": "Meanwhile, Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his Name there. The name of Rehoboam’s mother was Na’amah the Ammonite.",
      "22": "Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and they provoked him to anger more than all their fathers had done with the sins that they committed.",
      "23": "They built for themselves high places, sacred memorial stones, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every leafy tree.",
      "24": "There were even male cult prostitutes in the land. They practiced all the abominations of the nations which the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel.",
      "25": "In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem.",
      "26": "He took the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields that Solomon had made.",
      "27": "So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them, and he entrusted them to the captains of the guard who were keeping watch at the entrance of the king’s palace.",
      "28": "Whenever the king went to the House of the Lord, the guards would carry the shields. Then the guards would return them to the armory.",
      "29": "As for the rest of Rehoboam’s acts and everything he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "30": "There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.",
      "31": "Rehoboam rested with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the City of David. The name of his mother was Na’amah the Ammonite. Then his son Abijam became king in his place."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah.",
      "2": "He ruled for three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Ma’akah, granddaughter of Abishalom.",
      "3": "He walked in all the sins which his father had practiced before him, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord as the heart of his grandfather David had been.",
      "4": "But for the sake of David, the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up his son after him and by making Jerusalem strong.",
      "5": "He did this because David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and he did not turn from all that the Lord commanded all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.",
      "6": "There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.",
      "7": "As for the rest of Abijam’s acts and everything he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah? There was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.",
      "8": "Abijam rested with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David. Then his son Asa became king in his place.",
      "9": "In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa king of Judah became king.",
      "10": "He ruled for forty-one years in Jerusalem. His grandmother’s name was Ma’akah granddaughter of Abishalom.",
      "11": "Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord as his father David had done.",
      "12": "He drove the male shrine prostitutes out of the land, and he removed all the filthy idols which his fathers had made.",
      "13": "In addition, he also removed his grandmother Ma’akah from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa cut down her obscene image and burned it in the Kidron Valley.",
      "14": "But the high places were not removed. Nevertheless, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his days.",
      "15": "He brought silver and gold and vessels and utensils into the House of the Lord as dedicated offerings for himself and his father.",
      "16": "There was war between Asa and Ba’asha king of Israel throughout all their days.",
      "17": "Ba’asha king of Israel attacked Judah, and he fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah.",
      "18": "So Asa took all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the House of the Lord and the treasuries of the king’s palace, and he gave them to his officials. Then King Asa sent them to Ben Hadad son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion king of Aram, who was living in Damascus.",
      "19": "He said, “There should be a treaty between you and me as there was between my father and your father. Look, I am sending you a gift of silver and gold. Come, break your treaty with Ba’asha king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me.”",
      "20": "Ben Hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his army against the cities of Israel. They attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Ma’akah, and all of Kinneret, as well as all the land of Naphtali.",
      "21": "When Ba’asha heard about this, he stopped fortifying Ramah, and he stayed in Tirzah.",
      "22": "Then King Asa summoned all Judah—no one was exempt—and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timber with which Ba’asha had been building, and King Asa used them to fortify Geba in Benjamin and Mizpah.",
      "23": "As for all the rest of Asa’s acts and all his mighty deeds and everything else he did and the cities he built, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah? But in his old age his feet became diseased.",
      "24": "Asa rested with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David. Then his son Jehoshaphat became king in his place.",
      "25": "Nadab son of Jeroboam became king over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah. He ruled over Israel for two years.",
      "26": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He walked in the ways of his father and in the sin which he had caused Israel to commit.",
      "27": "Ba’asha son of Ahijah from the house of Issachar conspired against him and struck him down in Gibbethon, which belongs to the Philistines. (Nadab and all Israel were laying siege to Gibbethon.)",
      "28": "Ba’asha killed him in the third year of Asa king of Judah and became king in his place.",
      "29": "When Ba’asha became king, he struck down the whole house of Jeroboam, until it was exterminated according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken through his servant Ahijah from Shiloh. For Jeroboam’s house he did not spare anyone who breathed,",
      "30": "because of the sins which Jeroboam committed and which he caused Israel to commit when he provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger.",
      "31": "As for the rest of Nadab’s acts and everything he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "32": "There was war between Asa and Ba’asha king of Israel all their days.",
      "33": "In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Ba’asha son of Ahijah became king over all Israel in Tirzah and reigned for twenty-four years.",
      "34": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord by walking in the way of Jeroboam and in the sins that Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "Then this word of the Lord came to Jehu son of Hanani against Ba’asha:",
      "2": "“I raised you up from the dust and appointed you leader over my people Israel, but you have walked in the ways of Jeroboam, and you have caused my people Israel to sin, provoking me to anger with their sin.",
      "3": "Look! I am about to burn up Ba’asha and his house. I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat.",
      "4": "The dogs will eat those who belong to Ba’asha who die in the city, and the birds of the air will eat those who die in the country.”",
      "5": "As for the rest of Ba’asha’s acts and everything he did and his mighty deeds, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "6": "Ba’asha rested with his fathers, and he was buried in Tirzah. Then his son Elah became king in his place.",
      "7": "The word of the Lord had come against Ba’asha and his house through the prophet Jehu son of Hanani, because of all the evil which he had done in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger with the work of his hands by becoming like the house of Jeroboam, and also because he had struck down Jeroboam.",
      "8": "In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah son of Ba’asha became king over Israel in Tirzah for two years.",
      "9": "But his officer Zimri, the commander of half his chariots, conspired against him while Elah was in Tirzah getting drunk at the house of Arza, the palace administrator of Tirzah.",
      "10": "Zimri came in and struck him down and killed him in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and he became king in his place.",
      "11": "When Zimri became king, as soon as he was seated on the throne, he struck down the entire house of Ba’asha. He did not leave for him anyone who urinates against the wall, neither relatives nor friends.",
      "12": "So Zimri exterminated the entire house of Ba’asha according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to Ba’asha through the prophet Jehu.",
      "13": "He did this because of all the sins which Ba’asha and his son Elah committed and which they caused Israel to commit. They provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger with their useless idols.",
      "14": "As for the rest of Elah’s acts and everything he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "15": "In the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, Zimri reigned as king in Tirzah for seven days. The army was laying siege to Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines.",
      "16": "The army which was laying siege heard the report that Zimri had conspired against the king and had already struck him down. So in the camp on that day all Israel made Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel.",
      "17": "Then Omri and all Israel went up from Gibbethon and laid siege to Tirzah.",
      "18": "When Zimri saw that the city had fallen, he went into the fortified part of the palace, and he burned it down on himself. So he died",
      "19": "because of the sin he committed by doing evil in the eyes of the Lord by walking in the ways of Jeroboam and in the sin which he had caused Israel to commit.",
      "20": "As for the rest of Zimri’s acts and the conspiracy he led, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "21": "Then the people of Israel were divided. Half of the people supported making Tibni son of Ginath king. Half supported Omri.",
      "22": "But the people who were for Omri were stronger than the people who were for Tibni son of Ginath, so Tibni died, and Omri became king.",
      "23": "In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel for twelve years. He ruled for six years in Tirzah.",
      "24": "Then he bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver. He built up the hill, and he named the city he built after Shemer, the owner of the hill of Samaria.",
      "25": "Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He committed more evil than all those who had gone before him.",
      "26": "He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in the sin which he caused Israel to commit, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger with his useless idols.",
      "27": "As for the rest of Omri’s acts, the things he did, and the mighty deeds he accomplished, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "28": "Omri rested with his fathers, and he was buried in Samaria. Then his son Ahab became king in his place.",
      "29": "Ahab son of Omri became king over Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah. Ahab son of Omri ruled over Israel in Samaria for twenty-two years.",
      "30": "Ahab son of Omri committed more evil in the eyes of the Lord than all those who had gone before him.",
      "31": "He considered it a trivial thing to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat. He married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians. He served Baal and bowed down to him.",
      "32": "He erected an altar to Baal in the house of Baal which he built in Samaria.",
      "33": "Ahab made an Asherah pole and did even more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who had gone before him.",
      "34": "In the days of Ahab, Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, he laid its foundations, and at the cost of his youngest son Segub, he set up its gates. This fulfilled the word of the Lord which he had spoken through Joshua son of Nun."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Elijah from Tishbe, one of the settlers in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the Lord lives, the God of Israel before whom I stand, there will be no dew or rain during the coming years, except at my word.”",
      "2": "Then the word of the Lord came to him:",
      "3": "“Leave this place and turn east. Hide yourself by the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.",
      "4": "You will drink from the stream, and I will command the ravens to provide for you there.”",
      "5": "So Elijah went and did just as the Lord had said. He lived in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.",
      "6": "The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and in the evening, and he drank from the stream.",
      "7": "After some time the stream dried up because there had been no rain in the land.",
      "8": "Then the word of the Lord came to him:",
      "9": "“Get up! Go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there. I have commanded a woman there, a widow, to provide for you.”",
      "10": "So he got up and went to Zarephath. He came to the city gate, and there he saw a widow gathering sticks. He called to her and said, “Please give me a little water in a jar, so that I can have something to drink.”",
      "11": "When she went to get it, he called to her, “Please bring me a piece of bread.”",
      "12": "She said, “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I have no food except a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a pitcher. See, I am gathering a couple of sticks so that I can go and prepare it for myself and my son, so that we can eat it and then die.”",
      "13": "Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go and do just as you said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from the flour and bring it out to me. Then go and make another for you and your son.",
      "14": "For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. The jar of flour will not run out and the pitcher of oil will not become empty until the day the Lord sends rain to water the surface of the ground.”",
      "15": "So she went and did exactly as Elijah said. He and she, as well as her household, were able to eat for many days.",
      "16": "The jar of flour did not run out, and the pitcher of oil did not become empty, just as the Lord had said through Elijah.",
      "17": "After these events, the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. The illness became worse until he stopped breathing.",
      "18": "Then she said to Elijah, “What is the issue between us, man of God? Have you come to remind me of my sins and to kill my son?”",
      "19": "He said to her, “Bring your son to me.” Then he took him and carried him to the upstairs room where he was living, and he laid him on his bed.",
      "20": "Then he cried out to the Lord, “O Lord, my God, have you sent tragedy on this woman with whom I am staying by killing her son?”",
      "21": "Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times, and he cried out to the Lord, “O Lord, my God, let this boy’s soul return to his body!”",
      "22": "The Lord listened to Elijah’s voice, and the boy’s soul returned to his body, and he came to life.",
      "23": "Then Elijah took the boy and brought him down to the house from his upstairs room, and he gave him to his mother.\nElijah said, “See, your son is alive!”",
      "24": "The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.”"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "After a long time, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. (It was during the third year.) He said, “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain to water the surface of the ground.”",
      "2": "So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab.\nNow the drought was severe in Samaria.",
      "3": "Ahab had summoned his servant Obadiah, the palace administrator. Obadiah was devoted to serving the Lord.",
      "4": "When Jezebel was exterminating the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah had taken one hundred prophets and kept them hidden in two caves, fifty in each cave, and he provided food and water for them.",
      "5": "Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs and all the streams. Maybe we will find enough grass so that we can keep the horses and mules alive, and we will not have to slaughter the cattle.”",
      "6": "In order to cover the whole land, they divided it between the two of them. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself.",
      "7": "While Obadiah was on the way, Elijah suddenly met him. Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face and said, “Is that you, my lord Elijah?”",
      "8": "Elijah answered him, “Yes, it is. Go and tell your master, ‘Elijah is here.’”",
      "9": "But Obadiah said, “How have I sinned that you would hand your servant over to Ahab for him to kill me?",
      "10": "As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is no country or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look for you. When they said, ‘He is not here,’ then he made that kingdom and nation swear that they could not find you.",
      "11": "But now you are telling me, ‘Go, tell your master that Elijah is here.’",
      "12": "As soon as I leave you, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you to some place I do not know. When I go to tell Ahab and he then does not find you, he will kill me, even though your servant has been devoted to the Lord since my youth.",
      "13": "“Has my lord not been told what I did when Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? I kept one hundred of the prophets of the Lord hidden in two caves, fifty in each, and I provided food and water for them.",
      "14": "But now you are saying, ‘Go and tell your master that Elijah is here.’”",
      "15": "But Elijah said to him, “As surely as the Lord of Armies lives, before whom I stand, I will present myself to him today.”",
      "16": "So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and he informed him. Then Ahab came to meet Elijah.",
      "17": "When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is that you, the one who brings trouble on Israel?”",
      "18": "Elijah said, “It is not I who have brought trouble on Israel, but rather you and your father’s house, because you abandoned the Lord’s commandments and followed the Baals.",
      "19": "But now gather all Israel before me on Mount Carmel, along with the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”",
      "20": "So Ahab sent word to all the people of Israel, and he assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel.",
      "21": "Then Elijah said to all the people, “How long will you stagger around on two crutches? If the Lord is God, follow him. If Baal is God, follow him.” But the people did not answer him a single word.",
      "22": "Then Elijah said to the people, “I am the only one left of the Lord’s prophets, but the prophets of Baal total four hundred fifty men.",
      "23": "Provide two bulls for us. Let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it up and place it on the firewood, but they are not to light the fire. I will prepare the other bull and place it on the firewood, but I will not light the fire.",
      "24": "Then you will call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers with fire, he is God.”\nAll the people said, “This proposal is good.”",
      "25": "Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull, and you go first because there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god. But do not light the fire.”",
      "26": "So they took the bull which had been given to them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, “Baal! Answer us!” But there was not a sound. No one answered. So they staggered around the altar which they had made.",
      "27": "When noon came, Elijah mocked them: “Shout louder! He is a god, isn’t he? He may be deep in thought or busy or on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and will wake up!”",
      "28": "So they cried out with a loud voice, and according to their practice they cut themselves with daggers and spears until their blood flowed.",
      "29": "After noon, they kept up a prophetic frenzy until the time of the evening sacrifice, but there was no sound. No one answered. There was no response.",
      "30": "Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” So they came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down.",
      "31": "Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come and had proclaimed, “Your name shall be Israel.”",
      "32": "He built the stones into an altar in the name of the Lord. Around it he made a trench big enough to hold about twenty-five pounds of seed.",
      "33": "He arranged the wood, cut up the bull, and placed it on the wood.\nThen he said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the sacrifice and on the wood.”",
      "34": "Then he said, “Do it again.” So they did it again. Then he said, “Do it a third time.” So they did it a third time.",
      "35": "The water flowed all around the altar. It even filled the trench.",
      "36": "When the time of the evening sacrifice had arrived, Elijah the prophet stood up and said, “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things by your word.",
      "37": "Answer me, Lord! Answer me so that this people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you are turning their hearts back to you.”",
      "38": "Fire from the Lord fell on the sacrifice and on the wood, the stones, and the dirt. It even licked up the water in the trench.",
      "39": "When all the people saw this, they fell on their knees and said, “The Lord, he is God! The Lord, he is God!”",
      "40": "Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let a single one of them escape!” So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Kishon River and slaughtered them there.",
      "41": "Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for I hear the sound of a heavy rainstorm.”",
      "42": "So Ahab went to eat and drink, but Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. He bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees.",
      "43": "He said to his servant, “Go up and look toward the sea.”\nSo his servant went up and looked, and he said, “There is nothing.”\nBut seven times Elijah told him, “Go again.”",
      "44": "On the seventh time the servant said, “There is a cloud as small as a man’s hand rising from the sea.”\nThen Elijah said to him, “Go up and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down so that the rain does not stop you.’”",
      "45": "Meanwhile, the skies got dark with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy rain. So Ahab got into his chariot and went to Jezre’el.",
      "46": "But the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he hiked up his garments around his waist and ran ahead of Ahab until he came to Jezre’el."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Then Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, including the fact that he had killed all their prophets with the sword.",
      "2": "So Jezebel sent a messenger to say to Elijah, “May the gods punish me severely and even double it, if by this time tomorrow I have not made your life like one of theirs.”",
      "3": "Elijah was afraid, and he ran for his life. He went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and he left his servant there.",
      "4": "But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. There he sat down under a broom tree, where he prayed that he would die. He said, “I’ve had enough, Lord. Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”",
      "5": "Then he lay down and went to sleep under the broom tree.\nSuddenly an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.”",
      "6": "Then he looked around, and near his head there was a loaf of bread baking on coals and a jar of water, so he ate and drank, and then he lay down again.",
      "7": "Then the angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, because the journey is too much for you.”",
      "8": "So he got up and ate and drank. Then, with the strength gained from that food, he walked for forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.",
      "9": "He came to a cave and spent the night there.\nThen the word of the Lord suddenly came to him, saying, “Why are you here, Elijah?”",
      "10": "He said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of Armies, but the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking to take my life.”",
      "11": "Then the Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is passing by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains and shattered rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.\nAfter the wind came an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.",
      "12": "After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.\nAfter the fire there was a soft, whispering voice.",
      "13": "When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak, and he went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. Then a voice came to him and said, “Why are you here, Elijah?”",
      "14": "He said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of Armies, but the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking to take my life.”",
      "15": "Then the Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came and go to the Wilderness of Damascus. When you get there, you are to anoint Hazael as king over Aram.",
      "16": "You will also anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel and Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah as prophet in your place.",
      "17": "Whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill, and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill.",
      "18": "But I have preserved in Israel seven thousand whose knees have not bent to Baal and whose lips have not kissed him.”",
      "19": "So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. Elisha was doing the plowing with twelve teams of oxen in front of him, and he himself was driving the twelfth team. Elijah crossed over to him and threw his cloak over him.",
      "20": "Then Elisha left the oxen and ran after Elijah. He said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother good-bye! Then I will follow you.”\nThen Elijah said, “Go back! For what have I done to you?”",
      "21": "So Elisha turned back from following him. Then he took the team of oxen and slaughtered them. Using the equipment from the oxen as fuel, he cooked the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he got up, followed Elijah, and served him."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Then Ben Hadad king of Aram, along with thirty-two kings, mobilized his whole army with their horses and chariots. He went up and laid siege to Samaria and fought against it.",
      "2": "He sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel in the city,",
      "3": "who said to him, “This is what Ben Hadad says. Your silver and your gold are mine. The best of your wives and your children are mine.”",
      "4": "The king of Israel answered, “Just as you have said, my lord the king, I and all that I own are yours.”",
      "5": "The messengers came a second time and said, “This is what Ben Hadad says. I did indeed send word to you, saying, ‘You must give me your silver and your gold and your wives and your children.’",
      "6": "So at this time tomorrow, I will send my servants to you, and they will search your palace and the houses of your officials, and they will gather up everything that you value and take it away.”",
      "7": "The king of Israel summoned all the elders of the land. “See how this man is looking for trouble. When he sent for my wives and my children, my silver and my gold, I did not refuse him.”",
      "8": "All the elders and all the people said to him, “Do not listen and do not agree to this!”",
      "9": "So he told Ben Hadad’s messengers, “Say this to your lord the king. Everything which you demanded of your servant the first time, I will do, but this thing I cannot do.” So the messengers brought his message back to the king.",
      "10": "Then Ben Hadad sent word to him: “May the gods punish me severely and even double it, if the dust left from Samaria will be enough to give a handful to each of those who follow me.”",
      "11": "The king of Israel answered, “Tell him that someone who is putting his armor on should not boast like someone who is taking it off.”",
      "12": "When he heard this message, Ben Hadad and his kings were in their tents drinking. He said to his servants, “Get ready!” and they took up positions against the city.",
      "13": "But then, at that time, a prophet came to Ahab king of Israel and said, “This is what the Lord says. Do you see all of this huge horde? Look, I am giving it into your hands today. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”",
      "14": "Then Ahab said, “Through whom will this happen?”\nThe prophet answered, “This is what the Lord says. It will be through the young officers from the provinces.”\nHe said, “Who will start the battle?”\nHe said, “You will.”",
      "15": "So Ahab inspected the young officers from the provinces and found that there were two hundred thirty-two. After inspecting them he inspected the whole army. The Israelites numbered seven thousand men.",
      "16": "They marched out at noon while Ben Hadad was getting drunk in his tent, along with the thirty-two kings who were supporting him.",
      "17": "So the young officers from the provinces marched out first. Ben Hadad sent out scouts, who told him, “Men are marching out of Samaria!”",
      "18": "Ben Hadad said, “If they have come out for peace, take them alive! Even if they have come out for war, take them alive!”",
      "19": "But when the young officers from the provinces and the army that was with them marched out,",
      "20": "each of them killed his opponent. Then the Arameans fled, and Israel pursued them. Ben Hadad king of Aram fled on a horse with his charioteers.",
      "21": "The king of Israel marched out and attacked the horses and chariots. He inflicted a great defeat on Aram.",
      "22": "Afterward the prophet approached the king of Israel and said to him, “Strengthen your position and consider carefully what you should do, because next spring the king of Aram will attack you.”",
      "23": "The king of Aram’s officials said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they defeated us. But if we fight them on the plain, we will certainly defeat them.",
      "24": "Now do this. Remove the kings from their positions as field commanders, and replace them with military officers.",
      "25": "Then raise an army like the army you lost—horse for horse and chariot for chariot. Then if we fight them on the plain, we will certainly defeat them.” The king listened to them and did what they recommended.",
      "26": "When spring came, Ben Hadad mobilized the army of Aram and went up to Aphek to wage war against Israel.",
      "27": "The Israelites also were mobilized and given provisions, and they went out to confront the Arameans. The Israelites camped across from them, like two small flocks of goats, while the Arameans filled the land.",
      "28": "Then the man of God approached and said to the king of Israel, “This is what the Lord says. Because the Arameans said, ‘The Lord is a god of the hills, but not a god of the valleys,’ I will give all of this huge horde into your hands. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”",
      "29": "So they camped opposite each other for seven days. On the seventh day the battle was joined by both armies. The Israelites struck down the Arameans—one hundred thousand foot soldiers in one day.",
      "30": "The survivors fled to the city of Aphek, and the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand of the survivors. Ben Hadad also fled and went into the city, to an inner room.",
      "31": "Then his officials said to him, “Look, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful. So let us put sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads and go out to the king of Israel. Maybe he will spare your life.”",
      "32": "So they wrapped sackcloth around their waists and put ropes on their heads, and they went to the king of Israel and said, “Your servant, Ben Hadad, says, ‘Please spare my life.’”\nAhab said, “Is he still alive? He is my brother.”",
      "33": "The men took this as a good omen, so they quickly latched on to what he said and responded, “Ben Hadad is your brother.”\nThen Ahab said, “Go get him.” So Ben Hadad came out to him, and Ahab brought him up into his chariot.",
      "34": "Ben Hadad said to him, “I will return the cities that my father took from your father, and you may put your own trading centers in Damascus, just as my father put them in Samaria.”\nThen Ahab said, “Under these terms, I release you.” So he made a treaty with Ben Hadad and let him go.",
      "35": "Then by the word of the Lord one of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbor, “Strike me, please.” But the man refused to strike him.",
      "36": "So he said to him, “Because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord, when you leave me, a lion will kill you.” When he left him, a lion found him and killed him.",
      "37": "Then he found another man and said, “Strike me, please.” The man struck him and wounded him.",
      "38": "The prophet went and stood before the king at the road and disguised himself with a bandage over his eyes.",
      "39": "When the king was passing by, the prophet shouted to the king, “Your servant went out in the middle of the battle. Then someone brought a man to me and said, ‘Guard this man. If you can’t account for him, then it will be your life for his life, or you will have to pay a talent of silver.’",
      "40": "But while your servant was busy doing this and that, all of a sudden the man was gone!”\nThen the king of Israel said to him, “That is your sentence. You have pronounced it on yourself.”",
      "41": "Then he quickly removed the bandage from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized that he was one of the prophets.",
      "42": "He said to the king, “This is what the Lord says. Because you set a man free, whom I had devoted to destruction, it will be your life for his life and your people for his people.”",
      "43": "The king of Israel headed for his palace sullen and angry, and he arrived in Samaria."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Some time passed after these events.\nNaboth from Jezre’el had a vineyard in Jezre’el, next to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.",
      "2": "Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard so I can use it as a vegetable garden, because it is beside my house, and I will give you a better vineyard in exchange. Or if you prefer, I will give you the purchase price in silver.”",
      "3": "But Naboth said to Ahab, “May I be cursed by the Lord, if I were to give you the inheritance from my fathers.”",
      "4": "Ahab went to his house sullen and angry because of what Naboth from Jezre’el had said to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” Ahab lay down on his bed and turned his face away and would not eat anything.",
      "5": "Then his wife Jezebel came to him and said, “Why is your spirit so sullen, and why don’t you eat?”",
      "6": "Then he told her, “I said to Naboth from Jezre’el, ‘Sell your vineyard to me, or if you prefer, I will give you a vineyard in its place.’ But he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’”",
      "7": "Then his wife Jezebel said to him, “Are you now acting like the king over Israel? Get up! Eat something, and cheer up. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth from Jezre’el.”",
      "8": "Then Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal. She sent the letters to the elders and nobles who were living in the city with Naboth.",
      "9": "She wrote in the letters, “Proclaim a fast and then seat Naboth at the head of the people.",
      "10": "Seat two wicked, worthless men opposite him and have them testify, ‘You cursed God and the king!’ Then take him out and stone him to death.”",
      "11": "The men of the city—the elders and the nobles who lived there—did exactly as Jezebel had commanded them, exactly as she had written in the letters she had sent them.",
      "12": "They proclaimed a fast and then seated Naboth at the head of the people.",
      "13": "They brought two wicked, worthless men and seated them opposite him. The wicked men testified against Naboth before the people, “Naboth cursed God and the king!” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death.",
      "14": "Then they sent word to Jezebel, “Naboth has been stoned to death.”",
      "15": "When Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she said to Ahab, “Go and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth from Jezre’el, which he refused to sell to you, because Naboth is no longer alive but dead.”",
      "16": "When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he went and took possession of the vineyard of Naboth from Jezre’el.",
      "17": "Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah from Tishbe:",
      "18": "Go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. Right now he is in Naboth’s vineyard because he has gone down to take possession of it.",
      "19": "You are to tell him: This is what the Lord says. Have you committed murder and seized this man’s property?\nThen you will say to him: This is what the Lord says. In the place where dogs licked Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick your blood also.",
      "20": "Then Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, my enemy?”\nElijah said, “I have found you, because you sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, who says,",
      "21": "‘I am bringing disaster against you, and I will burn you up. I will cut off from Ahab in Israel all those who urinate against the wall, both bound and free.",
      "22": "I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like the house of Ba’asha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and caused Israel to sin.’",
      "23": "“Concerning Jezebel the Lord says, ‘Dogs will eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezre’el.’",
      "24": "The dead who belong to Ahab in the city the dogs will eat, and the dead in the country the birds of the air will eat.”",
      "25": "There had never been anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, incited by his wife Jezebel.",
      "26": "He committed obscene acts by following filthy idols, like everything that the Amorites had done, for which the Lord drove them out before the people of Israel.",
      "27": "But when Ahab heard these words, he cried out and tore his clothes. He put on sackcloth and fasted. He slept in sackcloth and went around in a subdued manner.",
      "28": "Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah from Tishbe, saying,",
      "29": "“Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring this disaster during his days, but during the days of his son I will bring disaster upon his house.”"
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "Three years went by without any warfare between Aram and Israel.",
      "2": "In the third year Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to visit the king of Israel.",
      "3": "The king of Israel said to his officials, “Don’t you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us? But we have done nothing to take it from the king of Aram.”",
      "4": "Then he said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you come with me to wage war at Ramoth Gilead?”\nJehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “I am like you. My people are like your people. My horses are like your horses.”",
      "5": "But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “First seek the word of the Lord.”",
      "6": "So the king of Israel assembled the prophets, four hundred men, and he said to them, “Should I go up to make war at Ramoth Gilead or should I refrain?”\nThey said, “Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.”",
      "7": "But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here who can inquire of the Lord for us?”",
      "8": "Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is one man who could inquire of the Lord for us, but I hate him because he does not prophesy anything good about me, but only bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.”\nJehoshaphat said, “The king should not talk like that.”",
      "9": "So the king of Israel summoned one of his court officials and said, “Quickly bring Micaiah son of Imlah here.”",
      "10": "Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah were seated, each on his own throne, arrayed in their robes. They were sitting by the threshing floor at the entrance to the gate of Samaria. All the prophets were prophesying before them.",
      "11": "Zedekiah son of Kena’anah had made iron horns for himself, and he said, “This is what the Lord says. With these you will gore Aram to death.”",
      "12": "All the prophets were prophesying in this same way: “Go up to Ramoth Gilead and triumph, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.”",
      "13": "The messenger who was sent to summon Micaiah said to him, “Pay attention to the words of the prophets. With one mouth they are promising good things to the king. Let your words be like the words of one of them and say something good.”",
      "14": "But Micaiah said, “As surely as the Lord lives, whatever the Lord says to me, that is what I will say.”",
      "15": "Then he came to the king, and the king asked him, “Micaiah, should we go up to make war on Ramoth Gilead, or should we refrain?”\nHe answered him, “Go up and triumph, for the Lord will give them into the hand of the king.”",
      "16": "Then the king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear that you will tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?”",
      "17": "Then Micaiah said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep that have no shepherd, and the Lord said, ‘They have no masters. Each one should return to his home in peace.’”",
      "18": "Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you that he does not prophesy anything good about me, but only bad?”",
      "19": "Then Micaiah said:\nNow hear this word from the Lord.\nI saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and the whole army of heaven was standing around him, on his right and on his left.",
      "20": "Then the Lord said, “Who will entice Ahab so that he goes up and falls at Ramoth Gilead?”\nOne spirit said this. Another one said that.",
      "21": "Finally a spirit came and stood before the Lord and said, “I will entice him.”\nThe Lord said to him, “How?”",
      "22": "He said, “I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.”\nThen the Lord said, “You will entice him successfully. Go and do it.”",
      "23": "Now look! The Lord has put a lying spirit into the mouths of all these prophets of yours, for the Lord has decreed disaster for you.",
      "24": "Then Zedekiah son of Kena’anah came up and struck Micaiah on his cheek and said, “Where is this pathway on which the spirit of the Lord has traveled from me to speak to you?”",
      "25": "Micaiah said, “Listen to me. You will see it on the day you go into the inner room to hide.”",
      "26": "Then the king of Israel said, “Seize Micaiah and take him back to Amon, the administrator of the city, and to Joash son of the king.",
      "27": "Then say, ‘This is what the king says. Put this man in prison and feed him nothing more than bread and water until I come back safely.’”",
      "28": "Then Micaiah said, “If you ever come back safely, then the Lord has not spoken through me.” Then he said, “Hear this, you people, all of you!”",
      "29": "Then the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up to Ramoth Gilead.",
      "30": "The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will disguise myself when I go into the battle, but you wear your robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.",
      "31": "The king of Aram had ordered his thirty-two chariot commanders, “Do not fight with anyone small or great, but only against the king of Israel.”",
      "32": "When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “That is the king of Israel!” They turned to fight against him, and Jehoshaphat cried for help.",
      "33": "When the chariot commanders realized that he was not the king of Israel, they stopped pursuing him.",
      "34": "But a man shot an arrow at random and struck the king of Israel in the seam between two parts of his armor.\nSo Ahab said to his chariot driver, “Turn around and take me out of the battle, because I have been wounded.”",
      "35": "The battle went on all that day, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing Aram. He died in the evening, and the blood from his wound ran down onto the floor of the chariot.",
      "36": "Then, as the sun was going down, a cry went up through the army: “Every man to his own city and every man to his own land!”",
      "37": "So the king died, and they brought him to Samaria, and they buried the king in Samaria.",
      "38": "They washed the chariot at the pool of Samaria, and dogs licked up his blood, and the prostitutes bathed there, in fulfillment of the word which the Lord had spoken.",
      "39": "As for the rest of Ahab’s acts and everything he did, and the ivory house he built, and all the cities he built, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "40": "Ahab rested with his fathers. Then his son Ahaziah became king in his place.",
      "41": "Jehoshaphat son of Asa became king over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel.",
      "42": "Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for twenty-five years. The name of his mother was Azubel daughter of Shilhi.",
      "43": "Jehoshaphat walked in all the ways of his father Asa. He did not turn from them. He did what is right in the eyes of the Lord. But the high places were not removed. The people were still sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.",
      "44": "Jehoshaphat was at peace with the king of Israel.",
      "45": "As for the rest of Jehoshaphat’s acts, the mighty deeds which he did, and the wars he fought, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "46": "He removed from the land the rest of the male shrine prostitutes who remained from the days of his father Asa.",
      "47": "There was no king in Edom, but rather a governor represented the king.",
      "48": "Jehoshaphat constructed trading ships to go to Ophir for gold, but they never set out, because the ships were wrecked at Ezion Geber.",
      "49": "Then Ahaziah son of Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, “Let my servants go with your servants in ships,” but Jehoshaphat was not willing.",
      "50": "Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of his father David. Then his son Jehoram became king in his place.",
      "51": "Ahaziah son of Ahab became king of Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. He ruled over Israel for two years.",
      "52": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father and in the ways of his mother and in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.",
      "53": "He served Baal and bowed down to him, and he provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger in all the same ways that his father did."
    }
  },
  "2 Kings": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.",
      "2": "Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice of his upstairs room in Samaria, and he was injured. So he sent messengers and told them, “Go, inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will survive this injury.”",
      "3": "But an angel of the Lord said to Elijah from Tishbe, “Get up. Go meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to them, ‘Is there no God in Israel, so that you are going to seek out Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron?",
      "4": "Therefore, this is what the Lord says. You will not get up from the bed you have gotten into. You will certainly die.’” So Elijah went.",
      "5": "The messengers returned to the king, so he said to them, “Why have you come back?”",
      "6": "They told him, “A man came up to meet us and told us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you and tell him: This is what the Lord says. Is there no God in Israel, so that you are sending men to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore, you will not get up from the bed you have gotten into. You will surely die.’”",
      "7": "He said to them, “How would you describe the man who came up to meet you and said these words to you?”",
      "8": "They told him, “He was dressed in clothing made of hair, with a leather belt tied around his waist.”\nThen Ahaziah said, “That was Elijah from Tishbe!”",
      "9": "So he sent a captain of fifty men to Elijah. He went up to him, and there Elijah was, sitting on top of a hill. Then the captain said to him, “Man of God, the king says, ‘Come down!’”",
      "10": "Then Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, let fire fall from the sky and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from the sky and consumed him and his fifty men.",
      "11": "Then the king sent another captain of fifty men to him, and the captain said, “Man of God, this is what the king says: ‘Come down at once!’”",
      "12": "Elijah answered, “If I am a man of God, then let fire fall from the sky and consume you and your fifty men!” Then the fire of God fell from the sky and consumed him and his fifty men.",
      "13": "So the king sent a third captain with his fifty men. The third captain went and got down on his knees before Elijah and begged for mercy. He said to Elijah, “Man of God, let my life and the lives of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your eyes.",
      "14": "Look, fire from the sky fell and consumed the first two captains and their companies of fifty men. But now, let the lives of your servants be precious.”",
      "15": "Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him. Do not fear him.” So Elijah stood up and went down with him to the king.",
      "16": "Then Elijah told the king, “This is what the Lord says. Because you sent messengers to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron—Is there no God in Israel to inquire of?—therefore, you will not get up from the bed you have gotten into. You will certainly die.”",
      "17": "Then he died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. Because Ahaziah did not have a son, Jehoram became king in his place in the second year of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah.",
      "18": "As for the rest of Ahaziah’s acts which he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah was traveling with Elisha from Gilgal.",
      "2": "Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel.”\nBut Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.",
      "3": "The sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord is taking your master away from you?”\nThen he said, “Yes, I know. Be quiet.”",
      "4": "Then Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here because the Lord has sent me to Jericho.”\nBut he said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho.",
      "5": "Then the sons of the prophets who were in Jericho approached Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord is taking your master away from you?”\nHe said, “Yes, I know. Be quiet.”",
      "6": "Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here because the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.”\nBut he said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on.",
      "7": "Then fifty men from the sons of the prophets came and stood and watched them from a distance, while the two of them were standing at the Jordan.",
      "8": "Elijah took his cloak, folded it together, and struck the water. The water divided to the right and to the left. Then the two of them crossed on dry land.",
      "9": "When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask me for whatever I can do for you before I am taken from you.”\nThen Elisha said, “Let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.”",
      "10": "He said, “You have asked for a difficult thing. If you see me being taken from you, it will surely be yours. But if not, then it will not.”",
      "11": "While they were walking and talking, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire came and separated them. So Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.",
      "12": "Elisha was watching and crying out, “My father! My father! Israel’s chariot and its charioteers!” Then he did not see him anymore. He grabbed his clothing, and he ripped it into two pieces.",
      "13": "Then he picked up Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen from him. He returned and stood at the edge of the Jordan.",
      "14": "He took Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen from him, and he struck the water and said, “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah? Yes, where is he?” As soon as he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left so that Elisha could cross.",
      "15": "When the sons of the prophets, who were watching him from Jericho, saw this, they said, “Elijah’s spirit is resting on Elisha.” They went to meet him and bowed down to the ground in front of him.",
      "16": "They said to him, “Look, here are your servants, fifty strong men. Please, let them go and search for your master in case the Spirit of the Lord lifted him up and then set him down on one of the mountains or in one of the valleys.”\nBut he said, “Don’t send them.”",
      "17": "But they urged him to the point of embarrassment, so he said, “Send them.” So they sent the fifty men. They searched for three days, but they did not find him.",
      "18": "When they returned to Elisha, he was staying in Jericho. He said to them, “Didn’t I say to you, ‘Don’t go’?”",
      "19": "Then the men of the city said to Elisha, “Look, the site of the city is good, as my lord can see, but the water is bad, and the land deprives people of children.”",
      "20": "So he said, “Bring me a new dish and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.",
      "21": "Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt in. He said, “This is what the Lord says. I have healed this water. No longer will death or loss of children come from it.”",
      "22": "So the water has remained healed to this day, according to the word which Elisha spoke.",
      "23": "He went up from there to Bethel. While he was going up on the road, young boys came out from the city and mocked him. They said, “Go up, baldy! Go up, baldy!”",
      "24": "So he turned around and looked at them and cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods, and they tore forty-two boys to pieces.",
      "25": "From there Elisha went to Mount Carmel, and then he returned to Samaria."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Now Jehoram son of Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he ruled as king for twelve years.",
      "2": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord but not as his father and mother had done. He removed the sacred memorial stones for Baal which his father had made,",
      "3": "but he clung to the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit. He did not turn from them.",
      "4": "Mesha king of Moab raised sheep. He brought tribute to the king of Israel consisting of one hundred thousand lambs and the wool of one hundred thousand rams.",
      "5": "When Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.",
      "6": "So King Jehoram went out from Samaria at that time, and he mobilized all Israel.",
      "7": "He sent a message to Jehoshaphat king of Judah: “Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to wage war against Moab?”\nJehoshaphat replied, “I will go with you. I am like you. My people are like your people. My horses are like your horses.”",
      "8": "Then Jehoshaphat asked, “By what road should we go up?”\nJehoram answered, “By the road through the wilderness of Edom.”",
      "9": "Then the king of Israel, the king of Judah, and the king of Edom marched for seven days by a roundabout way. There was no water for the army or for the animals which were along with them.",
      "10": "Then the king of Israel said, “This is terrible! The Lord has summoned these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab!”",
      "11": "But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, so that we may inquire of the Lord through him?”\nOne of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shaphat, who used to pour water on the hands of Elijah, is here.”",
      "12": "Then Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is in him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to meet him.",
      "13": "Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What do we have in common? Go to your father’s prophets and your mother’s prophets!”\nThen the king of Israel said to him, “No, for the Lord has summoned these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab.”",
      "14": "Then Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord of Armies lives, before whom I stand, if I did not respect the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you or notice you.",
      "15": "But now bring me a musician.”\nWhile the musician was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha.",
      "16": "He said, “This is what the Lord says. Make this valley full of ditches.",
      "17": "Yes, this is what the Lord says: You will not see wind. You will not see rain. But this valley will be full of water and you will drink—you and your livestock and your animals.",
      "18": "This is nothing in the eyes of the Lord. He will also give Moab into your hands.",
      "19": "You will destroy all their fortified cities and all their main towns. You will cut down every good tree. You will stop up every spring of water. You will ruin every good plot of land with stones.”",
      "20": "In the morning, at the time for the regular offering, suddenly there was water coming from the direction of Edom. So the land was full of water.",
      "21": "All Moab heard that the kings had come up to fight against them. They summoned all those who were old enough to strap on a sword and took their stand at the border.",
      "22": "They got up early in the morning as the rising sun was shining on the water. When the Moabites saw the water from a distance, it was red like blood.",
      "23": "They said, “Look! Blood! The kings fought and killed each other. Now, get to the plunder, Moab!”",
      "24": "So they went to Israel’s camp, but Israel rose up and struck Moab, and the Moabites fled from them. Israel advanced against them to strike down Moab.",
      "25": "Israel tore down the cities. Each man threw a stone on every good plot of land and covered all of them. They stopped up every spring, and they cut down every good tree. Only in Kir Hareseth were the stones left standing. Then the troops armed with slings surrounded it and attacked it.",
      "26": "When the king of Moab saw that he was losing the battle, he took seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they were not able to do it.",
      "27": "So he took his firstborn son, who would have become king in his place, and he offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. There was great anger against Israel, so they withdrew from him and returned to their own country."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "The wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead. You know that your servant feared the Lord. But now the moneylender is coming to take my two sons as slaves.”",
      "2": "Then Elisha said to her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”\nShe said, “Your servant has nothing at all in the house except a jar of olive oil.”",
      "3": "He told her, “Go and ask all your neighbors for jars—empty jars. Don’t ask for only a few.",
      "4": "Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Then pour oil into all the jars. When each one is full, set it aside.”",
      "5": "So she went and shut the door to her house behind her and her sons. They brought the jars, and she poured.",
      "6": "When a jar was filled, she said to her son, “Bring me another jar.”\nFinally he said, “There aren’t any more.” Then the oil stopped.",
      "7": "So she went and told the man of God. He said, “Go and sell the oil and pay your debt. Then you and your sons can live off what’s left.”",
      "8": "One day Elisha went to Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to eat a meal with her. So whenever he passed by, he would stop there for a meal.",
      "9": "Then she said to her husband, “Listen. I know that the man who passes by here all the time is a holy man of God.",
      "10": "Let’s make a small upper room on the roof, and let’s put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp there for him. Then whenever he comes to us, he can stay there.”",
      "11": "One day when Elisha came there, he went into the room and lay down.",
      "12": "Then he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call the woman of Shunem.” He called her, and she stood in front of him.",
      "13": "Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tell her, ‘You have been very concerned about us. What can we do for you? Is there something we can request for you from the king or from the commander of the army?’”\nShe said, “I am living among my own people.”",
      "14": "Then he said, “What can be done for her?”\nThen Gehazi said, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.”",
      "15": "He said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood at the doorway.",
      "16": "Then he said to her, “At this time next year, you will be holding a son.”\nBut she said, “No, my lord, you man of God. Do not deceive your servant.”",
      "17": "But the woman conceived, and she gave birth to a son at that same time of year, just as Elisha said to her.",
      "18": "The boy grew up, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers.",
      "19": "Then he said to his father, “My head! My head!”\nHis father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.”",
      "20": "So he picked him up and carried him to his mother, and the boy sat on her lap until noon. Then he died.",
      "21": "Then she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. She shut the door behind her and went out.",
      "22": "Then she called to her husband and said, “Send one of the servants to me with one of the donkeys, so that I can run to the man of God and come back.”",
      "23": "He said, “Why are you going to him today? It’s not the new moon, and it’s not the Sabbath.”\nBut she said, “It’s all right.”",
      "24": "Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead the way. Don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.”",
      "25": "So she went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.\nWhen the man of God saw her from a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! That’s the woman from Shunem!",
      "26": "Now run to meet her and say, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your son all right?’”\nShe answered, “We’re all right.”",
      "27": "Then she came to the man of God at the mountain, and she grasped his feet. Gehazi stepped forward to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me. He has not told me.”",
      "28": "Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t give me false hope’?”",
      "29": "Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Hike up your garments for travel, and take my staff in your hand and go! If you meet someone, do not greet him, and if someone greets you, do not answer. Put my staff on the boy’s face.”",
      "30": "But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.",
      "31": "Gehazi went ahead of them and put the staff on the boy’s face. But there was no sound, and there was no response. So he went back to Elisha and told him, “The boy did not wake up.”",
      "32": "When Elisha came to the house, there the boy was—dead, lying on his bed.",
      "33": "So he went in and he shut the door behind the two of them. Then he prayed to the Lord.",
      "34": "He got up and lay down on top of the boy. He put his mouth to the boy’s mouth, his eyes to the boy’s eyes, his palms to the boy’s palms. Then he bent down over him, and the boy’s flesh became warm.",
      "35": "He went back into the house and paced back and forth. Then he went up and bent down over him, and the boy sneezed seven times. Then the boy opened his eyes.",
      "36": "Then Elisha called Gehazi and said, “Call the woman of Shunem!” So he called her, and she came in. He said, “Pick up your son.”",
      "37": "So she came in and fell at Elisha’s feet and bowed down to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.",
      "38": "Then Elisha returned to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land. The sons of the prophets were sitting with him, and he said to his servant, “Put the large cooking pot on the fire, and cook some stew for the sons of the prophets.”",
      "39": "One of the men went out to the field to gather plants. He found a wild vine and picked some gourds from it. He filled his garment with them. Then he came in and cut them into pieces for the pot of stew. They did not know what they were,",
      "40": "but they served it to the men to eat. While they were eating the stew, they cried out, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” So they could not eat it.",
      "41": "But he said, “Take some flour and throw it into the pot.” Then he said, “Serve it to the people.” They ate, and there was nothing harmful in the pot.",
      "42": "A man came from Baal Shalishah and brought the man of God some bread from the first ripe grain, twenty loaves of barley bread, and some new grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Set it before the people so that they can eat.”",
      "43": "His attendant said, “How can I set this before one hundred men?” But he said, “Set it before the people so that they may eat, for this is what the Lord says: They will eat and have some left over.” So he set it before them. They ate, and they had some left over, just as the Lord had said."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Na’aman, the commander of the king of Aram’s army, was a great man in the opinion of his master. He was highly honored because the Lord had provided victory for Aram through him. Although he was a powerful warrior, he had leprosy.",
      "2": "Raiding parties had once gone out from Aram and brought back a young girl. She served Na’aman’s wife.",
      "3": "She said to her mistress, “I wish my master stood before the prophet who is in Samaria, because he would cure him of his leprosy.”",
      "4": "So Na’aman went and told his master what the servant girl from the land of Israel had said.",
      "5": "Then the king of Aram said, “Go there. I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Na’aman went, and he took ten talents of silver and six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.",
      "6": "Then he took the letter to the king of Israel. The letter said, “Now, when you receive this letter, you will know that I am sending my officer Na’aman to you so that you can cure him of his leprosy.”",
      "7": "When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothing and said, “Am I God that I can kill and make alive? Why is he sending a man to me for me to heal him from his leprosy? See how he is looking for a pretext to fight against me.”",
      "8": "But when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king: “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.”",
      "9": "So Na’aman went with his horses and chariots and stopped in front of the door of Elisha’s house.",
      "10": "But Elisha sent a messenger out to him to say, “Go and wash seven times in the Jordan. Then your flesh will be restored and you will be clean.”",
      "11": "But Na’aman was angry and he left, saying, “Look, I said to myself, ‘He will certainly come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place, and I will be cured of the leprosy!’",
      "12": "Aren’t the Abana and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went away in a burning rage.",
      "13": "But his servants approached and spoke to him. They said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not do it? How much more when he says to you, ‘Wash and be clean’?”",
      "14": "So he went down and dipped in the Jordan seven times, just as the man of God had said. Then his flesh was restored like the flesh of a small child, and he was clean.",
      "15": "Then he and his whole escort went back to the man of God. He stood in front of Elisha and said, “To be sure, now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Now accept a gift from your servant.”",
      "16": "But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives, in whose presence I stand, I will not take anything.” Even though Na’aman urged him to accept something, he refused.",
      "17": "Then Na’aman said, “If you do not want anything, please give me, your servant, as much dirt as two donkeys can carry, for your servant will never again burn incense or sacrifice to other gods, but only to the Lord.",
      "18": "But may the Lord forgive your servant this one thing: When my master goes into the house of Rimmon to bow down there and he supports himself on my arm, then I too have to bow down in the house of Rimmon. When I bow down in the house of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant this one thing.”",
      "19": "Then Elisha said to him, “Go in peace.”\nWhen Na’aman had gone some distance from him,",
      "20": "Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “My master was too easy on this Aramean, Na’aman, when he did not accept anything that he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”",
      "21": "So Gehazi chased after Na’aman. When Na’aman saw him running after him, he got down from his chariot to meet him. He said, “Is everything all right?”",
      "22": "Then Gehazi said, “Yes, everything is all right. My master sent me to say, ‘Look, just now two young men from the hill country of Ephraim, from the sons of the prophets, have come to me. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing.”",
      "23": "Na’aman said, “Certainly! Take two talents!” He urged Gehazi and tied up the two talents of silver in two bags with the two sets of clothing. Then Na’aman gave them to his two servants, and they carried them ahead of Gehazi.",
      "24": "When he came to the hill, he took the gifts from them. Then he hid them in the house and sent the men back, so they left.",
      "25": "Then he went in and attended his master.\nElisha said to him, “Where were you, Gehazi?”\nGehazi said, “Your servant didn’t go anywhere.”",
      "26": "Then Elisha said to him, “Didn’t my heart go along when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take silver, or to accept clothing or olive groves or vineyards or sheep or cattle or male and female servants?",
      "27": "Na’aman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever.” Then Gehazi went out from his presence, leprous like snow."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "The sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we are living with you is too cramped for us.",
      "2": "Let’s go to the Jordan, and every one of us will get a wooden beam from there so we can build a place there for us to live.”\nHe said, “Go ahead.”",
      "3": "Then one of them said, “Won’t you also please come along with your servants?”\nHe said, “I will come.”",
      "4": "So he went with them. When they came to the Jordan, they began to cut down trees.",
      "5": "But while one of them was cutting down a tree for a beam, the ax fell into the water.\nHe cried out, “Oh no, my lord! It was borrowed!”",
      "6": "But the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” Then he showed him the place. He cut off a piece of wood and threw it into the water, and the ax floated.",
      "7": "Then he said, “Pick it up.” So he reached out his hand and took it.",
      "8": "Now when the king of Aram was waging war against Israel, he would make plans with his officials, saying, “My camp will be at such and such a place.”",
      "9": "But the man of God would send a message to the king of Israel, saying, “Be careful when you pass this place because the Arameans are going down there.”",
      "10": "So the king of Israel would send scouts to the place that the man of God had pointed out. So the man of God warned him, and he was kept safe—and not just once or twice.",
      "11": "The king of Aram was enraged because of this. He summoned his officials and said to them, “Won’t you tell me who of us is for the king of Israel?”",
      "12": "One of his officials said, “No, my lord the king. It is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the words which you speak in your bedroom.”",
      "13": "Then he said, “Go and see where he is. Then I’ll send men and capture him.”\nHe was told, “Dothan is where he is.”",
      "14": "So he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They came at night and surrounded the city.",
      "15": "When the man of God’s servant got up early and went out, there were soldiers, horses, and chariots surrounding the city. So his attendant said to Elisha, “Oh no, my lord! What will we do?”",
      "16": "He answered, “Don’t be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”",
      "17": "Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, open his eyes so that he can see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he saw that the hills were full of horses and chariots of fire, all around Elisha.",
      "18": "When the Arameans came down, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike these people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, just as Elisha had asked.",
      "19": "Then Elisha said to them, “This is not the road, and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will take you to the man you are looking for.” So he brought them to Samaria.",
      "20": "When they came into Samaria, Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open their eyes so that they can see.” Then the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw that they were right in the middle of Samaria.",
      "21": "When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “Shall I strike them down, my father? Shall I strike them down?”",
      "22": "He said, “Do not strike them down. Would you strike down a man you captured with your own sword and bow? Set food and water before them so that they can eat and drink and then go back to their master.”",
      "23": "So he gave a great feast for them. They ate and drank. Then he sent them on their way, and they went to their master. The Aramean raiding parties did not come into the land of Israel anymore.",
      "24": "After these things, Ben Hadad king of Aram mobilized his whole army and went up and laid siege to Samaria.",
      "25": "There was a severe famine in Samaria, because the siege lasted until a donkey head sold for eighty shekels of silver and a cup of dove’s droppings for five shekels of silver.",
      "26": "When the king of Israel was walking on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”",
      "27": "But he said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?”",
      "28": "Then the king asked her, “What is the problem?”\nShe said, “This woman said to me, ‘Come on, give up your son, and we will eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’",
      "29": "So we cooked my son and ate him. Then I said to her the next day, ‘Give up your son so that we may eat him,’ but she hid her son.”",
      "30": "When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his clothes. As he was walking on the wall, the people were surprised to see that he was wearing sackcloth on his body, underneath his clothing.",
      "31": "Then he said, “May God punish me severely and even double it, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”",
      "32": "Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a man ahead of him. But before the messenger came to him, Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see that this murderer has sent this man to cut off my head? When the messenger comes, shut the door and push against it. Isn’t the sound of the feet of his master behind him?”",
      "33": "While he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him. Then the king said, “Indeed this evil is from the Lord. Why should I wait hopefully for the Lord anymore?”"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "Then Elisha said, “All of you, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord says. At this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, twelve pounds of fine flour will sell for a shekel and twenty-four pounds of barley for a shekel.”",
      "2": "Then the officer at the king’s right hand, on whose arm the king was leaning, answered the man of God, “Really? Even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven, could this happen?”\nElisha said, “Listen to me. You yourself will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it.”",
      "3": "Now four lepers were at the entrance to the gate. They said to each other, “Why should we sit here until we die?",
      "4": "If we say, ‘Let’s go into the city,’ there is famine in the city and we will die there. But if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they let us live, we will live. If they kill us, we will die.”",
      "5": "So they got up at twilight to go to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp of the Arameans, they saw that there was no one there!",
      "6": "For the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of horses and chariots and the sound of a great army. They said to each other, “Listen! The king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us!”",
      "7": "Then they arose and fled at twilight. They left their tents, their horses, and their donkeys in the camp just as they were, and they fled for their lives.",
      "8": "So when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, and they ate and drank. They picked up silver, gold, and clothing and went and hid it. Then they returned and went to another tent. They took some of what was there and went and hid it.",
      "9": "Then they said to each other, “We should not be doing this. Today is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent. If we wait until daylight, our sin will find us. So come on, let’s go and tell about this at the king’s palace.”",
      "10": "So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the camp of the Arameans, and we looked, but there was no one there! Not even the sound of a man! But the horses and the donkeys are tied there, and the tents are just as they were!”",
      "11": "Then the gatekeepers proclaimed the news, and it was reported in the king’s palace.",
      "12": "So the king got up at night and said to his officials, “I’ll tell you what the Arameans are doing to us: They know that we are hungry so they left the camp to hide in the fields, saying, ‘They will certainly come out of the city, and we will capture them alive. Then we’ll get into the city!’”",
      "13": "But one of his officials answered, “Please let some men take five of the horses that are left in the city—look, they won’t be any worse off than all the rest of the Israelites who are left here—all the other Israelites who are about to die. Let’s send them out, and let’s see.”",
      "14": "So they took two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the army of Aram, saying, “Go and take a look.”",
      "15": "So they followed them to the Jordan. The whole road was full of clothing and equipment that the Arameans threw away while they fled in panic. Then the messengers returned and reported to the king.",
      "16": "Then the people went out and looted the Aramean camp. So twelve pounds of fine flour sold for a shekel and twenty-four pounds of barley for a shekel, just as the Lord had said.",
      "17": "The king appointed the officer on whose arm he leaned to be in charge of the gate. But the people trampled him in the gate, and he died, just as the man of God had said when the king went down to speak to him.",
      "18": "It happened just as the man of God had said to the king: “Twenty-four pounds of barley will be sold for a shekel and twelve pounds of fine flour for a shekel by this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria.”",
      "19": "The officer had said to the man of God, “Really? Even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven, could something like this happen?”\nThe man of God had said, “Listen to me. You yourself will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it.”",
      "20": "So all this happened to him just like that: The people trampled him in the gate and he died."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Now Elisha said to the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “You and your household, make preparations and leave, and stay in whatever other country you can, for the Lord has decreed a famine that will be in the land for seven years.”",
      "2": "So the woman got up and did just as the man of God said. She and her household went and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years.",
      "3": "At the end of seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines. Then she went to appeal to the king to get back her house and her fields.",
      "4": "The king had told Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, “Tell me all the great things which Elisha has done.”",
      "5": "While he was telling the king how Elisha had brought the dead boy back to life, the very woman whose son he had brought back to life was coming to appeal to the king about her house and her fields. Then Gehazi said, “My lord the king, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life.”",
      "6": "Then the king asked the woman about it, and she told him. So the king appointed a high official to her case, saying, “Return everything which is hers and all the produce of her fields, from the day she left the land until now.”",
      "7": "Elisha went to Damascus while Ben Hadad the king of Aram was sick. The king was told, “The man of God has come here.”",
      "8": "So the king said to Hazael, “Take a gift and go to meet the man of God. You will inquire of the Lord through him, asking whether I will survive this sickness.”",
      "9": "Hazael went to meet him. He took a gift of forty camel loads of all the goods of Damascus, and he came and stood before Elisha and said, “Your son, Ben Hadad, king of Aram, sent me to you to say, ‘Will I survive this sickness?’”",
      "10": "Then Elisha said to him, “Go and say to him, ‘You will certainly survive,’ but the Lord has shown me that he will really die.”",
      "11": "Then Elisha stared straight at him until Hazael was embarrassed. Then the man of God wept.",
      "12": "Hazael said, “Why is my lord weeping?”\nThen he said, “Because I know the evil you will do to the people of Israel. You will set fire to their fortified cities. You will kill their young men with the sword. You will dash their children to pieces, and you will rip open their pregnant women.”",
      "13": "Then Hazael said, “But what is your servant, a mere dog, that he could do such a great thing?”\nThen Elisha said, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Aram.”",
      "14": "Hazael then left Elisha and went to his master, and the king said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?”\nHe said, “He told me that you will certainly survive.”",
      "15": "But the next day, he took a thick cloth, dipped it in water, and spread it on the king’s face so that he died. Then Hazael became king in his place.",
      "16": "In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab, the king of Israel, while Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, became king.",
      "17": "He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he was king for eight years in Jerusalem.",
      "18": "He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab did, because the daughter of Ahab was his wife. So he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "19": "But for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah, because he had said that he would give a lamp to David and to his sons forever.",
      "20": "During his days, Edom broke away from the control of Judah and set a king over themselves.",
      "21": "So Joram crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. At night he rose up and attacked the Edomites who had surrounded him and his chariot commanders, but his army fled to their tents.",
      "22": "So Edom has been in revolt against Judah to this day. Libnah also rebelled at the same time.",
      "23": "As for the rest of Joram’s acts and everything he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals the Kings of Judah?",
      "24": "Joram rested with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Then his son Ahaziah became king in his place.",
      "25": "In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah became king.",
      "26": "Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, granddaughter of Omri, king of Israel.",
      "27": "He walked in the way of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as the house of Ahab had done, because he was a son-in-law of the house of Ahab.",
      "28": "He went with Joram son of Ahab to wage war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram.",
      "29": "So King Joram returned to Jezre’el to recover from the wounds which the Arameans inflicted on him at Ramoth Gilead when he fought against Hazael king of Aram. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram son of Ahab in Jezre’el because he had been wounded."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Then Elisha called one of the sons of the prophets and told him, “Hike up your garments for travel, and take this flask of oil in your hand and go to Ramoth Gilead.",
      "2": "When you get there, look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Go in and have him excuse himself from his associates and bring him into an inner room.",
      "3": "Take the flask of oil, pour it out on his head, and say, ‘This is what the Lord says. I anoint you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and flee. Do not delay!”",
      "4": "So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead.",
      "5": "When he got there, he found the commanders of the army sitting together.\nHe said, “I have a message for you, commander.”\nThen Jehu said, “For which of us?”\nHe answered, “For you, commander.”",
      "6": "So Jehu got up and went into the house. Then the servant poured the oil on his head and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I anoint you king over the Lord’s people Israel.",
      "7": "You will strike down the house of your master Ahab, and I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets and the blood of all the servants of the Lord that was shed by Jezebel.",
      "8": "The whole house of Ahab will perish. In Israel I will cut off from Ahab those who urinate against the wall, both bound and free.",
      "9": "I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like the house of Ba’asha son of Ahijah.",
      "10": "The dogs will eat Jezebel on the plot of ground in Jezre’el, and no one will bury her.” Then he opened the door and fled.",
      "11": "Then Jehu went out to the rest of the king’s officers. They said to him, “Is everything all right? Why did that madman come to you?”\nHe said to them, “You know the man and how he talks.”",
      "12": "But they said, “That’s not true! Tell us!”\nSo he said, “He told me this and that, and then he said, ‘This is what the Lord says. I anoint you king over Israel.’”",
      "13": "Each man quickly took his cloak. Then they placed them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the ram’s horn and said, “Jehu is king!”",
      "14": "Then Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. Now Joram and all Israel had been guarding Ramoth Gilead against Hazael king of Aram.",
      "15": "But King Joram returned to Jezre’el to recover from the wounds which the Arameans had inflicted on him when he fought against Hazael king of Aram.\nThen Jehu said, “If you really want me to be king, don’t let any survivors get out of the city to go and report in Jezre’el.”",
      "16": "Then Jehu got in his chariot and went to Jezre’el, because Joram was resting there and Ahaziah king of Judah had gone down to see Joram.",
      "17": "Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezre’el, and he saw Jehu’s troops coming, so the watchman said, “I see a large group coming!”\nThen Joram said, “Get a rider and send him to meet them and say, ‘Do you come in peace?’”",
      "18": "So a horseman went to meet him. He said, “This is what the king says. Do you come in peace?”\nThen Jehu said, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me.”\nThen the watchmen said, “The messenger reached him but did not return.”",
      "19": "So he sent a second horseman. He came to them and said, “This is what the king says. Do you come in peace?”\nJehu answered, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me.”",
      "20": "Then the watchman said, “He reached them, but he did not return. But the driving is like Jehu son of Nimshi’s driving. He drives like a madman.”",
      "21": "Then Joram said, “Hitch up a chariot!” Then they hitched up his chariot, and Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his own chariot, to meet Jehu. They reached him at the plot of ground that had belonged to Naboth from Jezre’el.",
      "22": "When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Do you come in peace, Jehu?”\nJehu answered, “What peace can there be as long as so much of your mother Jezebel’s prostitution and witchcraft exists?”",
      "23": "Then Joram turned his chariot around and fled. He said to Ahaziah, “Treachery, Ahaziah!”",
      "24": "Then Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram between his shoulders. The arrow pierced his heart, and he slumped down in his chariot.",
      "25": "Then Jehu said to Bidkar, his chariot officer, “Pick him up and throw him onto the plot of land that belonged to Naboth from Jezre’el. Remember that when you and I were riding side by side in chariots behind his father Ahab, the Lord made this pronouncement against him:",
      "26": "‘As surely as I saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons yesterday, the Lord declares, I will repay you on this plot of land, the Lord declares.’ So now, pick him up and throw him onto that plot of land according to the word of the Lord.”",
      "27": "Ahaziah king of Judah saw this and fled on the road toward Beth Hagan. But Jehu pursued him and said, “Shoot him too!” They shot him in his chariot on the way up to Gur, that is Ibleam. Then he fled to Megiddo and died there.",
      "28": "His servants brought him in his chariot to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb with his fathers in the City of David.",
      "29": "(It was in the eleventh year of Joram son of King Ahab that Ahaziah had become king over Judah.)",
      "30": "Jehu went to Jezre’el. When Jezebel heard it, she put on eye make-up and arranged her hair. Then she looked down through a window.",
      "31": "When Jehu came into the gate, she said, “Do you come in peace, Zimri, the killer of your master?”",
      "32": "He looked up to the window and said, “Who is with me? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked down to him.",
      "33": "Then he said, “Throw her down!” So they threw her down, and her blood splattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled her.",
      "34": "Then he went inside and ate and drank. Then Jehu said, “See to that cursed woman and bury her, because she was a king’s daughter.”",
      "35": "But when they went to bury her, they did not find her, except for her skull, her feet, and the palms of her hands.",
      "36": "So they came back and told him. Then Jehu said, “This is the word of the Lord which he spoke through his servant Elijah from Tishbe: On the plot of ground at Jezre’el, the dogs will eat the flesh of Jezebel.",
      "37": "Jezebel’s corpse will be like manure spread on the surface of the field at the plot of ground at Jezre’el, so they won’t be able to say, ‘This is Jezebel.’”"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria, so Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria, that is, to the officials of Samaria, the elders, and to the guardians appointed by Ahab, saying,",
      "2": "“Now, when this letter comes to you, since you have your master’s sons with you and you have chariots, horses, a fortified city, and weapons,",
      "3": "choose the best and most upright of your master’s sons and seat him on his father’s throne and fight for your master’s house.”",
      "4": "They were terrified and said, “Look, two kings could not stand before him, so how can we?”",
      "5": "Then the palace administrator, the ruler of the city, the elders, and the guardians sent word to Jehu, saying, “We are your servants. We will do everything you tell us. We will not make any man king. Do whatever is good in your eyes.”",
      "6": "Then Jehu wrote a second letter to them, saying, “If you are on my side and will obey me, then take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me at this time tomorrow in Jezre’el.”\nNow the king’s seventy sons were with the leaders of the city who were raising them.",
      "7": "When the letter came, they took the king’s sons and slaughtered all seventy of them. Then they put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezre’el.",
      "8": "When the messenger arrived, he said, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons.” Jehu said, “Put them in two piles at the entrance to the gate until morning.”",
      "9": "When morning came, he went out and stood and said to all the people, “You are innocent. Indeed I conspired against my master and killed him. But who killed all these?",
      "10": "Know, therefore, that nothing of the word of the Lord, which the Lord spoke against the house of Ahab, will fail. For the Lord did what he said through his servant Elijah.”",
      "11": "Then Jehu killed everyone who remained from the house of Ahab in Jezre’el and all his important people, his close friends, and his priests, so that no survivor was left to him.",
      "12": "Then he set out toward Samaria. While he was on the way, at Beth Eked of the Shepherds,",
      "13": "Jehu met some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah. He said, “Who are you?” They said, “We are Ahaziah’s relatives. We have come down to greet the king’s sons and the queen mother’s sons.”",
      "14": "Then he said, “Take them alive!” So they took them. Then they slaughtered them at the cistern of Beth Eked—forty-two men, and he did not let one survive.",
      "15": "Then he set out from there and met Jehonadab son of Recab, who was coming to meet him. Jehu greeted him and said, “Is your heart as true to my heart as my heart is to yours?”\nHe said, “It is.”\nThen Jehu said, “If it is, then give me your hand!” So Jehonadab gave him his hand, and Jehu helped him up into the chariot.",
      "16": "Then Jehu said, “Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.” So he had him ride with him in his chariot.",
      "17": "When he came to Samaria, he struck down everyone who was left to Ahab there. He wiped out Ahab completely, according to the word which the Lord had spoken to Elijah.",
      "18": "Then Jehu assembled all the people and said to them, “Ahab served Baal a little. Jehu will serve him a great deal.",
      "19": "But now, gather all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests! Let no one be missing because I am going to make a great sacrifice to Baal. No one who misses it will live.”\nBut Jehu was acting deceptively in order to exterminate the servants of Baal.",
      "20": "Then Jehu said, “Consecrate a festival for Baal,” and they proclaimed it.",
      "21": "Then Jehu sent word through all Israel, and all the servants of Baal came. Not a man was left who did not come. They came into the temple of Baal so that the temple of Baal was filled from end to end.",
      "22": "Then he said to the person in charge of the wardrobe, “Bring out garments for all the servants of Baal.” So he brought out robes for them.",
      "23": "Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Recab went into the temple of Baal. Jehu said to the servants of Baal, “Make a careful search, and see to it that there are no servants of the Lord with you, but only servants of Baal.”",
      "24": "Then they went in to make sacrifices and whole burnt offerings. But Jehu had stationed eighty men outside and said, “If any man escapes from these men whom I am putting into your hands, it will be your life for his life.”",
      "25": "When he was finished offering the whole burnt offering, Jehu said to the guards and to the officers, “Go strike them down! Don’t let anyone out!” So they struck them down with their swords, and the guards and the officers threw the bodies out. They then went into the inner sanctuary of the temple of Baal.",
      "26": "They brought the sacred memorial stones out from the temple of Baal and burned them.",
      "27": "They tore down the memorial stone for Baal and tore down the temple of Baal. They have used it for a latrine to this day.",
      "28": "In this way Jehu exterminated Baal worship from Israel.",
      "29": "But when it came to the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit, Jehu did not turn aside from following the golden calves which were in Bethel and in Dan.",
      "30": "But the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well by doing what is right in my eyes—you have done everything that was in my heart to the house of Ahab—four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.”",
      "31": "But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins which Jeroboam caused Israel to commit.",
      "32": "In those days, the Lord began to break off pieces from Israel. Then Hazael attacked all the territory of Israel",
      "33": "east of the Jordan, all the land of Gilead, Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh, from Aroer, which is above the canyon of the Arnon, up to Gilead and Bashan.",
      "34": "As for the rest of Jehu’s acts and everything he did and all his mighty deeds, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "35": "Jehu rested with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria. Then his son Jehoahaz became king in his place.",
      "36": "The time that Jehu ruled as king over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she went into action and destroyed all the royal heirs.",
      "2": "But Jehosheba, King Joram’s daughter and Ahaziah’s sister, took Joash, the son of Ahaziah. She stole him away from among the king’s sons, who were to be killed. She put him and his nurse in a bedroom. He was kept hidden from Athaliah so that he was not killed.",
      "3": "He was kept hidden with her in the House of the Lord for six years while Athaliah was ruling over the land.",
      "4": "In the seventh year, Jehoiada sent a message and summoned the officers in charge of the units of the Carians and the guards to meet him at the House of the Lord. He made a covenant with them and had them swear an oath in the House of the Lord. Then he showed them the king’s son.",
      "5": "He commanded them, “This is how you will deploy: A third of you who are coming on duty on the Sabbath are to guard the palace of the king.",
      "6": "Another third will be stationed at the Sur Gate, and the final third at the gate behind the guards who take turns protecting this temple.",
      "7": "The two divisions of you who are going off duty on the Sabbath will protect the House of the Lord, together with the king.",
      "8": "You will surround the king on all sides, every man with his weapons in his hand. Anyone who comes into the ranks will be put to death. You will accompany the king when he goes out and when he comes in.”",
      "9": "So the officers of the companies did just as Jehoiada the priest commanded. Each one took his men, those coming on duty on the Sabbath with those going off duty on the Sabbath, and they came to Jehoiada the priest.",
      "10": "The priest gave the officers in charge of the units the spears and shields which had belonged to King David and which were in the House of the Lord.",
      "11": "So the guards, each one with his weapon in his hand, stood around the king from the south side of the temple to the north side, near the altar of the temple.",
      "12": "Then Jehoiada brought out the king’s son and set the crown on him and gave him the Testimony, and they made him king. They anointed him and clapped their hands and said, “Long live the king!”",
      "13": "When Athaliah heard the noise of the guards and the people, she went to them in the House of the Lord.",
      "14": "She looked, and there was the king standing beside the pillar according to the custom, and the officers and the trumpeters were in front of the king, and all the people of the land were celebrating and blowing trumpets. Then Athaliah tore her clothes and cried, “Treason! Treason!”",
      "15": "Then Jehoiada the priest commanded the officers in charge of the units of the army, “Bring her out between the ranks! Anyone who follows her is to be put to death with the sword!”\nBecause the priest had said, “She is not to be killed in the House of the Lord,”",
      "16": "they laid hands on her as she was going through the passageway where the horses enter the king’s palace, and they killed her there.",
      "17": "Then Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord and the king and people that they would be the Lord’s people. He also made a covenant between the king and the people.",
      "18": "Then all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They smashed its altar and its idols till they were dust. They also killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altars. Then the priest posted a watch over the House of the Lord.",
      "19": "Then he took the officers of the companies and the Carians and the guards and all the people of the land, and they brought the king down from the House of the Lord. They entered the king’s palace through the gate of the guards. Then he sat on the throne of the kings.",
      "20": "All the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet. Athaliah had been put to death with the sword in the king’s palace.",
      "21": "Joash was seven years old when he became king."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king, and he was king in Jerusalem for forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah from Beersheba.",
      "2": "Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord during the whole time that Jehoiada the priest instructed him,",
      "3": "but the high places were still not removed. The people were making sacrifices and burning incense on the high places.",
      "4": "Jehoash said to the priests, “All the silver from the sacred offerings which is brought into the House of the Lord—the redemption money which is assessed to each man in the census, all the money from the redemption of dedicated things, and all the money which any man brings to the House of the Lord as a gift from his heart—",
      "5": "the priests are to take it from the donor and repair whatever damage is found in the temple.”",
      "6": "But in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, the priests had not repaired the damage to the temple.",
      "7": "So King Jehoash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests, and he said to them, “Why aren’t you repairing the damage to the temple? Do not accept any more silver from those who are handing it in to you. Instead, put it toward repairing the damage to the temple.”",
      "8": "So the priests agreed that they would not take any silver from the people and that they themselves would not do the work of repairing the damage to the temple.",
      "9": "But Jehoiada the priest took a box, drilled a hole in its lid, and placed it at the right side of the altar as one entered the House of the Lord. Then the priests who were guarding the threshold put all the money which came into the House of the Lord there.",
      "10": "When they saw that there was a large quantity of silver in the box, the king’s secretary and the high priest went up and tied it in bags and tallied the silver which was found in the House of the Lord.",
      "11": "Then they gave the silver which had been weighed out to those who were overseeing the work on the House of the Lord. They paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who were working on the House of the Lord,",
      "12": "and to the bricklayers and the stonemasons, who used it to buy wood and stone from the quarry to repair the damage to the House of the Lord and to meet all the expenses for repairing the building.",
      "13": "But the silver basins, snuffers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets, and all the gold and silver articles for the House of the Lord were not made from this silver which was brought into the House of the Lord.",
      "14": "Rather they paid it to the ones who were doing the work, and they repaired the House of the Lord with it.",
      "15": "They did not audit the men to whom they gave the silver to do the work, because they were acting honestly.",
      "16": "The silver from the restitution offerings and the silver from the sin offerings was not brought into the House of the Lord. It belonged to the priests.",
      "17": "Then Hazael king of Aram came up and attacked Gath and captured it. Hazael turned to go up against Jerusalem.",
      "18": "So Jehoash king of Judah took all the sacred articles which his fathers Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had dedicated, as well as the sacred articles that he himself had given and all the gold which was found in the treasuries of the House of the Lord and in the king’s palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram. So Hazael left Jerusalem.",
      "19": "As for the rest of the acts of Jehoash and all the things he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "20": "His servants conspired against him and killed Jehoash at Beth Millo, along the road down to Silla.",
      "21": "His servants Jozabad son of Shimath and Jehozabad son of Shomer struck him down, and he died. They buried him with his fathers in the City of David. Then his son Amaziah became king in his place."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu became king over Israel in Samaria for seventeen years.",
      "2": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He walked in the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit. He did not turn from them.",
      "3": "The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, so he gave them into the hand of Hazael king of Aram and into the hand of Ben Hadad son of Hazael, all his days.",
      "4": "Jehoahaz, however, sought the Lord’s favor, and the Lord listened to him, because he saw the oppression that the king of Aram was inflicting on Israel.",
      "5": "So the Lord appointed a deliverer for Israel, and they escaped from the power of the Arameans. Then the people of Israel lived in their own homes as they had before.",
      "6": "But they did not turn from the sins which the house of Jeroboam caused Israel to commit. They walked in them, and there was even an Asherah pole standing in Samaria.",
      "7": "Nothing was left of Jehoahaz’s army except fifty charioteers, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers, for the king of Aram had destroyed them. He made them like dust at threshing time.",
      "8": "As for the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz and everything he did and his mighty deeds, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "9": "Jehoahaz rested with his fathers and they buried him in Samaria. Then his son Joash became king in his place.",
      "10": "In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz became king over Israel in Samaria for sixteen years.",
      "11": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not turn from all the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit. He walked in them.",
      "12": "As for the rest of Joash’s acts and all he did and his mighty deeds, how he fought with Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "13": "Joash rested with his fathers. Then Jeroboam sat on his throne. Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.",
      "14": "Now Elisha was suffering from the illness from which he would die, and Joash king of Israel went down to him. Then he wept over him and said, “My father! My father! Israel’s chariot and its charioteers!”",
      "15": "Elisha said to him, “Get a bow and arrow.” So he brought a bow and arrow to him.",
      "16": "Then he told the king of Israel, “Take the bow in your hands!” So he took the bow in his hands. Then Elisha put his hand on the king’s hand.",
      "17": "He said, “Open the window to the east.” So he opened it.\nThen Elisha said, “Shoot!” So he shot.\nThen he said, “The arrow of victory for the Lord! The arrow of victory over Aram! You will completely destroy Aram at Aphek!”",
      "18": "Then Elisha said, “Take your arrows.” So he took the arrows.\nThen he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground!” So he struck it three times and then stopped.",
      "19": "Then the man of God was furious with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times! Then you would have completely destroyed Aram. But now, you will defeat Aram only three times.”",
      "20": "Then Elisha died, and they buried him.\nNow raiders from Moab were coming into the land during the spring.",
      "21": "While a man was being buried, the people suddenly saw the raiders, so they threw the man into the tomb of Elisha. When the man touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life, and he got up on his feet.",
      "22": "Hazael king of Aram had oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.",
      "23": "But the Lord was gracious to them and showed compassion for them, and he turned his attention to them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So until this time he has not been willing to destroy them, nor did he cast them from his presence.",
      "24": "Then Hazael king of Aram died, and his son Ben Hadad became king in his place.",
      "25": "Jehoash son of Jehoahaz took action and recovered from Ben Hadad son of Hazael the cities which Hazael had taken from his father Jehoahaz in war. Three times Joash defeated him and recovered those Israelite cities."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "In the second year of Joash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah became king.",
      "2": "He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin from Jerusalem.",
      "3": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not like his father David. He did everything his father Joash had done,",
      "4": "but the high places were still not removed. The people were still offering sacrifices and burning incense at the high places.",
      "5": "When the royal power was firmly in his hand, he killed his officials who had killed his father the king.",
      "6": "But he did not put the sons of the assassins to death, in obedience to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, in which the Lord commanded, “Fathers are not to be put to death on account of their sons, and sons are not to be put to death on account of their fathers, but each person will die for his own sin.”",
      "7": "He struck down ten thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt. He seized Sela in the war and named it Jokthe’el, the name it has to this day.",
      "8": "Then Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, “Come, let’s confront each other face-to-face.”",
      "9": "Then Jehoash king of Israel sent a message to Amaziah king of Judah:\nA thornbush in Lebanon sent a message to a cedar in Lebanon, saying, “Give your daughter to my son as his wife.” But a wild animal in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thornbush.",
      "10": "You have indeed defeated Edom, and your heart has become proud. Accept that honor and remain in your palace. Why stir up disaster so that you fall, and Judah falls with you?",
      "11": "But Amaziah did not listen, so Jehoash king of Israel attacked. He and Amaziah king of Judah confronted each other face-to-face at Beth Shemesh, which belongs to Judah.",
      "12": "Judah was defeated by Israel, and each man fled to his tent.",
      "13": "Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah son of Jehoash, son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, at Beth Shemesh. Then they went to Jerusalem. Jehoash broke down six hundred feet of the wall of Jerusalem from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate.",
      "14": "Then he took all the gold and silver, all the articles found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s palace. He also took hostages and returned to Samaria.",
      "15": "As for the rest of Jehoash’s acts, the things he did and his mighty deeds, and how he fought with Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "16": "Jehoash rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. Then his son Jeroboam became king in his place.",
      "17": "But Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah lived for fifteen years after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel.",
      "18": "As for the rest of Amaziah’s acts, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "19": "A conspiracy was raised against him in Jerusalem, so he fled to Lachish. But they sent men after him to Lachish and killed him there.",
      "20": "Then they brought him back on horses and buried him in Jerusalem with his fathers in the City of David.",
      "21": "Then all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.",
      "22": "It was he who built Elat and restored it to Judah after King Amaziah rested with his fathers.",
      "23": "In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel, became king in Samaria for forty-one years.",
      "24": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not turn from all the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit.",
      "25": "It was he who restored the boundary of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea according to the word which the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through his servant, the prophet Jonah son of Amittai, who was from Gath Hepher.",
      "26": "The Lord saw the misery of Israel, which was extremely bitter for both bound and free. There was no one to help Israel.",
      "27": "Since the Lord had not said that he would wipe the name of Israel from under the heavens, he rescued them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash.",
      "28": "As for the rest of Jeroboam’s acts and everything he did and his mighty deeds, the wars he fought, and how he recovered Damascus and Hamath (which had belonged to Judah) for Israel, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "29": "Jeroboam rested with his fathers, the kings of Israel. Then his son Zechariah became king in his place."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah son of Amaziah king of Judah became king.",
      "2": "He was sixteen years old when he became king, and he ruled for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jekoliah from Jerusalem.",
      "3": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father Amaziah had done.",
      "4": "But the high places were still not removed. The people were still offering sacrifices and burning incense there at the high places.",
      "5": "Then the Lord afflicted the king so that he had leprosy until the day of his death. So he lived in a quarantined house, and Jotham, the king’s son, was in charge of the palace and administered justice for the people of the land.",
      "6": "As for the rest of Azariah’s acts and everything he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "7": "Azariah rested with his fathers, and he was buried in the City of David. Then his son Jotham became king in his place.",
      "8": "In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah son of Jeroboam ruled as king over Israel in Samaria for six months.",
      "9": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his fathers had done. He did not turn from the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit.",
      "10": "Shallum son of Jabesh conspired against him. He struck him down in front of the people and killed him. Then he became king in his place.",
      "11": "As for the rest of Zechariah’s acts, you can find them written in the annals of the kings of Israel.",
      "12": "This was the word of the Lord which he had spoken to Jehu: “Four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.” And that is what happened.",
      "13": "Shallum son of Jabesh became king in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah, and he ruled for one month in Samaria.",
      "14": "Then Menahem son of Gadi from Tirzah went up to Samaria. He struck down Shallum son of Jabesh in Samaria and killed him. Then he became king in his place.",
      "15": "The rest of Shallum’s acts, including the conspiracy he led, you can find written in the annals of the kings of Israel.",
      "16": "Then Menahem, starting from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and all the people who were in it and its territory. Because they did not open their gates to him, he attacked it and cut open every pregnant woman.",
      "17": "In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem son of Gadi became king over Israel in Samaria and ruled for ten years.",
      "18": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. All his days he did not turn from the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit.",
      "19": "Pul king of Assyria came against the land, and Menahem gave Pul one thousand talents of silver for supporting him and strengthening his hold over the kingdom.",
      "20": "Menahem exacted the silver from Israel, from every wealthy man—fifty shekels from each man—to give to the king of Assyria. Then the king of Assyria left. He did not remain in the land.",
      "21": "As for the rest of Menahem’s acts and everything he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Israel?",
      "22": "Menahem rested with his fathers. Then his son Pekahiah became king in his place.",
      "23": "In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah son of Menahem became king over Israel in Samaria for two years.",
      "24": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not turn from the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit.",
      "25": "Then Pekah son of Remaliah, his military advisor, conspired against him and struck him down in the fortified part of the king’s palace in Samaria, along with Argob and Arieh. Fifty men from Gilead were with Pekah when he killed Pekahiah and became king in his place.",
      "26": "As for the rest of Pekahiah’s acts and everything he did, you can find them written in the annals of the kings of Israel.",
      "27": "In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah son of Remaliah became king over Israel in Samaria and ruled for twenty years.",
      "28": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not turn from the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat caused Israel to commit.",
      "29": "In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Ma’akah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee—all the land of Naphtali. He exiled them to Assyria.",
      "30": "Then Hoshea son of Elah conspired against Pekah son of Remaliah. He struck him down and killed him. Then he became king in his place in the twenty-second year of Jotham son of Uzziah.",
      "31": "As for the rest of Pekah’s acts and everything he did, you can find them written in the annals of the kings of Israel.",
      "32": "In the second year of Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel, Jotham son of Uzziah king of Judah became king.",
      "33": "He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled for sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok.",
      "34": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father Uzziah had done.",
      "35": "But the high places were still not removed. The people were still offering sacrifices and burning incense on the high places. He built the upper gate for the House of the Lord.",
      "36": "As for the rest of Jotham’s acts, the things he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "37": "In those days, the Lord began to send Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah against Judah.",
      "38": "Jotham rested with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the city of his father David. Then his son Ahaz became king in his place."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.",
      "2": "Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years. He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done.",
      "3": "He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made his son pass through the fire, according to the shameful practices of the nations which the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel.",
      "4": "He offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every leafy tree.",
      "5": "Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem for war. They laid siege to Ahaz, but they could not defeat him.",
      "6": "At that time, Rezin king of Aram recovered Elat for Edom, and he drove the people of Judah away from Elat. Then Edomites came to Elat, and they have lived there to this day.",
      "7": "So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come and save me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who have come up against me.”",
      "8": "Then Ahaz took the silver and the gold which were found in the House of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s palace, and he sent them to the king of Assyria as tribute.",
      "9": "So the king of Assyria listened to him and attacked Damascus. He exiled the inhabitants to Kir. He also killed Rezin.",
      "10": "King Ahaz went to meet Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria in Damascus. He saw the altar which was in Damascus, and King Ahaz sent a model of the altar and instructions for making one like it to Uriah the priest.",
      "11": "So Uriah the priest built this altar. Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had instructed him from Damascus before King Ahaz returned from Damascus.",
      "12": "When the king returned from Damascus, he saw the altar. He approached it and ascended it.",
      "13": "He offered whole burnt offerings and grain offerings. He poured out drink offerings, and he sprinkled the blood of his fellowship offerings on the altar.",
      "14": "He moved the bronze altar, which had been in the presence of the Lord, away from its location in front of the temple building, from between his altar and the Lord’s house, and he put it on the north side of his altar.",
      "15": "Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, “Present the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering, his grain offering, and all the people’s burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings on the great altar. Sprinkle all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifices on it. But the bronze altar will be mine for divination.”",
      "16": "So Uriah the priest did everything just as King Ahaz commanded.",
      "17": "Then King Ahaz cut off the side panels of the carts, and he removed the basins that were on them. He took the sea down from its position on the bronze cattle that were under it and put it on a stone pavement.",
      "18": "In deference to the king of Assyria, he also removed the Sabbath canopy that had been built for the house and removed the king’s entrance on the outside of the Lord’s house.",
      "19": "As for the rest of the acts of Ahaz, the things he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "20": "Ahaz rested with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Then his son Hezekiah became king in his place."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king over Israel in Samaria and ruled for nine years.",
      "2": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, but not like the kings of Israel who came before him.",
      "3": "Shalmaneser king of Assyria went up against him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid tribute to him.",
      "4": "But the king of Assyria caught Hoshea in a conspiracy. He had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and he did not send tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done in previous years. That is why the king of Assyria arrested him and confined him in prison.",
      "5": "Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land. He went up against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years.",
      "6": "In Hoshea’s ninth year, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and exiled Israel to Assyria. He made them live in Halah and along the Habur River, which is the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.",
      "7": "This happened because the people of Israel sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and they feared other gods.",
      "8": "They walked in the practices of the nations, whom the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel, and the practices which the kings of Israel had introduced.",
      "9": "The people of Israel did secret things against the Lord their God, which were not right. They also built high places for themselves in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city.",
      "10": "They set up sacred memorial stones and Asherah poles for themselves upon every high hill and under every leafy tree.",
      "11": "They offered sacrifices at all the high places, like the nations that God drove out before them. They did evil things, provoking the Lord to anger.",
      "12": "They served filthy idols even though the Lord had said to them, “You must not do this.”",
      "13": "The Lord had warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers, saying, “Turn back from your evil ways and keep my commands and my regulations, according to the entire law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you through my servants the prophets.”",
      "14": "But they did not listen. They made their necks just as stiff as their fathers, who did not trust in the Lord their God.",
      "15": "They rejected his regulations and the covenant which he made with their fathers and the testimony with which he warned them. They followed useless idols, and they became useless themselves. They followed the other nations around them, about whom the Lord had commanded them, “Do not do as they do.”",
      "16": "They deserted all the commands of the Lord their God, and they made for themselves cast metal images, two calves. They made Asherah poles, and they bowed down to the whole army of the heavens, and they served Baal.",
      "17": "They made their sons and daughters pass through the fire. They engaged in divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger.",
      "18": "So the Lord was furious with Israel, and he removed them from his presence. None was left—only the tribe of Judah.",
      "19": "Even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They walked in the practices which Israel introduced.",
      "20": "So the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and he afflicted them. He gave them into the hand of plunderers until he cast them out of his presence.",
      "21": "When the Lord tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. But Jeroboam drove Israel away from following the Lord. He caused them to commit a great sin.",
      "22": "The people of Israel walked in all the sins which Jeroboam did. They did not turn from them",
      "23": "until the Lord removed Israel from his presence, just as he had said through all his servants the prophets. So Israel went to Assyria, into exile from her homeland to this day.",
      "24": "The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and he settled them in the cities of Samaria in the place of the people of Israel. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.",
      "25": "When they began to settle there, they did not fear the Lord, so the Lord sent lions among them. The lions were killing people,",
      "26": "so they said to the king of Assyria, “The peoples whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the customs of the god of the land. That is why he has sent lions among them, and the lions are killing people, because there aren’t any people left who know the customs of the god of the land.”",
      "27": "So the king of Assyria commanded, “Get one of the priests who was exiled from there. He will go and live there and teach the customs of the god of the land.”",
      "28": "So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came and lived in Bethel. He was teaching them how they should fear the Lord.",
      "29": "But each nation was still making its own gods and setting them in the shrines of the high places which the Samaritans had made, each nation in their cities where they were dwelling.",
      "30": "The people from Babylon made Sukkoth Benoth. The people from Kuth made Nergal. The people from Hamath made Ashima.",
      "31": "The people from Avvah made Nibhaz and Tartak. The people from Sepharvaim were burning their sons in the fire to Adrammelek and Anammelek, the gods of Sepharvaim.",
      "32": "They were fearing the Lord, but they were making priests for their high places from all kinds of people, who were serving them in the shrines on the high places.",
      "33": "They were fearing the Lord, but they were also serving their gods according to the customs of the nations from which they had been deported.",
      "34": "To this day they are acting according to their former customs. There are none of them who fear the Lord, and there is no one who acts according to the regulations, ordinances, law, and commands which the Lord had commanded the children of Jacob, to whom he gave the name Israel.",
      "35": "The Lord had made a covenant with them and commanded them, “Do not fear other gods. Do not bow down to them. Do not serve them. Do not sacrifice to them.",
      "36": "Rather fear the Lord, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm. Fear him and bow down to him and offer sacrifices to him.",
      "37": "Keep the regulations, ordinances, law, and commands, which he wrote for you, and do not fear other gods.",
      "38": "Do not forget the covenant I made with you, and do not fear other gods.",
      "39": "Fear only the Lord your God. He is the one who will save you from the hand of all your enemies.”",
      "40": "But these nations did not listen. Instead, they acted according to their former customs.",
      "41": "These nations were fearing the Lord, and they were serving their idols. Their children and their grandchildren did just as their fathers had done. They are doing this up to this day."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah, became king.",
      "2": "He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi daughter of Zechariah.",
      "3": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father David had done.",
      "4": "He removed the high places, smashed the sacred memorial stones, cut down the Asherah poles, and broke into pieces the bronze serpent which Moses had made, because until those days the people of Israel had been burning incense to it. They called it Nehushtan.",
      "5": "He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, and there was no one like him among the kings of Judah, before him or after him.",
      "6": "He held fast to the Lord. He did not turn aside from following him, but he kept the command which the Lord commanded Moses.",
      "7": "The Lord was with him. Wherever he went, the Lord gave him success. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.",
      "8": "He struck down the Philistines all the way to Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.",
      "9": "In Hezekiah’s fourth year, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria went up against Samaria and laid siege to it.",
      "10": "They captured it at the end of three years. In the sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was captured.",
      "11": "Then the king of Assyria exiled Israel to Assyria. He settled them in Halah and on the Habur River, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.",
      "12": "This was because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord their God, but they abandoned his covenant and all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded. They did not listen to it or obey it.",
      "13": "In King Hezekiah’s fourteenth year, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.",
      "14": "Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent a message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will pay.” Then the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah a penalty of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.",
      "15": "So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the Lord’s house and in the treasuries of the king’s house.",
      "16": "At this time, Hezekiah stripped the gold off the doors of the temple of the Lord and off the doorposts, which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid with gold, and he gave it to the king of Assyria.",
      "17": "Then the king of Assyria sent the field commander, the chief of staff, and the herald from Lachish with a large army against King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stood by the watercourse from the upper pool, which is on the way to the washerman’s field.",
      "18": "They summoned the king, so Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was the palace administrator, Shebna, who was the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who was the recorder, went out to meet them.",
      "19": "The herald said to him, “Tell Hezekiah what the great king, the king of Assyria, says.”\nWhat are you relying on?",
      "20": "You say that you have the plan and power for war, but this is only words from your lips. So who are you trusting when you rebel against me?",
      "21": "Tell me, are you really trusting in Egypt as your staff, that splintered reed which will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it? That’s what Pharaoh king of Egypt is for all those who trust in him.",
      "22": "And if you say to me, “We are trusting in the Lord our God,” didn’t Hezekiah remove his high places and his altars and tell Judah and Jerusalem, “You must bow down before this altar in Jerusalem”?",
      "23": "But now, make a bargain with my lord, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses if you can provide riders for them.",
      "24": "How will you resist one officer from among the least significant of my lord’s servants? You are trusting in Egypt for chariots and charioteers.",
      "25": "Have I now come up against this place without the Lord? The Lord said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”",
      "26": "Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, along with Shebna and Joah, said to the herald, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. But don’t speak with us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”",
      "27": "Then the herald said to them:\nIs it only to your lord and to you that my lord sent me to speak these words? Is it not also to the people who are sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine with you?",
      "28": "Then the herald stood up and called out in a loud voice in Hebrew and said the following:\nListen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.",
      "29": "This is what the king says. Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, because he can’t save you from my hand.",
      "30": "And don’t let Hezekiah cause you to trust in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will surely save us! He will not let this city be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”",
      "31": "Don’t listen to Hezekiah because this is what the king of Assyria says. Make a peace treaty with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat from his own vine and drink from his own cistern,",
      "32": "until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land with grain and sweet wine, a land with bread and vineyards, a land with olive oil and honey, so that you may live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah because he is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will save us.”",
      "33": "Have the gods of any nation ever saved their land from the hand of the king of Assyria?",
      "34": "Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they save Samaria from my hand?",
      "35": "Who among all the gods of the lands saved their land from my hand? Will the Lord really save Jerusalem from my hand?",
      "36": "But the people were silent. They did not answer him a word because the king had commanded them not to speak or answer.",
      "37": "Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was the palace administrator, Shebna who was the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who was the recorder, went to Hezekiah with their robes torn and told him the words of the herald."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth. Then he went into the House of the Lord.",
      "2": "He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the elders of the priests, dressed in sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.",
      "3": "They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says. Today is a day of distress and rebuke and humiliation because children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.",
      "4": "Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of the herald, whom his lord, the king of Assyria, sent to mock the living God, and he will rebuke him for the words which the Lord your God has heard, and you will lift up a prayer on behalf of the remnant who are left.”",
      "5": "When the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah,",
      "6": "Isaiah said to them, “Say this to your lord: This is what the Lord says. Do not be afraid of these words which you heard, with which the lackeys of the king of Assyria blasphemed me.",
      "7": "See, I am going to put him into such a frame of mind that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his country, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”",
      "8": "Because the herald heard that the king of Assyria had withdrawn from Lachish, he went back and found the king fighting against Libnah.",
      "9": "For he had heard this report about Tirhakah king of Cush: “Watch out! He has come out to fight with you.” So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah",
      "10": "to say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: “Don’t let your God, whom you trust, deceive you, saying, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’",
      "11": "Listen, you have heard what the kings of Assyria did to all the lands which they completely destroyed. And you expect to be saved?",
      "12": "Did the gods of the nations which my fathers destroyed save them—Gozen and Haran and Rezeph and the people of Eden, who are in Tel Assar?",
      "13": "Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and Hena and Ivvah?”",
      "14": "Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the House of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it out before the Lord.",
      "15": "Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord:\nO Lord, God of Israel, you are seated above the cherubim. You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.",
      "16": "Bend your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, Lord, and see. Hear Sennacherib’s words, which he sent to taunt the living God.",
      "17": "It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed these nations and their lands.",
      "18": "They have burned their gods, because they were not gods but only the works of human hands, just wood and stone, so they destroyed them.",
      "19": "But now, O Lord our God, please save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you, O Lord, are God, you alone.",
      "20": "Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah:\nThis is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I have heard what you have prayed to me about Sennacherib, the king of Assyria.",
      "21": "This is the message which the Lord has spoken about him:\nThe Virgin Daughter Zion despises you. She jeers at you.\nThe Daughter Jerusalem tosses her head at you.",
      "22": "Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?\nAgainst whom have you lifted up your voice and raised your eyes\n    to heaven?\nAgainst the Holy One of Israel!",
      "23": "By your messengers you have taunted the Lord.\nYou have said, “With my many chariots I have gone up\n    to the heights of the mountains,\n    to the most remote part of Lebanon.\nI cut down its tall cedars and the best of its fir trees.\nI went in to its farthest dwelling place, the most lush of its forests.",
      "24": "I dug wells and drank water in foreign lands.\nI dried up all the streams of Egypt with the soles of my feet.”",
      "25": "Have you not heard?\nFrom long ago I, the Lord, did this.\nFrom days of eternity I formed it,\nand now I have brought it about\n    that fortified cities crash into piles of ruined stones.",
      "26": "Their inhabitants, powerless, are dismayed and ashamed.\nThey are like plants in the field and fresh green grass,\nlike grass on the roof, scorched before it becomes a full-grown stalk.",
      "27": "I know when you sit down, and when you go out,\nand when you come in again, and how you rage against me.",
      "28": "Because you rage against me,\nbecause your arrogance has reached my ears,\nI will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth,\nand I will make you go back by the way you came.",
      "29": "This will be a sign for you:\nThis year you will eat what grows naturally,\nnext year what grows naturally from that,\nbut in the third year, you will sow and harvest.\nYou will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.",
      "30": "The surviving remnant of the house of Judah\n    will again take root below and produce fruit above.",
      "31": "For a remnant will go out from Jerusalem,\nand survivors from Mt. Zion.\nThe zeal of the Lord will do this.",
      "32": "Therefore, this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:\nHe will not come into this city.\nHe will not shoot an arrow there.\nHe will not advance against it with a shield,\nand he will not build up a siege ramp against it.",
      "33": "By the same way he came he will go back,\nbut he will not come into this city.\nA declaration of the Lord:",
      "34": "I will protect and save this city for my own sake\nand for the sake of my servant David.",
      "35": "That night, the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand men in the camp of Assyria. When it was time to wake up in the morning, there they were—all the dead bodies!",
      "36": "Then Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and returned and lived in Nineveh.",
      "37": "One day when he was worshipping in the house of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword. They fled to the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king in his place."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "In those days Hezekiah became sick and was dying. Then the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the Lord says. Give instructions to your house because you are going to die. You will not recover.”",
      "2": "Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying,",
      "3": "“Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your eyes.” Hezekiah wept bitterly.",
      "4": "Isaiah had not yet gone out from the middle courtyard when the word of the Lord came to him:",
      "5": "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, that this is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says. I have heard your prayer, and I have seen your tears. I will certainly heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the House of the Lord.",
      "6": "I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will rescue you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will protect this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.",
      "7": "Then Isaiah said, “Get a cake of figs.” So they got it and put it on the infected sore, and Hezekiah recovered.",
      "8": "Then Hezekiah asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the House of the Lord on the third day from now?”",
      "9": "Isaiah said, “This will be a sign for you from the Lord that the Lord will do the thing which he said. Shall the shadow extend forward over ten more steps, or shall it move backwards ten steps?”",
      "10": "Hezekiah said, “It’s easy for the shadow to get longer and cover ten more steps. Instead, have it go back ten steps.”",
      "11": "Then the prophet Isaiah called out to the Lord, and he caused the shadow, which had gone down on the steps of Ahaz, to go backwards ten steps.",
      "12": "At that time, Merodak Baladan son of Baladan, the king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah because he heard that Hezekiah had been sick.",
      "13": "Hezekiah heard the envoys and showed them all his palace treasuries, the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine oil, the armory, and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing which Hezekiah did not show them in his palace or in his whole kingdom.",
      "14": "Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said, “What did these men say, and where did they come from?”\nHezekiah said, “From a distant land—they came from Babylon.”",
      "15": "Then Isaiah asked, “What did they see in your palace?”\nHezekiah said, “They saw everything in my palace. There is nothing in my treasuries which they did not see.”",
      "16": "Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord.",
      "17": "Listen carefully! The days are coming when whatever is in your palace, everything which your fathers have stored up to this day, will be taken to Babylon. Not a thing will be left behind, says the Lord.",
      "18": "And some of your sons, your own descendants, whom you fathered, will be taken away and will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”",
      "19": "Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” He said, “Won’t there be peace and security in my days?”",
      "20": "As for the rest of Hezekiah’s acts and all his mighty deeds, how he made the pool and the channel and brought water into the city, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "21": "Hezekiah rested with his fathers. Then his son Manasseh became king in his place."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.",
      "2": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the disgusting practices of the nations which the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel.",
      "3": "He rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, just as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to the whole army of the heavens, and he served them.",
      "4": "He built altars in the House of the Lord, about which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put my name.”",
      "5": "He built altars to all the army of the heavens in the two courtyards of the House of the Lord.",
      "6": "He made his son pass through the fire. He practiced fortune telling and sought omens and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He greatly increased the evil he did in the eyes of the Lord and provoked him to anger.",
      "7": "He put an image of Asherah, which he had made, into the house about which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever.",
      "8": "I will not make the feet of Israel wander again from the land which I gave to their fathers, if they will just be careful to do whatever I commanded them and to observe the whole law which my servant Moses commanded them.”",
      "9": "But they did not listen. Manasseh led them astray so that they did more evil than the nations whom the Lord exterminated before the people of Israel.",
      "10": "Then the Lord said through his prophets:",
      "11": "Because Manasseh king of Judah has engaged in these disgusting practices and has done more evil than all that which the Amorites who had gone before him had done, and he has caused Judah to sin with his filthy idols,",
      "12": "therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Pay attention! I am bringing such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of all who hear of it will tingle.",
      "13": "I will stretch out over Israel the plumb line that was stretched out over Samaria and the level used on the house of Ahab. I will wipe away Jerusalem just as someone wipes a bowl clean and turns it upside down.",
      "14": "I will hand over the remnant of my possession and give them into the hand of their enemies, so that they become plunder and spoils for all their enemies,",
      "15": "because they have done what is evil in my eyes and have provoked me to anger from the day when their fathers came out of Egypt until today.",
      "16": "Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end. This was in addition to the sin which he caused Judah to commit, so that they did what is evil in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "17": "As for the rest of Manasseh’s acts, everything he did and the sin he committed, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "18": "Manasseh rested with his fathers, and he was buried in the garden of his palace, in the garden of Uzza. Then his son Amon became king in his place.",
      "19": "Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king and he ruled for two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz from Jotbah.",
      "20": "He did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Manasseh had done.",
      "21": "He walked in all the ways in which his father had walked, and he served the filthy idols which his father had served, and he worshipped them.",
      "22": "He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and he did not walk in the way of the Lord.",
      "23": "Amon’s servants conspired against him, and they killed the king in his palace.",
      "24": "Then the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.",
      "25": "As for the rest of Amon’s acts, the things he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "26": "They buried him in his own tomb in the garden of Uzza. Then his son Josiah became king in his place."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he ruled for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah from Bozkath.",
      "2": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He walked in all the ways of his father David. He did not turn aside to the right or to the left.",
      "3": "In King Josiah’s eighteenth year, the king sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah son of Meshullam, to the House of the Lord, saying,",
      "4": "“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him weigh out the entire amount of silver which has been brought to the House of the Lord, which the gatekeepers have received from the people.",
      "5": "It is to be given to those who are appointed to supervise the work on the House of the Lord. They are to give it to those who are working in the House of the Lord to repair the damage to the temple.",
      "6": "Give it to the craftsmen, builders, and stonemasons so they can buy wood and quarried stone to repair the damage.",
      "7": "But no accounting is to be demanded for the silver which is given to them, because they are acting honestly.”",
      "8": "Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the House of the Lord.” Hilkiah gave the scroll to Shaphan, and he read it.",
      "9": "Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported: “Your servants have paid out the silver which was found in the temple, and they have given it to those who are appointed to supervise the work on the Lord’s house.”",
      "10": "Shaphan the secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a scroll.” Then Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.",
      "11": "When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes.",
      "12": "Then the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Akbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah the servant of the king:",
      "13": "“Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all of Judah concerning the words of this book, which has been found. For the Lord’s wrath which is burning against us is great, because our fathers did not listen to the words of this book and do everything which was recorded for us.”",
      "14": "Then Hilkiah the priest, with Ahikam, Akbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah, went and spoke to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, who was the son of Tikvah, who was the son of Harhas, the keeper of the vestments. She was living in Jerusalem in the Second District.",
      "15": "She gave them this message:\nThis is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Tell the man who sent you to me that",
      "16": "this is what the Lord says.\nLook! I am bringing disaster on this place and on its inhabitants, everything written in the book which they read before the king of Judah,",
      "17": "because they have forsaken me and have burned incense and offerings to other gods, so that they provoked me to anger with all the works of their hands. My anger will be poured out on this place. It will not be quenched.",
      "18": "This is what you will say to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord:\nThe Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken the words which you have heard.",
      "19": "But because your heart was repentant and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants—that it would be desolate and cursed—and you have torn your clothes and have wept before me, I, even I, have heard you, says the Lord.",
      "20": "Therefore, be aware of this! I will gather you to your fathers. You will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants.\nThey brought this message back to the king."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "Then the king summoned all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.",
      "2": "The king went up to the House of the Lord, and every man of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets and all the people from the least to the greatest, went with him. In their hearing he read all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the House of the Lord.",
      "3": "Then the king stood before the pillar and made a covenant in the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord, to keep his commandments, his testimony, and his statutes with all his heart, and with all his soul to uphold the words of this covenant, which were written in this book.\nThen all the people affirmed this covenant.",
      "4": "Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the lower-ranking priests, and the gatekeepers that they should remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles which had been made for Baal, for Asherah, and for the whole army of the heavens. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley, and he took the ashes to Bethel.",
      "5": "He removed the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area around Jerusalem, those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to the whole army of the heavens.",
      "6": "He took the Asherah pole from the House of the Lord to the Kidron Valley, outside of Jerusalem. He burned it there. He crushed it to dust and scattered the dust on the graves of the common people.",
      "7": "He tore down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the House of the Lord, where women were weaving hangings for Asherah.",
      "8": "Then he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had been burning incense, from Gibeah to Beersheba. He tore down the high places by the gates, which were at the entrance to the Gate of Joshua, who was the official over the city. This gate was to the left of the main gate to the city.",
      "9": "The priests from the high places could not go up to the Lord’s altar in Jerusalem, but they were allowed to eat unleavened bread in the midst of their brothers.",
      "10": "He defiled Tophet, which was in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, so that no one could make his son or daughter pass through the fire for Molek.",
      "11": "He removed the horses, which the kings of Judah had set up for the sun, from the entrance to the Lord’s house. They were near the office of Nathan Melek, the high official, which was in the temple courtyard. Then he burned the chariots of the sun.",
      "12": "The king tore down the altars that were on the roof of the chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the House of the Lord. He smashed them and threw the dust into the Kidron Valley.",
      "13": "The king defiled the high places which were east of Jerusalem on the south end of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had made for Ashtarte, the detestable goddess of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab, and for Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.",
      "14": "He smashed the sacred memorial stones to bits, and he cut down the Asherah poles. Then he filled their sites with human bones.",
      "15": "Even the altar which was in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam son of Nebat had made, which caused Israel to sin—he pulled down even that altar and its high place. Then he burned the high place. He ground the Asherah pole to powder and burned it.",
      "16": "Then Josiah turned and saw the graves that were there on the hill. He sent men and took the bones from the graves and burned them on the altar. So he defiled it in fulfillment of the word of the Lord, which the man of God ⎣proclaimed, when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the feast.\nThen he turned and raised his eyes to the tomb of the man of God⎦ who proclaimed these things,",
      "17": "and he asked, “What is that gravestone which I see over there?”\nThe men of the city told him, “It is the grave of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you are doing against the altar of Bethel.”",
      "18": "Then he said, “Leave him alone. Let no one disturb his bones.” So they spared his bones along with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.",
      "19": "Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places which the kings of Israel had made in the cities of Samaria, which provoked the Lord to anger. He did to them just as he did in Bethel.",
      "20": "On the altars he slaughtered all the priests of the high places who were present there, and he burned human bones on the altars. Then he went back to Jerusalem.",
      "21": "Then the king commanded all the people, “Observe the Passover to the Lord your God just as it is written in the Book of the Covenant.”",
      "22": "For they had not observed a Passover like this during the days of the judges who led Israel or during the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.",
      "23": "But in King Josiah’s eighteenth year, this Passover to the Lord was observed in Jerusalem.",
      "24": "Josiah destroyed the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the filthy idols, and all the detestable idols which were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, in order to comply with the words of the law, which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the House of the Lord.",
      "25": "Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, according to all the Law of Moses, and after him no one like him arose.",
      "26": "But even so, the Lord did not turn from his great wrath which burned against Judah because of all the offenses with which Manasseh had provoked him.",
      "27": "So the Lord said, “I will also remove Judah from my presence just as I removed Israel. I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and the house about which I said, ‘My Name will be there.’”",
      "28": "As for the rest of Josiah’s acts and everything he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "29": "In his days, Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, went to join the king of Assyria for war at the Euphrates River. King Josiah went to meet Neco in battle, but Neco killed King Josiah at Megiddo when he faced him.",
      "30": "His servants transported his body from Megiddo to Jerusalem in a chariot, and they buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him. They made him king in his father’s place.",
      "31": "Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.",
      "32": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, like all that his fathers had done.",
      "33": "Pharoah Neco imprisoned him in Riblah, in the land of Hamath, so that he could not rule as king in Jerusalem. Neco levied tribute on the land of one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold.",
      "34": "Then Pharaoh Neco set up Eliakim son of Josiah as king in place of his father Josiah. But he changed his name to Jehoiakim. Then he took Jehoahaz to Egypt, and Jehoahaz died there.",
      "35": "Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to provide the money, as demanded by Pharaoh. From each man according to his worth, he exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land to give it to Pharaoh Neco.",
      "36": "Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah from Ramah.",
      "37": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just like everything that his fathers had done."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "In the days of Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years, but he then rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar again.",
      "2": "Then the Lord sent bands of Chaldeans, bands of Arameans, bands of Moabites, and bands of Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim. He sent them into Judah to destroy them according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken through his servants the prophets.",
      "3": "Surely this happened at the Lord’s command to remove them from his presence because of all the sins Manasseh had committed,",
      "4": "as well as the innocent blood he had shed. He filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.",
      "5": "As for the rest of Jehoiakim’s deeds and everything he did, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Judah?",
      "6": "Jehoiakim rested with his fathers. Then his son Jehoiachin became king in his place.",
      "7": "The king of Egypt did not march out from his land again because the king of Babylon had seized everything that had belonged to the king of Egypt, from the Stream of Egypt to the Euphrates River.",
      "8": "Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan from Jerusalem.",
      "9": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just like everything that his father had done.",
      "10": "At that time, the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem and put the city under siege.",
      "11": "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his officers were besieging it.",
      "12": "Then Jehoiachin king of Judah surrendered to the king of Babylon—he and his mother, his officials, his officers, and his eunuchs. In the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, he took Jehoiachin prisoner.",
      "13": "He brought out all the treasures of the House of the Lord and the treasures of the palace of the king. He cut up all the gold articles in the House of the Lord, which Solomon king of Israel had made, just as the Lord had said.",
      "14": "He exiled all Jerusalem and all the officers and all the warriors—ten thousand men went into exile—as well as all the craftsmen and metal workers. No one was left except the poorest people of the land.",
      "15": "He exiled Jehoiachin to Babylon. He also took the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his eunuchs, and the leading citizens of the land into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.",
      "16": "The king of Babylon also took into exile all the soldiers—seven thousand men—and the craftsmen and metal workers—a thousand men, all strong and trained for war.",
      "17": "Then the king of Babylon made Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah king in his place, but he changed his name to Zedekiah.",
      "18": "Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.",
      "19": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just like everything that Jehoiakim had done.",
      "20": "Surely it was because of the Lord’s wrath that all this fell upon Jerusalem and Judah, until he cast them from his presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came up against Jerusalem. He laid siege to it and built a rampart around it.",
      "2": "The city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.",
      "3": "By the ninth day of the fourth month, famine gripped the city, and the people of the land had no bread.",
      "4": "Then the city wall was breached, and all the soldiers fled toward the Arabah through the gate that was between the two walls near the king’s garden, while the Chaldeans were surrounding the city.",
      "5": "But the Chaldean army pursued the king. They caught him in the Arabah near Jericho. His whole army was scattered away from him.",
      "6": "So they seized the king. They brought him to the king of Babylon in Riblah, and a sentence was pronounced on him.",
      "7": "They slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, and then Zedekiah was blinded. They bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.",
      "8": "In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, an officer of the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem.",
      "9": "He burned the Lord’s house and the king’s palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. He burned down every large building.",
      "10": "The whole Chaldean army, which was under the captain of the guard, tore down the walls around Jerusalem.",
      "11": "Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, exiled the rest of the people who remained in the city along with those who had previously surrendered to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the crowds.",
      "12": "But the captain of the guard left the poorest people of the land to tend the vineyards and farms.",
      "13": "The Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars which were in the House of the Lord and the carts and the bronze sea which was in the House of the Lord, and they took the bronze to Babylon.",
      "14": "They took the pots, shovels, snuffers, and bowls and all the bronze utensils with which they served.",
      "15": "The captain of the guard took the fire pans and the bowls—whatever was made of pure gold and pure silver.",
      "16": "The bronze from all these articles—the two pillars, the sea, and the carts which Solomon had made for the House of the Lord—could not be weighed.",
      "17": "The height of one pillar was twenty-seven feet, and the capital on it was bronze. The height of the capital was four and a half feet. Latticework and pomegranates went all around the capital. All this was bronze, and the other pillar with its latticework was the same.",
      "18": "The captain of the guard took Seriah the chief priest and Zephaniah the second-ranking priest and three doorkeepers.",
      "19": "From the city, he took an official who was in charge of the soldiers and five of the king’s close advisors, who were found in the city, as well as the secretary, the army commander who drafted the people of the land, and sixty men from the people of the land, who were found in the city.",
      "20": "Nebuzaradan captain of the guard took them and brought them with him to the king of Babylon in Riblah.",
      "21": "The king of Babylon struck them down and killed them in Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile from her country.",
      "22": "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, over the people who remained in the land, because he had left some people behind.",
      "23": "All the commanders of the army and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, so they went to Gedaliah at Mizpah. They were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seriah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Ja’azaniah son of the Ma’akathite, and their men.",
      "24": "Then Gedaliah swore an oath to them and to their men and said, “Don’t be afraid of the officials of the Chaldeans. Return to the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well for you.”",
      "25": "But in the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, who was of royal descent, came with ten men and struck down Gedaliah and killed him along with the men of Judah and the Chaldeans who were with him in Mizpah.",
      "26": "Then all the people from the least to the greatest and the commanders of the army set out and went to Egypt because they were afraid of the Chaldeans.",
      "27": "In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evil Merodach king of Babylon, in the year he became king, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison.",
      "28": "He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.",
      "29": "So Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes, and he ate bread continually in the king’s presence all the days of his life.",
      "30": "A regular allowance was given to him from the king, for his daily needs, all the days of his life."
    }
  },
  "1 Chronicles": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Adam, Seth, Enosh,",
      "2": "Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared,",
      "3": "Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech,",
      "4": "Noah.\nThe sons of Noah were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.",
      "5": "The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek, and Tiras.",
      "6": "The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Diphath, and Togarmah.",
      "7": "The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittim, and the Rodanim.",
      "8": "The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.",
      "9": "The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Ra’ama, and Sabteca.\nThe sons of Ra’ama were Sheba and Dedan.",
      "10": "Cush became the father of Nimrod. Nimrod was the first to be a mighty warrior on the earth.",
      "11": "Mizraim became the father of the Ludim, the Anamim, the Lehabim, the Naphtuhim,",
      "12": "the Pathrusim, the Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and the Caphtorim.",
      "13": "Canaan became the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and of Heth,",
      "14": "also of the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites,",
      "15": "the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites,",
      "16": "the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites.",
      "17": "The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.\n        The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshek.",
      "18": "Arphaxad became the father of Shelah, and Shelah became the father of Eber.",
      "19": "Two sons were born to Eber. The name of one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided. His brother’s name was Joktan.",
      "20": "Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah,",
      "21": "Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,",
      "22": "Ebal, Abimael, Sheba,",
      "23": "Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan.",
      "24": "Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah,",
      "25": "Eber, Peleg, Reu,",
      "26": "Serug, Nahor, Terah,",
      "27": "Abram (also called Abraham).",
      "28": "The sons of Abraham were Isaac and Ishmael.",
      "29": "These are their genealogies:\nThe firstborn of Ishmael was Nebaioth. Then came Kedar, Adbe’el, Mibsam,",
      "30": "Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema,",
      "31": "Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These are the sons of Ishmael.",
      "32": "These are the sons of Keturah, Abraham’s concubine. She gave birth to Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.\nThe sons of Jokshan were Sheba and Dedan.",
      "33": "The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanok, Abida, and Elda’ah.\nAll these were the descendants of Keturah.",
      "34": "Abraham became the father of Isaac.\nThe sons of Isaac were Esau and Israel.",
      "35": "The sons of Esau were Eliphaz, Reuel, Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.",
      "36": "The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zephi, Gatam, Kenaz, and Amalek by Timna.",
      "37": "The sons of Reuel were Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah.",
      "38": "The sons of Seir were Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan.",
      "39": "The sons of Lotan were Hori and Homam. Timna was Lotan’s sister.",
      "40": "The sons of Shobal were Alian, Manahath, Ebal, Shephi, and Onam.\n        The sons of Zibeon were Aiah and Anah.",
      "41": "The son of Anah was Dishon.\n        The sons of Dishon were Hamran, Eshban, Ithran, and Keran.",
      "42": "The sons of Ezer were Bilhan, Za’avan, and Ja’akan.\n    The sons of Dishan were Uz and Aran.",
      "43": "These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the people of Israel:\nBela son of Beor. The name of his city was Dinhabah.",
      "44": "Bela died, and Jobab son of Zerah from Bozrah reigned as king in his place.",
      "45": "Jobab died, and Husham from the land of the Temanites reigned as king in his place.",
      "46": "Husham died, and Hadad son of Bedad, who defeated Midian in the territory of Moab, reigned as king in his place. The name of his city was Avith.",
      "47": "Hadad died, and Samlah from Masrekah reigned as king in his place.",
      "48": "Samlah died, and Shaul from Rehoboth by the River reigned as king in his place.",
      "49": "Shaul died, and Baal Hanan son of Akbor reigned as king in his place.",
      "50": "Baal Hanan died, and Hadad reigned as king in his place. The name of his city was Pai, and his wife’s name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Me Zahab.",
      "51": "Then Hadad died.\nThe chiefs of Edom were Chief Timna, Chief Aliah, Chief Jetheth,",
      "52": "Chief Oholibamah, Chief Elah, Chief Pinon,",
      "53": "Chief Kenaz, Chief Teman, Chief Mibzar,",
      "54": "Chief Magdiel, and Chief Iram. These are the chiefs of Edom."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun,",
      "2": "Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.",
      "3": "The sons of Judah were Er, Onan, and Shelah. Those three were born to him by Shua’s daughter, a Canaanite woman. Er, who was Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, so he killed him.",
      "4": "Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, gave birth to Perez and Zerah for him. Judah had a total of five sons.",
      "5": "The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.",
      "6": "The sons of Zerah were Zimri, Ethan, Heman, Kalkol, and Dara, five\nof them in all.",
      "7": "The son of Carmi was Achar, the troubler of Israel, who was unfaithful when he stole things that had been devoted to destruction.",
      "8": "The son of Ethan was Azariah.",
      "9": "The sons of Hezron, who were born to him, were Jerahme’el, Ram, and Celubai.",
      "10": "Ram became the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab became the father of Nahshon, the tribal leader of the people of Judah.",
      "11": "Nahshon became the father of Salma, and Salma became the father of Boaz.",
      "12": "Boaz became the father of Obed, and Obed became the father of Jesse.",
      "13": "Jesse became the father of his firstborn Eliab, Abinadab his second, Shimea his third,",
      "14": "Nethanel his fourth, Raddai his fifth,",
      "15": "Ozem his sixth, and David his seventh.",
      "16": "Their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. The three sons of Zeruiah were Abishai, Joab, and Asahel.",
      "17": "Abigail gave birth to Amasa, and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmaelite.",
      "18": "Caleb the son of Hezron became the father of children by Azubah his wife, also known as Jerioth. These were her sons: Jesher, Shobab, and Ardon.",
      "19": "Azubah died, and Caleb married Ephrath, who gave birth to Hur for him.",
      "20": "Hur became the father of Uri, and Uri became the father of Bezalel.",
      "21": "Afterward, Hezron went to the daughter of Makir, the father of Gilead, whom he took when he was sixty years old, and she gave birth to Segub for him.",
      "22": "Segub became the father of Jair, who had twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead.",
      "23": "Geshur and Aram took the towns of Jair from them, along with Kenath and its villages, sixty cities in all. All these were the sons of Makir, the father of Gilead.",
      "24": "After Hezron died in Caleb Ephrathah, Abijah, Hezron’s wife, gave birth to Ashhur, the father of Tekoa.",
      "25": "The sons of Jerahme’el, the firstborn son of Hezron, were Ram his firstborn, Bunah, Oren, Ozem, and Ahijah.",
      "26": "Jerahme’el had another wife, whose name was Atarah. She was the mother of Onam.",
      "27": "The sons of Ram, the firstborn of Jerahme’el, were Ma’az, Jamin, and Eker.",
      "28": "The sons of Onam were Shammai and Jada.\nThe sons of Shammai were Nadab and Abishur.",
      "29": "The name of Abishur’s wife was Abihail, and she gave birth to Ahban and Molid.",
      "30": "The sons of Nadab were Seled and Appaim, but Seled died without children.",
      "31": "The son of Appaim was Ishi.\n    The son of Ishi was Sheshan.\n    The son of Sheshan was Ahlai.",
      "32": "The sons of Jada, the brother of Shammai, were Jether and Jonathan.\n    Jether died without children.",
      "33": "The sons of Jonathan were Peleth and Zaza.\nThese were the descendants of Jerahme’el.",
      "34": "Now Sheshan had no sons, but only daughters. Sheshan had an Egyptian servant, whose name was Jarha.",
      "35": "Sheshan gave his daughter to his servant Jarha as a wife, and she gave birth to Attai for him.",
      "36": "Attai became the father of Nathan, and Nathan became the father of Zabad,",
      "37": "and Zabad became the father of Ephlal, and Ephlal became the father of Obed,",
      "38": "and Obed became the father of Jehu, and Jehu became the father of Azariah,",
      "39": "and Azariah became the father of Helez, and Helez became the father of Eleasah,",
      "40": "and Eleasah became the father of Sismai, and Sismai became the father of Shallum,",
      "41": "and Shallum became the father of Jekamiah, and Jekamiah became the father of Elishama.",
      "42": "The sons of Caleb, the brother of Jerahme’el, were his firstborn son Mesha, who was the father of Ziph, and his son Mareshah, the father of Hebron.",
      "43": "The sons of Hebron were Korah, Tappuah, Rekem, and Shema.",
      "44": "Shema became the father of Raham, the father of Jorkeam.\n        Rekem became the father of Shammai.",
      "45": "The son of Shammai was Maon, and Maon was the father of Beth Zur.",
      "46": "Ephah, Caleb’s concubine, gave birth to Haran, Moza, and Gazez. Haran became the father of Gazez.",
      "47": "The sons of Jahdai were Regem, Jothan, Geshan, Pelet, Ephah, and Sha’aph.",
      "48": "Ma’akah, Caleb’s concubine, gave birth to Sheber and Tirhanah.",
      "49": "She also gave birth to Sha’aph the father of Madmannah, Sheva the father of Makbenah and the father of Gibea. Caleb’s daughter was Aksah.",
      "50": "These were the descendants of Caleb, who were the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrathah: Shobal the father of Kiriath Jearim,",
      "51": "Salma the father of Bethlehem,\nand Hareph the father of Beth Gader.",
      "52": "Shobal, the father of Kiriath Jearim, had sons: Haroeh, half of the Menuhoth.",
      "53": "The families of Kiriath Jearim were the Ithrites, the Puthites, the Shumathites, and the Mishraites. From them came the Zorathites and the Eshtaolites.",
      "54": "The sons of Salma were Bethlehem, the Netophathites, Atroth Beth Joab, half of the Manahathites, and the Zorathites.",
      "55": "The families of scribes who lived at Jabez were the Tirathites, the\nShimeathites, and the Sukathites. These are the Kenites who came\nfrom Hammath, the father of the house of Rekab."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Now these were the sons of David who were born for him in Hebron: the firstborn, Amnon, whose mother was Ahinoam from Jezre’el, the second, Daniel, whose mother was Abigail from Carmel,",
      "2": "the third, Absalom, whose mother was Ma’akah, the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur, the fourth, Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith,",
      "3": "the fifth, Shephatiah, whose mother was Abital, the sixth, Ithream, whose mother was David’s wife Eglah.",
      "4": "So there were six sons born to David in Hebron, and he ruled as king there for seven years and six months.\nDavid ruled as king for thirty-three years in Jerusalem.",
      "5": "These sons were born to him in Jerusalem:\nfour sons of Bathshua the daughter of Ammiel: Shimea, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon;",
      "6": "nine other sons: Ibhar, Elishama, Eliphelet,",
      "7": "Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia,",
      "8": "Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet.",
      "9": "All these were the sons of David. In addition, there were the sons of the concubines, and Tamar was their sister.",
      "10": "Solomon’s son was Rehoboam,\nAbijah was his son,\nAsa was his son,\nJehoshaphat was his son,",
      "11": "Joram was his son,\nAhaziah was his son,\nJoash was his son,",
      "12": "Amaziah was his son,\nAzariah was his son,\nJotham was his son,",
      "13": "Ahaz was his son,\nHezekiah was his son,\nManasseh was his son,",
      "14": "Amon was his son,\nand Josiah was his son.",
      "15": "The sons of Josiah were his firstborn Johanan, his second Jehoiakim, his third Zedekiah, and his fourth Shallum.",
      "16": "The sons of Jehoiakim were his son Jeconiah and his son Zedekiah.",
      "17": "The sons of Jeconiah the captive were Shealtiel his son,",
      "18": "also Malkiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah.",
      "19": "The sons of Pedaiah were Zerubbabel and Shimei.\nThe sons of Zerubbabel were Meshullam and Hananiah. Shelomith was their sister.",
      "20": "Also five others: Hashubah, Ohel, Berekiah, Hasadiah, and Jushab Hesed.",
      "21": "The sons of Hananiah were Pelatiah and Jeshaiah as well as the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, the sons of Obadiah, and the sons of Shekaniah.",
      "22": "The sons of Shekaniah were Shemaiah, Hattush, Igal, Bariah, Neariah, and Shaphat, six in all.",
      "23": "The sons of Neariah were Elioenai, Hizkiah, and Azrikam, three in all.",
      "24": "The sons of Elioenai were Hodaviah, Eliashib, Pelaiah, Akkub, Johanan, Delaiah, and Anani, seven in all."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "The descendants of Judah were Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, and Shobal.",
      "2": "Reaiah son of Shobal became the father of Jahath, and Jahath became the father of Ahumai and Lahad. These are the clans of the Zorathites.",
      "3": "These were the sons of Etam: Jezre’el, Ishma, and Idbash. The name of their sister was Hazzelelponi.",
      "4": "Penuel was the father of Gedor, and Ezer was the father of Hushah. These are the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrathah, the father of Bethlehem.",
      "5": "Ashhur, the father of Tekoa, had two wives, Helah and Na’arah.",
      "6": "Na’arah gave birth to Ahuzzam, Hepher, Temeni, and Ha’ahashtari. These were the sons of Na’arah.",
      "7": "The sons of Helah were Zereth, Izhar, and Ethnan.",
      "8": "Koz became the father of Anub, Zobebah, and the clans of Aharhel, the son of Harum.",
      "9": "Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother named him Jabez because she said, “I gave birth to him with pain.”",
      "10": "Jabez called to the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my borders! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from evil, so that I will not experience pain!” God granted him what he requested.",
      "11": "Kelub, the brother of Shuhah, became the father of Mehir, who was the father of Eshton.",
      "12": "Eshton became the father of Beth Rapha and Paseah and Tehinnah, the father of Ir Nahash. These are the men of Rekah.",
      "13": "The sons of Kenaz were Othniel and Seraiah. The sons of Othniel were Hathath and Meonothai.",
      "14": "Meonothai became the father of Ophrah, and Seraiah became the father of Joab, who was the father of Ge Harashim, because they were craftsmen.",
      "15": "The sons of Caleb son of Jephunneh were Iru, Elah, and Na’am.\nThe son of Elah was Kenaz.",
      "16": "The sons of Jehallelel were Ziph, Ziphah, Tiria, and Asarel.",
      "17": "The sons of Ezrah were Jether, Mered, Epher, and Jalon. Mered’s wife gave birth to Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah, the father of Eshtemoa. These are the sons of Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took.",
      "18": "His Judean wife gave birth to Jered the father of Gedor, Heber the father of Soko, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah.",
      "19": "The sons of Hodiah’s wife, who was the sister of Naham, were the fathers of Keilah the Garmite and Eshtemoa the Ma’akathite.",
      "20": "The sons of Shimon were Amnon, Rinnah, Ben Hanan, and Tilon.\nThe sons of Ishi were Zoheth and Ben Zoheth.",
      "21": "The sons of Shelah, the son of Judah, were Er the father of Lekah, La’adah the father of Mareshah, and the families of the house of those who worked fine linen at Beth Ashbea,",
      "22": "also Jokim and the men of Kozeba, also Joash and Saraph, who were rulers in Moab, and Jashubi Lehem. These records are ancient.",
      "23": "These were the potters and the inhabitants of Netaim and Gederah. They lived there with the king, to work for him.",
      "24": "The sons of Simeon were Nemuel, Jamin, Jarib, Zerah, and Shaul.",
      "25": "Shallum was Shaul’s son, Mibsam his son, and Mishma his son.",
      "26": "The family line of Mishma was Hammuel his son, Zakkur his son, and Shimei his son.",
      "27": "Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters, but his brothers did not have many children, and their whole family did not increase in number like the people of Judah.",
      "28": "They lived at Beersheba, Moladah, and Hazar Shual,",
      "29": "at Bilhah, at Ezem, at Tolad,",
      "30": "at Bethuel, at Hormah, at Ziklag,",
      "31": "at Beth Markaboth, at Hazar Susim, at Beth Biri, and at Sha’araim. These were their cities until David’s reign.",
      "32": "Their villages were around Etam, Ain, Rimmon, Token, and Ashan—five cities",
      "33": "and all their villages that were around these cities, as far as Baal. These were their settlements, and they had preserved their genealogical records.",
      "34": "Meshobab, Jamlek, and Joshah the son of Amaziah,",
      "35": "Joel and Jehu the son of Joshibiah, the son of Seraiah, the son of Asiel,",
      "36": "Elioenai, Ja’akobah, Jeshohaiah, Asaiah, Adiel, Jesimiel, and Benaiah,",
      "37": "Ziza the son of Shiphi, the son of Allon, the son of Jedaiah, the son of Shimri, the son of Shemaiah—",
      "38": "these mentioned by name were leaders in their clans. Their fathers’ houses increased greatly.",
      "39": "They went to the entrance of Gedor, to the east side of the valley, to search for pasture for their flocks.",
      "40": "They found good, rich pasture, and the land was spacious, quiet, and peaceful. The people who had lived there previously were descended from Ham.",
      "41": "These who have been named came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and attacked the tent camps of the Hamites. They completely destroyed the Meunites who were found there, and to this day they have lived in their place, because there was pasture for their flocks there.",
      "42": "Some of them, five hundred men, also descendants of Simeon, went to Mount Seir. Their leaders were Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi.",
      "43": "They struck down the remaining Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel:\n(Though Reuben was the firstborn, because he defiled his father’s bed, his rights as firstborn were given to the sons of Israel’s son Joseph. So Reuben is not treated as firstborn in the genealogical records.",
      "2": "Though Judah achieved superiority over his brothers and the ruler came from him, the birthright was Joseph’s.)",
      "3": "The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, were Hanok, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.",
      "4": "Successive generations of descendants of Joel were his son Shemaiah, his son Gog, his son Shimei,",
      "5": "his son Micah, his son Reaiah, his son Baal,",
      "6": "and his son Be’erah, whom Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria carried away captive. He was the tribal leader of the Reubenites.",
      "7": "The following are his relatives as listed by their clans in the genealogical records. Jeiel was the head. Others were Zechariah,",
      "8": "Bela son of Azaz, who was the son of Shema, who was the son of Joel, who lived in the territory of Aroer, all the way to Nebo and Baal Meon.",
      "9": "They lived in the east, all the way to the beginning of the wilderness which extends to the Euphrates River, because their livestock had increased greatly in the land of Gilead.",
      "10": "In the days of Saul, they made war against the Hagraites, who fell by their hand. So they lived in their tents throughout all the land east of Gilead.",
      "11": "The descendants of Gad lived next to them in the land of Bashan, all the way to Salekah.",
      "12": "Joel was the head, Shapham the second, also Janai and Shaphat in Bashan.",
      "13": "Their brothers from their fathers’ houses were Michael, Meshullam, Sheba, Jorai, Jakan, Zia, and Eber, seven in all.",
      "14": "These were the sons of Abihail, who was the son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz.",
      "15": "Ahi son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, was head of the house of their fathers.",
      "16": "They lived in Gilead in Bashan, in its towns, and in all the pastures surrounding Sharon, all the way to their borders.",
      "17": "All these were listed in genealogies from the days of Jotham king of Judah, and from the days of Jeroboam king of Israel.",
      "18": "The descendants of Reuben, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh had 44,760 men in their armies, warriors armed with shields and swords, as well as archers, trained for war, ready to go out to battle.",
      "19": "They made war with the Hagraites, with Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab.",
      "20": "These tribes received help against the Hagraites, so the Hagraites were delivered into their hands, along with all who were with them, because Israel cried out to God during the battle, and he answered them, because they put their trust in him.",
      "21": "They took away their livestock: fifty thousand of their camels, two hundred fifty thousand sheep, two thousand donkeys, and one hundred thousand living people.",
      "22": "So many of the enemy were cut down in battle, because the war was from God. These tribes lived in their place until the captivity.",
      "23": "The people of the half tribe of Manasseh lived in the land from Bashan to Baal Hermon, Senir, and Mount Hermon. They increased in number.",
      "24": "These were the heads of their fathers’ houses: namely, Epher, Ishi, Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah, and Jahdiel. They were strong, powerful warriors, famous men, heads of their fathers’ houses.",
      "25": "But they were unfaithful to the God of their fathers and prostituted themselves to the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them.",
      "26": "So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, that is, the spirit of Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, and he carried away the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and he took them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and to the river of Gozan, where they are to this day."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "The sons of Levi were Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.",
      "2": "The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, and Hebron and Uzziel.",
      "3": "The children of Amram were Aaron, Moses, and Miriam.\n    The sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.",
      "4": "Eleazar became the father of Phinehas.\n    Phinehas became the father of Abishua.",
      "5": "Abishua became the father of Bukki.\n    Bukki became the father of Uzzi.",
      "6": "Uzzi became the father of Zerahiah.\n    Zerahiah became the father of Meraioth.",
      "7": "Meraioth became the father of Amariah.\n    Amariah became the father of Ahitub.",
      "8": "Ahitub became the father of Zadok.\n    Zadok became the father of Ahima’az.",
      "9": "Ahima’az became the father of Azariah.\n    Azariah became the father of Johanan.",
      "10": "Johanan became the father of Azariah, who served as priest in the House that Solomon built in Jerusalem.",
      "11": "Azariah became the father of Amariah.\n    Amariah became the father of Ahitub.",
      "12": "Ahitub became the father of Zadok.\n    Zadok became the father of Shallum.",
      "13": "Shallum became the father of Hilkiah.\n    Hilkiah became the father of Azariah.",
      "14": "Azariah became the father of Seraiah.\n    Seraiah became the father of Jehozadak.",
      "15": "Jehozadak went into captivity, when the Lord carried Judah and Jerusalem away by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.",
      "16": "The sons of Levi were Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.",
      "17": "These are the names of the sons of Gershom: Libni and Shimei.",
      "18": "The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.",
      "19": "The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi.\nThese are the clans of the Levites according to their fathers.",
      "20": "The family line of Gershom was his son Libni, his son Jahath, his son Zimmah,",
      "21": "his son Joah, his son Iddo, his son Zerah, and his son Jeatherai.",
      "22": "The family line of Kohath was his son Amminadab, his son Korah, his son Assir,",
      "23": "his son Elkanah, and his son Ebiasaph, his son Assir,",
      "24": "his son Tahath, his son Uriel, his son Uzziah, and his son Shaul.",
      "25": "The sons of Elkanah were Amasai and Ahimoth.",
      "26": "As for Elkanah, the family line of Elkanah was his son Zophai, his son Nahath,",
      "27": "his son Eliab, his son Jeroham, his son Elkanah, and his son Samuel.",
      "28": "The sons of Samuel were Joel the firstborn and Abijah the second son.",
      "29": "The family line of Merari was Mahli, his son Libni, his son Shimei, his son Uzzah,",
      "30": "his son Shimea, his son Haggiah, his son Asaiah.",
      "31": "These are the men David appointed to be the musicians in the Lord’s house from the time that the Ark came to rest there.",
      "32": "They ministered with music in front of the Dwelling, that is, the Tent of Meeting, until Solomon built the Lord’s house in Jerusalem. They performed their service according to the duties prescribed for them.",
      "33": "This is the list of those who served and their sons.\nFrom the family line of the Kohathites came Heman the singer, who was the son of Joel, the son of Samuel,",
      "34": "the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah,",
      "35": "the son of Zuph, the son of Elkanah, the son of Mahath, the son of Amasai,",
      "36": "the son of Elkanah, the son of Joel, the son of Azariah, the son of Zephaniah,",
      "37": "the son of Tahath, the son of Assir, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah,",
      "38": "the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel.",
      "39": "Heman’s colleague, who stood at his right hand, was Asaph, namely, Asaph the son of Berekiah, the son of Shimea,",
      "40": "the son of Michael, the son of Ba’aseiah, the son of Malkijah,",
      "41": "the son of Ethni, the son of Zerah, the son of Adaiah,",
      "42": "the son of Ethan, the son of Zimmah, the son of Shimei,",
      "43": "the son of Jahath, the son of Gershom, the son of Levi.",
      "44": "On the left hand of Heman and Asaph was their colleague from the descendants of Merari, namely, Ethan the son of Kishi, the son of Abdi, the son of Malluk,",
      "45": "the son of Hashabiah, the son of Amaziah, the son of Hilkiah,",
      "46": "the son of Amzi, the son of Bani, the son of Shemer,",
      "47": "the son of Mahli, the son of Mushi, the son of Merari, the son of Levi.",
      "48": "Their brothers, the other Levites, were appointed for all the other forms of service at the Dwelling, God’s house.",
      "49": "But it was Aaron and his sons who presented offerings on the altar for burnt offerings and on the altar for incense, to carry out all the work of the Most Holy Place and to make atonement for Israel, according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded.",
      "50": "This is the family line from Aaron: his son Eleazar, his son Phinehas, his son Abishua,",
      "51": "his son Bukki, his son Uzzi, his son Zerahiah,",
      "52": "his son Meraioth, his son Amariah, his son Ahitub,",
      "53": "his son Zadok, and his son Ahima’az.",
      "54": "Now the following are the places they lived according to their settlements within their borders.\nThe first lot was for the sons of Aaron, from the families of the Kohathites.",
      "55": "To them they gave Hebron in the land of Judah and its surrounding pastureland,",
      "56": "but the fields of the city and its villages, they gave to Caleb son of Jephunneh.",
      "57": "To the sons of Aaron they gave Hebron, the city of refuge, and also Libnah with its surrounding pastures, Jattir, Eshtemoa with its surrounding pastures,",
      "58": "Hilen with its surrounding pastures, Debir with its surrounding pastures,",
      "59": "Ashan with its surrounding pastures, and Juttah and Beth Shemesh with their surrounding pastures.",
      "60": "In the territory of the tribe of Benjamin they received Gibeon, Geba with its surrounding pastures, Allemeth with its surrounding pastures, and Anathoth with its surrounding pastures. All their cities for all their families totaled thirteen cities.",
      "61": "To the rest of the sons of Kohath from the families of the tribe who remained without land, ten cities were given by lot from the territory of the half tribe of Manasseh.",
      "62": "To the sons of Gershom, according to their families, from the territory of the tribe of Issachar and the tribe of Asher and the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Manasseh in Bashan, thirteen cities were given.",
      "63": "To the sons of Merari, according to their families, from the territory of the tribe of Reuben and the tribe of Gad and the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities were given.",
      "64": "So the people of Israel gave the Levites these cities with their surrounding pastures.",
      "65": "They assigned to them by lot these cities which are mentioned by name from the territory of the tribe of the sons of Judah and the tribe of the sons of Simeon and the tribe of the sons of Benjamin.",
      "66": "Some of the families of the sons of Kohath had cities of their inheritance within the borders of the tribe of Ephraim.",
      "67": "They gave to them the city of refuge, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim with its surrounding pastures, also Gezer with its surrounding pastures,",
      "68": "Jokmeam with its surrounding pastures, Beth Horon with its surrounding pastures,",
      "69": "Aijalon with its surrounding pastures, Gath Rimmon with its surrounding pastures,",
      "70": "and in the territory of the half tribe of Manasseh, for the rest of the family of the sons of Kohath, they gave Aner with its surrounding pastures and Bileam with its surrounding pastures.",
      "71": "To the sons of Gershom, from the clan of the half tribe of Manasseh, these cities were given: Golan in Bashan with its surrounding pastures and Ashtaroth with its surrounding pastures,",
      "72": "and in the territory of the tribe of Issachar, Kedesh with its surrounding pastures, Daberath with its surrounding pastures,",
      "73": "Ramoth with its surrounding pastures, and Anem with its surrounding pastures,",
      "74": "and in the territory of the tribe of Asher, Mashal with its surrounding pastures, Abdon with it surrounding pastures,",
      "75": "Hukok with its surrounding pastures, and Rehob with its surrounding pastures,",
      "76": "and in the territory of the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its surrounding pastures, Hammon with its surrounding pastures, and Kiriathaim with its surrounding pastures.",
      "77": "The rest of the Levites, the sons of Merari, were given Jokneam with its surrounding pastures, Rimmono with its surrounding pastures, Tabor with its surrounding pastures, and Nahalal with its surrounding pastures in the territory of the tribe of Zebulun.",
      "78": "Across the Jordan from Jericho, on the east side of the Jordan, they were given cities in the territory of the tribe of Reuben: Bezer in the wilderness with its surrounding pastures, Jahzah with its surrounding pastures,",
      "79": "Kedemoth with its surrounding pastures, and Mepha’ath with its surrounding pastures.",
      "80": "And in the territory of the tribe of Gad they received Ramoth in Gilead with its surrounding pastures, Mahanaim with its surrounding pastures,",
      "81": "Heshbon with its surrounding pastures, and Jazer with its surrounding pastures."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "The sons of Issachar were Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron, four in all.",
      "2": "The sons of Tola were Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Samuel, heads of their fathers’ houses. In the days of David the number of powerful warriors written in the genealogies of the family of Tola was 22,600.",
      "3": "The son of Uzzi was Izrahiah. The sons of Izrahiah were Michael, Obadiah, Joel, and Ishiah, five, all of them head men.",
      "4": "According to the genealogical records of their fathers’ houses, because they had many wives and sons, they had with them 36,000 men in divisions available for battle.",
      "5": "Their brothers among all the families of Issachar, powerful warriors, who were listed in the genealogy, were 87,000 in all.",
      "6": "The sons of Benjamin were Bela, Beker, and Jediael, three in all.",
      "7": "The sons of Bela were Ezbon, Uzzi, Uzziel, Jerimoth, and Iri, five, all heads of their fathers’ houses. Their powerful warriors listed in the genealogical records were 22,034.",
      "8": "The sons of Beker were Zemirah, Joash, Eliezer, Elioenai, Omri, Jeremoth, Abijah, Anathoth, and Alemeth. All these were the sons of Beker.",
      "9": "They were listed in the genealogical records as heads of their fathers’ houses, along with 20,200 powerful warriors.",
      "10": "The son of Jediael was Bilhan.\nThe sons of Bilhan were Jeush, Benjamin, Ehud, Kena’anah, Zethan, Tarshish, and Ahishahar.",
      "11": "All these were sons of Jediael, the heads of their fathers’ houses, listed along with 17,200 powerful warriors, who were able to go out to war with the army.",
      "12": "Shuppim and Huppim were the sons of Ir. The Hushim were the sons of Aher.",
      "13": "The sons of Naphtali were Jahziel, Guni, Jezer, Shallum. They were the grandsons of Bilhah.",
      "14": "The first son of Manasseh was Asriel, born to his Aramean concubine. She also gave birth to Makir, the father of Gilead.",
      "15": "Makir took a wife from Huppim and Shuppim. His sister’s name was Ma’akah. The name of Manasseh’s second son was Zelophehad, but Zelophehad had only daughters.",
      "16": "Ma’akah, the wife of Makir, gave birth to a son, and she named him Peresh. The name of his brother was Sheresh, and his sons were Ulam and Rakem.",
      "17": "The son of Ulam was Bedan.\nThese were the sons of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh.",
      "18": "His sister Hammoleketh gave birth to Ishhod, Abiezer, and Mahlah.",
      "19": "The sons of Shemida were Ahian, Shechem, Likhi, and Aniam.",
      "20": "The descendants of Ephraim were Shuthelah, his son Bered, his son Tahath, his son Eleadah, his son Tahath,",
      "21": "his son Zabad, his son Shuthelah, and also Ezer and Elead.\nThese two were killed by the native men of Gath, because they came down to take away their livestock.",
      "22": "Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brothers came to comfort him.",
      "23": "He went to his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to a son, and he named him Beriah, because there was trouble with his house.",
      "24": "His daughter was She’erah, who built lower and upper Beth Horon and Uzzen She’erah.",
      "25": "Rephah was his son, and Resheph his son, and Telah his son, Tahan his son,",
      "26": "Ladan his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son,",
      "27": "Nun his son, and Joshua his son.",
      "28": "Their possessions and settlements were Bethel and its towns, and Na’aran on the east, and Gezer on the west with its towns, also Shechem and its towns, as far as Ayyah and its towns.",
      "29": "Along the borders of the people of Manasseh they received Beth Shean and its towns, Ta’anach and its towns, Megiddo and its towns, and Dor and its towns. The descendants of Joseph, the son of Israel, lived in these towns.",
      "30": "The sons of Asher were Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Beriah. Serah was their sister.",
      "31": "The sons of Beriah were Heber and Malkiel, who was the father\nof Birzaith.",
      "32": "Heber became the father of Japhlet, Shomer, Hotham, and their sister Shua.",
      "33": "The sons of Japhlet were Pasak, Bimhal, and Ashvath. These are the sons of Japhlet.",
      "34": "The sons of Shemer were Ahi, Rohgah, Jehubbah, and Aram.",
      "35": "The sons of his brother Helem were Zophah, Imna, Shelesh, and Amal.",
      "36": "The sons of Zophah were Suah, Harnepher, Shual, Beri, Imrah,",
      "37": "Bezer, Hod, Shamma, Shilshah, Ithran, and Be’era.",
      "38": "The sons of Jether were Jephunneh, Pispah, and Ara.",
      "39": "The sons of Ulla were Arah, Hanniel, and Rizia.",
      "40": "All these were the sons of Asher, heads of the houses of their fathers, elite soldiers, powerful warriors, heads of the tribal leaders. The number of them listed in the genealogies for service in war was 26,000 men."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Benjamin became the father of Bela his firstborn, Ashbel the second, Aharah the third,",
      "2": "Nohah the fourth, and Rapha the fifth.",
      "3": "Bela had sons: Addar, Gera, Abihud,",
      "4": "Abishua, Na’aman, Ahoah,",
      "5": "Gera, Shephuphan, and Huram.",
      "6": "These are the sons of Ehud. They are the heads of fathers’ households for the inhabitants of Geba who were exiled to Manahath,",
      "7": "namely, Na’aman, Ahijah, and Gera, who led them into exile, and he became the father of Uzza and Ahihud.",
      "8": "Shaharaim became a father in the territory of Moab, after he had sent away his wives Hushim and Ba’ara.",
      "9": "By his wife Hodesh he became the father of Jobab, Zibia, Mesha, Malkam,",
      "10": "Jeuz, Shakia, and Mirmah. These were his sons, heads of the houses of their fathers.",
      "11": "By Hushim, he became the father of Abitub and Elpa’al.",
      "12": "The sons of Elpa’al were Eber, Misham, and Shemed, who built Ono and Lod, with its towns.",
      "13": "Also Beriah and Shema, who were heads of houses of the fathers of the inhabitants of Aijalon. They put to flight the inhabitants of Gath.",
      "14": "Also Ahio, Shashak, Jeremoth,",
      "15": "Zebadiah, Arad, Eder,",
      "16": "Michael, Ishpah, Joha, who were the sons of Beriah.",
      "17": "Also Zebadiah, Meshullam, Hizki, Heber,",
      "18": "Ishmerai, Izliah, Jobab, the sons of Elpa’al.",
      "19": "Also Jakim, Zikri, Zabdi,",
      "20": "Elienai, Zillethai, Eliel,",
      "21": "Adaiah, Beraiah, Shimrath, the sons of Shimei.",
      "22": "Also Ishpan, Eber, Eliel,",
      "23": "Abdon, Zikri, Hanan,",
      "24": "Hananiah, Elam, Anthothijah,",
      "25": "Iphdeiah, Penuel, the sons of Shashak.",
      "26": "Also Shamsherai, Shehariah, Athaliah,",
      "27": "Ja’areshiah, Elijah, Zikri, and the sons of Jeroham.",
      "28": "These were heads of fathers’ households throughout their generations, head men. These lived in Jerusalem.",
      "29": "Jeiel, the father of Gibeon, whose wife’s name was Ma’akah, lived in Gibeon",
      "30": "with his firstborn son Abdon. Other sons were Zur, Kish, Baal, Ner, Nadab,",
      "31": "Gedor, Ahio, and Zeker.",
      "32": "Mikloth became the father of Shimeah. They also lived near their brothers in Jerusalem, with their brothers.",
      "33": "Ner became the father of Kish.\n    Kish became the father of Saul.\n    Saul became the father of Jonathan, Malkishua, Abinadab, and Eshbaal.",
      "34": "The son of Jonathan was Meribbaal.\n    Meribbaal became the father of Micah.",
      "35": "The sons of Micah were Pithon, Melek, Tarea, and Ahaz.",
      "36": "Ahaz became the father of Jehoaddah.\n    Jehoaddah became the father of Alemeth, Azmaveth, and Zimri.\n    Zimri became the father of Moza.",
      "37": "Moza became the father of Binea. Raphah was his son, Eleasah his son, and Azel his son.",
      "38": "Azel had six sons, whose names are Azrikam, Bokeru, Ishmael, Sheariah, Obadiah, and Hanan. All these were the sons of Azel.",
      "39": "The sons of Eshek his brother were Ulam his firstborn, Jeush his second, and Eliphelet his third.",
      "40": "The sons of Ulam were powerful warriors, who were archers. They had many sons and grandsons, one hundred fifty. All these were of the descendants of Benjamin."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "So all Israel was enrolled by their genealogies, and these were written in the Book of the Kings of Israel, until Judah was carried away captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness.",
      "2": "Now the first group of inhabitants who settled in their property in their cities consisted of Israelites, priests, Levites, and temple servants.",
      "3": "People from Judah, people from Benjamin, people from Ephraim, and people from Manasseh lived in Jerusalem.",
      "4": "They included Uthai the son of Ammihud, the son of Omri, the son of Imri, the son of Bani from the sons of Perez, the son of Judah.",
      "5": "From the Shilonites: Asaiah the firstborn and his sons.",
      "6": "From the sons of Zerah: Jeuel and their brothers, 690.",
      "7": "From the sons of Benjamin: Sallu the son of Meshullam, the son of Hodaviah, the son of Hassenuah,",
      "8": "also Ibneiah the son of Jeroham, and Elah the son of Uzzi, the son of Mikri, and Meshullam the son of Shephatiah, the son of Reuel, the son of Ibnijah,",
      "9": "and their brothers, according to their genealogies, 956 men. All these men were heads of families, listed according to their fathers’ houses.",
      "10": "From the priests:\nJedaiah, Jehoiarib, Jakin,",
      "11": "and Azariah the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, the supervisor of God’s house;",
      "12": "Adaiah the son of Jeroham, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malkijah; and Ma’asai the son of Adiel, the son of Jahzerah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Meshillemith, the son of Immer;",
      "13": "and their brothers, heads of their fathers’ houses, 1,760 very capable men for the work of the service in God’s house.",
      "14": "From the Levites:\n        Shemaiah the son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, from the descendants of Merari;",
      "15": "Bakbakkar, Heresh, Galal, and Mattaniah the son of Mica, the son of Zikri, the son of Asaph;",
      "16": "Obadiah the son of Shemaiah, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun, and Berekiah the son of Asa, the son of Elkanah, who lived in the villages of the Netophathites.",
      "17": "The gatekeepers included Shallum, Akkub, Talmon, Ahiman, and their brothers (Shallum was in charge),",
      "18": "who previously served in the King’s Gate on the east side of the Temple. They were the gatekeepers for the camp of the descendants of Levi.",
      "19": "Shallum the son of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, together with his brothers from his father’s house, the Korahites, were in charge of the work of the service, guardians of the entrance to the Tent. Their fathers had been over the Lord’s camp as guardians of the entrance.",
      "20": "Phinehas son of Eleazar had been ruler over them in the past, and the Lord had been with him.",
      "21": "Zechariah son of Meshelemiah was gatekeeper of the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.",
      "22": "All these who were chosen to be gatekeepers in the doorways numbered 212.\nThose whom David and Samuel the seer appointed to their office of trust were listed by genealogy, according to their villages.",
      "23": "So they and their sons were in charge of the gates of the Lord’s house, when the house was still a tent.",
      "24": "The gatekeepers were positioned on the four sides: east, west, north, and south.",
      "25": "Their brothers who were in their villages were to take turns coming in to be with them for a seven-day shift.",
      "26": "So four chief gatekeepers, who were Levites, were in an office of trust and were in charge of the rooms and the treasuries in God’s house.",
      "27": "They were stationed around God’s house through the night, because that duty was assigned to them, and their duty was to open it every morning.",
      "28": "Some of them were in charge of the vessels for the service. They counted them before and after each service.",
      "29": "Some of them also were in charge of the furnishings and all the vessels of the sanctuary, as well as the fine flour, wine, oil, incense, and spices.",
      "30": "Some of the sons of the priests prepared the mixture of the spices.",
      "31": "Mattithiah, one of the Levites, who was the firstborn of Shallum the Korahite, was entrusted with making the flatbread for offerings.",
      "32": "Some of their brothers from the sons of the Kohathites were responsible for preparing the bread that was set out and arranged every Sabbath.",
      "33": "These are the singers, heads of fathers’ households of the Levites, who lived in the rooms at the temple and were free from other service, because they were busy with their work day and night.",
      "34": "These were heads of fathers’ households of the Levites, throughout their generations, head men. These lived at Jerusalem.",
      "35": "Jeiel, the father of Gibeon, whose wife’s name was Ma’akah, lived in Gibeon with",
      "36": "his firstborn son Abdon, and with Zur, Kish, Baal, Ner, Nadab,",
      "37": "Gedor, Ahio, Zechariah, and Mikloth.",
      "38": "Mikloth became the father of Shimeam. They also lived with their relatives in Jerusalem.",
      "39": "Ner became the father of Kish.\n    Kish became the father of Saul.\n    Saul became the father of Jonathan, Malkishua, Abinadab, and Eshbaal.",
      "40": "The son of Jonathan was Meribbaal. Meribbaal became the father of Micah.",
      "41": "The sons of Micah were Pithon, Melek, Tahrea, and Ahaz.",
      "42": "Ahaz became the father of Jarah.\n    Jarah became the father of Alemeth, Azmaveth, and Zimri.\n    Zimri became the father of Moza.",
      "43": "Moza became the father of Binea, and Rephaiah was his son, Eleasah his son, and Azel his son.",
      "44": "Azel had six sons, whose names were Azrikam, Bokeru, Ishmael, Sheariah, Obadiah, and Hanan. These were the sons of Azel."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "The Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from the Philistines and fell mortally wounded at Mount Gilboa.",
      "2": "The Philistines were closing in on Saul and his sons. They struck down Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua, the sons of Saul.",
      "3": "The attack directed at Saul was fierce. The archers targeted him and hit him, and he was in great pain from his wounds.",
      "4": "Then Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through so that these uncircumcised fellows do not come and abuse me.”\nHis armor bearer would not do it because he was too afraid. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it.",
      "5": "When the armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died.",
      "6": "So Saul died, and his three sons, his entire house, died together.",
      "7": "When all the men of Israel who were in the valley saw that their army had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled. Then the Philistines came and lived in them.",
      "8": "On the next day when the Philistines came to strip those who had been killed in the battle, they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.",
      "9": "They stripped Saul, carried off his head and his armor, and sent them throughout Philistia to spread the good news to their idols and people.",
      "10": "They put Saul’s armor and weapons in the temple of their gods and impaled his skull in the temple of Dagon.",
      "11": "The entire city of Jabesh Gilead heard about everything that the Philistines had done to Saul.",
      "12": "So all the courageous, strong men set out and carried away the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons. They brought them to Jabesh and buried their bones under the terebinth tree in Jabesh. Then they fasted for seven days.",
      "13": "Saul died as a result of the unfaithfulness which he had commited against the Lord by not keeping the Lord’s command and by seeking a medium to direct his actions.",
      "14": "He did not seek guidance from the Lord. That is why the Lord brought about his death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "All Israel gathered to David at Hebron to say, “Look! We are your flesh and blood.",
      "2": "Previously when Saul was king, you led Israel out to battle and back again. Besides, the Lord your God said to you, ‘You shall shepherd my people Israel and be leader over my people Israel.’”",
      "3": "All the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron. David made a covenant with them there in the presence of the Lord. They anointed David king over Israel, according to the word of the Lord from Samuel.",
      "4": "David and all Israel went to Jerusalem (that is, Jebus). The Jebusites were living in that part of the land.",
      "5": "Those living in Jebus said to David, “You will not get in here.” Nevertheless, David captured the stronghold of Zion, which became the City of David.",
      "6": "David had said, “Whoever attacks the Jebusites first will become the head and commander.” Joab son of Zeruiah went up first and became the head.",
      "7": "David lived in the stronghold. That is why it is called the City of David.",
      "8": "He built up the city all around the stronghold, from the Millo to the surrounding walls. Joab repaired the rest of the city.",
      "9": "David became greater and greater because the Lord of Armies was with him.",
      "10": "These are the leaders of David’s elite warriors, who built up support for his kingdom throughout all Israel, in order to make him king, according to the word of the Lord concerning Israel.",
      "11": "This is the record of David’s elite warriors.\nJashobeam son of Hakmoni, head of the Thirty, wielded his spear against three hundred, who were killed at one time.",
      "12": "After him came Eleazar son of Dodo, the Ahohite. He was in the group of three elite warriors.",
      "13": "He was with David at Pas Dammim, where there was a plot of land full of barley, when the Philistines were gathered there for battle. The people had been fleeing from the Philistines,",
      "14": "but they took their stand in the middle of that plot of land. They defended it and killed the Philistines. The Lord rescued them with a great victory.",
      "15": "Three of the thirty leaders went down to David at the rock by the Cave of Adullam. The army of the Philistines was camping in the Valley of Rephaim.",
      "16": "While David was in the stronghold, the garrison of Philistines was in Bethlehem.",
      "17": "David expressed this desire: “Who will give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem inside the gate?”",
      "18": "The Three broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water from the well of Bethlehem inside the gate. They took it and brought it to David. However, David was not willing to drink it. Instead, he poured it out to the Lord.",
      "19": "He said, “I should be cursed by God if I did that. Shall I drink the blood of these men? They risked their lives to bring it to me.” He was not willing to drink it. The three elite warriors carried out these actions.",
      "20": "Abishai, the brother of Joab, was the leader of the Three. He wielded his spear against three hundred and killed them. His reputation equaled that of the Three.",
      "21": "He was considered twice as great as the Group of Three. He became their commander. But he did not belong to the Group of Three.",
      "22": "Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a courageous man from Kabze’el, did great things. He struck down two Lions of God from Moab. He also went down and killed a lion in a cistern on a snowy day.",
      "23": "He also killed an Egyptian who was seven and a half feet tall. The Egyptian was holding a spear like a weaver’s beam. Benaiah went down to him with a staff, snatched the spear from the hand of the Egyptian, and killed him with his own spear.",
      "24": "Benaiah son of Jehoiada accomplished these feats. His reputation equaled that of the Three.",
      "25": "Among the Thirty he was considered great, but he did not belong to the Three. David placed him over his bodyguards.",
      "26": "These were the elite warriors of the armies:\nAsahel, the brother of Joab,\nElhanan son of Dodo from Bethlehem,",
      "27": "Shammoth the Harorite,\nHelez the Pelonite,",
      "28": "Ira son of Ikkesh the Tekoan,\nAbiezer from Anathoth,",
      "29": "Sibbekai the Hushathite,\nIlai the Ahohite,",
      "30": "Mahrai the Netophahite,\nHeled son of Ba’anah the Netophahite,",
      "31": "Ithai son of Ribai from Gibeah of Benjamin,\nBenaiah the Pirathonite,",
      "32": "Hurai from the ravines of Ga’ash,\nAbiel the Arbathite,",
      "33": "Azmaveth the Baharumite,\nEliahba the Sha’albonite,",
      "34": "the sons of Hashem the Gizonite,\nJonathan son of Shageh the Hararite,",
      "35": "Ahiam son of Sakar the Hararite,\nEliphal son of Ur,",
      "36": "Hepher the Mekerathite,\nAhijah the Pelonite,",
      "37": "Hezro the Carmelite,\nNa’arai son of Ezbai,",
      "38": "Joel, the brother of Nathan,\nMibhar son of Hagri,",
      "39": "Zelek the Ammonite,\nNaharai the Berothite, the armor bearer of Joab son of Zeruiah,",
      "40": "Ira the Ithrite,\nGareb the Ithrite,",
      "41": "Uriah the Hittite,\nZabad son of Ahlai,",
      "42": "Adina son of Shiza the Reubenite, a leader of the Reubenites,\n    who had thirty men with him,",
      "43": "Hanan son of Ma’akah\nand Joshaphat the Mithnite,",
      "44": "Uzzia the Ashterathite,\nShama and Jeiel, the sons of Hotham the Aroerite,",
      "45": "Jediael son of Shimri,\nand his brother Joha the Tizite,",
      "46": "Eliel the Mahavite\nand Jeribai and Joshaviah, the sons of Elna’am,\nand Ithmah the Moabite,",
      "47": "Eliel and Obed and Ja’asiel the Mezobaite."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "These are the men who came to David at Ziklag, when he was a fugitive from Saul son of Kish. They were among the warriors who helped him wage war.",
      "2": "Among them were relatives of Saul from Benjamin, who were able to use bow and arrow and to sling stones right-handed or left-handed.",
      "3": "Their leader was Ahiezer along with Joash, sons of Shema’ah the Gibeathite,\n    Jeziel and Pelet, sons of Azmaveth,\n    Berakah and Jehu the Anathothite,",
      "4": "Ishmaiah the Gibeonite, a powerful warrior among the Thirty and over the Thirty,\n    Jeremiah and Jahaziel and Johanan and Jozabad the Gederathite,",
      "5": "Eluzai and Jerimoth and Bealiah\n    and Shemariah and Shephatiah the Haruphite,",
      "6": "Elkanah, Ishiah, Azarel, Joezer, and Jashobeam, the Korathites,",
      "7": "Joelah and Zebadiah, sons of Jeroham from Gedor.",
      "8": "Some men from Gad defected and went to David at the stronghold in the wilderness. They were powerful warriors, military men, skilled for war with shield and spear, with faces like lions and with speed like gazelles on the mountains.",
      "9": "Ezer the head, Obadiah the second, Eliab the third,",
      "10": "Mishmannah the fourth, Jeremiah the fifth,",
      "11": "Attai the sixth, Eliel the seventh,",
      "12": "Johanan the eighth, Elzabad the ninth,",
      "13": "Jeremiah the tenth, and Makbannai the eleventh.",
      "14": "These men from Gad were leaders of the army. The less capable were leaders for a hundred, the more capable for a thousand.",
      "15": "These are the ones who crossed the Jordan in the first month when it was overflowing all its banks. They forced those living in the valleys to the east and the west to flee.",
      "16": "Men also came from Benjamin and Judah to David at the stronghold.",
      "17": "David went out to meet with them and said to them, “If you have come to me with peaceful intentions to help me, my heart will be one with yours. But if you come to betray me to my enemies, even though there is no violence in my hands, the God of our fathers will see and judge.”",
      "18": "A spirit came upon Amazai, head of the Thirty. He said, “We are yours, David, and we are with you, son of Jesse. Peace, peace to you, and peace to those helping you, for your God helps you.” David received them and made them leaders of the troops.",
      "19": "Men from Manasseh deserted to David when he came along with the Philistines for the battle against Saul. These men did not help the Philistines, because the serens of the Philistines decided to send David away, because they thought, “He will desert to his master Saul with our heads.”",
      "20": "When he went to Ziklag, men from Manasseh deserted to David. They were Adnah, Jozabad, Jediael, Michael, Jozabad, Elihu, and Zillethai, leaders of groups of a thousand which belonged to Manasseh.",
      "21": "They helped David against the bands of raiders, because all of them were powerful warriors and commanders in the army.",
      "22": "Every day men kept coming to David to help him, until the army became great, like an army of God.",
      "23": "The following are the numbers of the troops equipped for war who came to David in Hebron, to turn the kingdom of Saul over to him according to the word of the Lord:",
      "24": "from the descendants of Judah, bearing shields and spears, 6,800 equipped for war,",
      "25": "from the descendants of Simeon, powerful warriors, 7,100 equipped for war,",
      "26": "from the descendants of Levi, 4,600,",
      "27": "and Jehoiada the tribal ruler for Aaron, who had with him 3,700;",
      "28": "also Zadok, a powerful young warrior, and from the house of his father 22 commanders,",
      "29": "from the descendants of Benjamin, Saul’s relatives, 3,000 (until then the majority of them had been keeping their connection with the house of Saul),",
      "30": "from the descendants of Ephraim, 20,800 powerful warriors, men who had earned a name for themselves in the house of their fathers,",
      "31": "from the half tribe of Manasseh, 18,000 who were designated by name to come and make David king,",
      "32": "from the descendants of Issachar, men who understood the times and what Israel should do, 200 leaders and all their relatives under their command,",
      "33": "from Zebulun, 50,000 men qualified to serve in the army, ready to line up for battle with all kinds of weapons for battle and with undivided allegiance,",
      "34": "from Naphtali, 1,000 commanders and with them 37,000 men with shields and spears,",
      "35": "from the Danites, 28,600 men ready to line up for battle,",
      "36": "from Asher, 40,000 men qualified to serve in the army, ready to line up for battle,",
      "37": "and from east of the Jordan, from Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, with all the weapons of an army ready for battle, 120,000 men.",
      "38": "All these soldiers, organized for battle, totally committed, came to Hebron to make David king over all Israel. All the rest of Israel also was totally committed to make David king.",
      "39": "They were there with David for three days, eating and drinking, because their fellow citizens had prepared provisions for them.",
      "40": "Also, their neighbors from as far away as Issachar, Zebulun, and Naphtali were bringing food on donkeys, camels, mules, and oxen, including provisions of flour, cakes of figs, clusters of raisins, wine, olive oil, oxen, and sheep in abundance, because there was joy in Israel."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "David consulted with the commanders of the thousands and of the hundreds, with every leader.",
      "2": "David said to the whole assembly of Israel, “If it seems good to you and receives approval from the Lord our God, we should send word everywhere to our brothers who remain in the whole land of Israel and get together with them. We will also send word to the priests and to the Levites in their cities with their pasturelands that they should assemble with us.",
      "3": "We will bring the Ark of our God back to us, because we did not seek it during the days of Saul.”",
      "4": "The whole assembly agreed to do it because it was the right thing to do in the view of all the people.",
      "5": "David gathered all Israel from the Shihor River in Egypt to the entrance of Hamath, to bring the Ark of God from Kiriath Jearim.",
      "6": "David and all Israel went up to Baalah in Judah (that is, Kiriath Jearim) to bring up the ark from there, the Ark of God the Lord, who is seated above the cherubim and who is called by the Name.",
      "7": "They transported God’s ark on a new cart from the house of Abinadab. Uzzah and Ahio were leading the cart.",
      "8": "David and all Israel were celebrating enthusiastically before God with songs, lyres, harps, hand drums, cymbals, and trumpets.",
      "9": "When they came to the threshing floor of Kidon, Uzzah reached out to grab the ark because the oxen stumbled.",
      "10": "The anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and the Lord struck him down because Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark. He died there in the presence of God.",
      "11": "David was angry because the Lord had burst out against Uzzah. That place is called Perez Uzzah to this day.",
      "12": "David was afraid of God on that day. He said, “How can I bring the Ark of God to me?”",
      "13": "David did not take the ark along with him into the City of David. He set it aside in the house of Obed Edom the Gittite.",
      "14": "The Ark of God stayed in the house of Obed Edom for three months, and the Lord blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that belonged to him."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, along with cedar logs, stonemasons, and carpenters to build a palace for him.",
      "2": "David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel because his kingdom had been lifted high for the sake of his people Israel.",
      "3": "David took wives in Jerusalem and fathered sons and daughters.",
      "4": "These are the names of the children born to him in Jerusalem: Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon,",
      "5": "Ibhar, Elishua, Elpelet,",
      "6": "Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia,",
      "7": "Elishama, Be’eliada, and Eliphelet.",
      "8": "The Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over all Israel. So all the Philistines went up to search for David. David heard about it and went out to face them.",
      "9": "The Philistines came and made a raid in the Valley of Rephaim.",
      "10": "David asked God, “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?”\nThe Lord said to him, “Go up, and I will give them into your hand.”",
      "11": "So they went up to Baal Perazim, and David defeated the Philistines there. David said, “By my hand God has broken through my enemies like a wall of water.” That is why they named that place Baal Perazim.",
      "12": "The Philistines abandoned their gods there. David gave the order, and they were burned with fire.",
      "13": "The Philistines made another raid in the valley.",
      "14": "David again consulted God. God said to him, “Do not go directly at them. Go around them and come to them in the area of the balsam trees.",
      "15": "When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, you are to go out in battle, because God has gone out before you to strike the army of the Philistines.”",
      "16": "David did what God had commanded him, and they struck the army of the Philistines from Gibeon to Gezer.",
      "17": "David’s reputation spread into all the lands. The Lord caused all the nations to be terrified."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "David constructed buildings for himself in the City of David. He established a place for the Ark of God and pitched a tent for it.",
      "2": "Then David said, “Nobody is to carry God’s ark except the Levites, because the Lord chose them to carry the Ark of the Lord and to serve him forever.”",
      "3": "David gathered all Israel in Jerusalem to bring up the Ark of the Lord to the place that he had prepared for it.",
      "4": "David gathered the descendants of Aaron and the Levites:",
      "5": "representing the sons of Kohath were Uriel the leader and 120 of his relatives,",
      "6": "representing the sons of Merari were Asaiah the leader and 220 of his relatives,",
      "7": "representing the sons of Gershom were Joel the leader and 130 of his relatives,",
      "8": "representing the sons of Elizaphan were Shemaiah the leader and 200 of his relatives,",
      "9": "representing the sons of Hebron were Eliel the leader and 80 of his relatives,",
      "10": "representing the sons of Uzziel were Amminadab the leader and 112 of his relatives.",
      "11": "So David summoned the priests Zadok and Abiathar and the Levites Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel, and Amminadab.",
      "12": "He said to them, “You are the leading fathers of the descendants of Levi. Consecrate yourselves, you and your brothers. Bring up the Ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place prepared for it,",
      "13": "because the first time, when you were not there, the Lord our God burst out against us, because we did not inquire about and follow the proper procedures.”",
      "14": "The priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the Ark of the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "15": "The descendants of Levi carried the Ark of God with poles on their shoulders, as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord.",
      "16": "David told the leading officials of the Levites to appoint their brother Levites as singers with musical instruments, harps, lyres, and cymbals, to raise their voices for the people to hear with joy.",
      "17": "The Levites appointed Heman son of Joel, and from the Levites closely related to him they appointed Asaph son of Berekiah, and from their relatives who were the descendants of Merari they appointed Ethan son of Kushaiah.",
      "18": "Their brother Levites assigned to serve with them on the second level were Zechariah, Ja’aziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Benaiah, Ma’aseiah, Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, and Mikneiah, and Obed Edom and Jeiel, the gatekeepers.",
      "19": "Also appointed were the singers Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, to sound the bronze cymbals,",
      "20": "Zechariah, Aziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Ma’aseiah, and Benaiah, to play the harps according to alamoth,",
      "21": "and Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, Mikneiah, Obed Edom, Jeiel, and Azaziah with lyres, to lead according to sheminith.",
      "22": "Kenaniah was musical leader of the Levites, directing the music because he had the skill.",
      "23": "Berekiah and Elkanah were gatekeepers for the Ark.",
      "24": "The priests Shebaniah, Joshaphat, Nethanel, Amasai, Zechariah, Benaiah, and Eliezer were directed to blow trumpets before the Ark of God.\nObed Edom and Jehiah were also gatekeepers for the Ark.",
      "25": "David, the elders of Israel, and the leaders of the units of a thousand were going to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the house of Obed Edom. They were celebrating as they went,",
      "26": "because God was helping the Levites who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. They sacrificed seven bulls and seven rams.",
      "27": "David was clothed with a fine linen robe, as were all of the Levites who were carrying the ark, the singers, and Kenaniah, the choir director for the singers. David was wearing a special linen vest.",
      "28": "All Israel brought up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord with shouts, with the sound of the ram’s horn, trumpets, and cymbals, and with music on harps and lyres.",
      "29": "When the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came to the City of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked out through the window. She saw King David dancing and celebrating, and she despised him in her heart."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "They brought the Ark of God and set it inside the tent that David had pitched for it. They offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before God.",
      "2": "When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord.",
      "3": "He distributed to each and every Israelite man and woman a loaf of bread, a cake of dates, and a cake of raisins.",
      "4": "He designated the following individuals from the Levites to serve before the Ark of the Lord by remembering, thanking, and praising the Lord, the God of Israel:",
      "5": "Asaph was the leader. Zechariah was directly under him.\n    Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed Edom, and Jeiel were to play music on harps and lyres.\n    Asaph was sounding the cymbals.",
      "6": "Benaiah and Jahaziel, the priests with trumpets, were to be continually before the Ark of the Covenant of God.",
      "7": "On that day David first gave the directive to give thanks to the Lord through the ministry of Asaph and his associates:",
      "8": "Give thanks to the Lord.\n    Call on his name.\n    Make known his deeds among the peoples.",
      "9": "Sing to him.\n    Make music to him.\n    Tell about all his wonderful acts.",
      "10": "Praise his holy name.\n    The hearts of those who seek the Lord will rejoice.",
      "11": "Seek the Lord and his strength.\n    Seek his presence continually.",
      "12": "Remember his wonderful acts, his signs,\n        and the judgments from his mouth,",
      "13": "you descendants of Israel, his servant,\n    you sons of Jacob, his chosen ones.",
      "14": "He is the Lord our God.\n    His judgments are in all the earth.",
      "15": "Remember his covenant forever,\n    a word he commanded for a thousand generations,",
      "16": "his covenant which he made with Abraham,\n    which was his sworn promise to Isaac.",
      "17": "He confirmed it to Jacob as a statute for Israel,\n        an everlasting covenant.",
      "18": "He said, “To you I will give the land of Canaan\n        as a portion for your inheritance,",
      "19": "even though your numbers are small,\n    and you are insignificant,\n    and you are living in it as aliens.”",
      "20": "They were wandering from nation to nation\n    and from one kingdom to another people.",
      "21": "Yet he did not permit anyone to oppress them.\n    He rebuked kings on their account:",
      "22": "“You must not touch my anointed ones.\n    Against my prophets you must do no harm.”",
      "23": "Sing to the Lord, all the earth.\n    Proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day.",
      "24": "Declare his glory among the nations,\n    his wonderful acts among all the peoples,",
      "25": "for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.\n    He is to be feared above all gods.",
      "26": "For all the gods of the peoples are not gods at all.\n    But the Lord made the heavens.",
      "27": "Honor and majesty are before him.\n    Strength and joy are in his place.",
      "28": "Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples.\n    Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.",
      "29": "Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name.\n    Bring an offering and come before him.\n    Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.",
      "30": "Tremble before him, all the earth.\n    Surely the world stands firm.\n    It shall never be overthrown.",
      "31": "The heavens will be glad.\n    The earth will rejoice.\n    They will say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”",
      "32": "The sea and everything that fills it will roar.\n    The fields and everything in them will celebrate.",
      "33": "The trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord,\n        for he is coming to judge the earth.",
      "34": "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,\n        for his mercy endures forever.",
      "35": "Say, “Save us, O God of our salvation.\n    Gather us and save us from the nations,\n        to give thanks to your holy name,\n        to glorify you by praising you.”",
      "36": "Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel,\n        from everlasting to everlasting.\nThen all the people said “Amen” and praised the Lord.",
      "37": "David left Asaph and his relatives there before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to minister before the Ark continually, to do whatever was needed each day,",
      "38": "along with Obed Edom and sixty-eight relatives. Obed Edom son of Jeduthun and Hosah served as gatekeepers.",
      "39": "Zadok the priest and his fellow priests were assigned to the Tent of the Lord at the high place in Gibeon,",
      "40": "to present burnt offerings to the Lord upon the altar for burnt offerings regularly, morning and evening, according to everything written in the Law of the Lord, which he commanded Israel.",
      "41": "With them were Heman, Jeduthun, and the rest of those chosen and designated by name to give thanks to the Lord, because his mercy endures forever.",
      "42": "With them were Heman and Jeduthun to make music to God with trumpets, cymbals, and musical instruments. The descendants of Jeduthun were assigned to the gate.",
      "43": "Then all the people departed, each to his own house, and David returned to bless his house."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "After David was living in his own house, he said to Nathan the prophet, “Look! I am living in a house of cedar, but the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord sits under tent curtains.”",
      "2": "Nathan said to David, “Do everything that is in your heart, because God is with you.”",
      "3": "But that night the word of God came to Nathan.",
      "4": "“Go and tell David my servant these things.”\nThis is what the Lord says. You will not be the one to build a house for me to live in,",
      "5": "for I have not lived in a house from the day when I caused Israel to go up from Egypt until this day, but I have been in a moving tent as my dwelling place.",
      "6": "In all my traveling about with all the Israelites, did I ever speak a word with one of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, or ask, “Why have you not built a house of cedar for me?”",
      "7": "Now you are also to say the following to my servant David:\nThis is what the Lord of Armies says. I took you from the pastures, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people Israel.",
      "8": "I have been with you wherever you went. I have cut off all your enemies before you. I will make a reputation for you like the reputation of the great ones in the earth.",
      "9": "I will establish a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them there. They will dwell there, and they will not be disturbed anymore. I will not allow wicked men to devastate them again as I did in the beginning,",
      "10": "and as it happened during the times when I commanded judges over my people Israel, but I will subdue all your enemies.\nI declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you.",
      "11": "When your days are completed, you will go to be with your fathers. I will raise up your seed after you from among your sons, and I will establish his kingdom.",
      "12": "He will build a house for me. I will establish his throne forever.",
      "13": "I will be his father, and he will be my son. My mercy I will not take away from him as I took it from the one who was before you.",
      "14": "I will cause him to stand in my house and in my kingdom forever. His throne will be established forever.",
      "15": "Nathan told David all the words that had been revealed in this vision.",
      "16": "Then King David went and sat before the Lord and said:\nWho am I, Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me to this point?",
      "17": "Yet this was a small thing in your eyes, God! You have spoken about the house of your servant for a long time into the future. You have revealed to me the course for the man who will arise, Lord God.",
      "18": "What more can David add to you for honoring your servant? You know your servant.",
      "19": "Lord, for the sake of your servant and according to the plan of your heart, you have carried out this great thing by making known all these great promises.",
      "20": "Lord, there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, as is apparent from everything which our ears have heard.",
      "21": "Who is like your people Israel? It is the one nation on earth for whom God went out to redeem a people to himself, to make for yourself a great name, by doing great and awe-inspiring things in order to drive out nations in front of your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt.",
      "22": "You adopted Israel as your people forever. You, O Lord, became their God.",
      "23": "Now, Lord, the word which you have spoken about your servant and about his house will stand firm forever. Do as you have spoken.",
      "24": "It will stand firm. Your name will be great forever. It will be said: The Lord of Armies is the God of Israel. The house of David your servant will be established before you.",
      "25": "For you, my God, have whispered into the ear of your servant that you would build a house for him. That is why your servant has dared to pray before you.",
      "26": "Now, Lord, you are God and have said these good things concerning your servant.",
      "27": "Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant to be forever before you. For what you, Lord, have blessed is blessed forever."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "After this David defeated the Philistines. He subdued them and took Gath and its villages from the control of the Philistines.",
      "2": "He defeated Moab, so the Moabites became subjects of David and paid tribute.",
      "3": "David also defeated Hadadezer king of Zobah, as he was on his way to Hamath to establish control at the river Euphrates.",
      "4": "David took from him one thousand chariots, seven thousand charioteers, and twenty thousand foot soldiers. He hamstrung all the chariot horses but left enough for one hundred chariots.",
      "5": "Arameans from Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, but David killed twenty-two thousand men in Aram.",
      "6": "David placed garrisons in Damascus in Aram. So the Arameans became subject to David and paid tribute.\nThe Lord gave victory to David everywhere.",
      "7": "David took the gold shields which belonged to the officials of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem.",
      "8": "From Tibhath and Kun, cities of Hadadezer, David took huge amounts of bronze. With it Solomon later made the sea, the pillars, and the bronze vessels.",
      "9": "Tou king of Hamath heard that David had defeated the entire army of Hadadezer king of Zobah.",
      "10": "He sent his son Hadoram to King David to ask for peace with him and to bless him, because he had fought against and defeated Hadadezer, who had been at war with Tou. He sent all kinds of articles of gold, silver, and bronze.",
      "11": "King David dedicated these to the Lord, along with the silver and gold which he had carried off from all the nations, from Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Philistines, and Amalek.",
      "12": "Abishai son of Zeruiah killed eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.",
      "13": "He placed garrisons in Edom. All Edom was subject to David.\nThe Lord gave victory to David everywhere he went.",
      "14": "David was king over all Israel, and he treated his people with justice and fairness.",
      "15": "Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army.\n    Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the record keeper.",
      "16": "Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelek son of Abiathar were the priests.\n    Shavsha was the secretary.",
      "17": "Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and the Pelethites.\n    The sons of David were chief advisors at the side of the king."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "After this, Nahash king of the Ammonites died, and his son became king in his place.",
      "2": "David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.” David sent messengers to comfort him concerning his father.\nBut when David’s officials came to the land of the Ammonites to console Hanun,",
      "3": "the officers of the Ammonites said to Hanun, “Do you really think David is honoring your father because he has sent messengers to express sympathy to you? Haven’t his officials come to you as scouts to spy on the land and to overthrow it?”",
      "4": "So Hanun seized David’s officials, shaved them, and cut off their clothing up to the middle of their buttocks and sent them away.",
      "5": "After they were sent on their way, David received a report about these men. David sent messengers to meet them, for the men were deeply humiliated. The king said, “Stay in Jericho until your beards have grown, and then return.”",
      "6": "The Ammonites saw that they had made themselves a disgusting stench to David. Hanun and the Ammonites sent a thousand talents of silver to hire chariots and charioteers for themselves from Aram of the Two Rivers, from Aram Ma’akah, and from Zobah.",
      "7": "They hired thirty-two thousand chariots, the king of Ma’akah, and his troops. They came and set up camp in front of Medeba. The Ammonites were called together from their cities, and they came for battle.",
      "8": "When David heard about this, he deployed Joab and the entire army of powerful warriors.",
      "9": "The Ammonites came out and lined up in battle formation in front of the entrance to the city. The kings who had come from Aram were lined up by themselves in the open country.",
      "10": "Joab saw that the battle lines were drawn up against him both in front of him and behind him, so he chose some of the best troops of Israel and deployed them to confront the Arameans.",
      "11": "The rest of the army he put under the command of his brother Abishai. They were deployed to confront the Ammonites.",
      "12": "He said, “If Aram is too strong for me, you will come to my rescue, and if the Ammonites are too strong for you, I will rescue you.",
      "13": "Be strong and act courageously for our people and for the cities of our God. The Lord will do what is good in his eyes.”",
      "14": "Joab and the people who were with him confronted the Arameans in the battle, and the Arameans fled from him.",
      "15": "When the Ammonites saw that the Arameans had fled, they also fled from Joab’s brother Abishai and entered the city. Joab returned to Jerusalem.",
      "16": "When the Arameans saw that they had been defeated, they sent messengers and summoned the Arameans who were from beyond the Euphrates. Shophak the commander of the army of Hadadezer was leading them.",
      "17": "This was reported to David, so he gathered all Israel and crossed the Jordan. He came upon them and deployed for battle against them. David deployed for battle to engage Aram, and they fought against each other.",
      "18": "The Arameans fled from Israel. David killed seven thousand Aramean charioteers and forty thousand foot soldiers. He also killed Shophak the commander of the army.",
      "19": "The kings subject to Hadadezer saw that they were defeated by Israel. They made peace with David and became subject to him. Then Aram was not willing to rescue the Ammonites anymore."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "When springtime arrived, the time when kings go out to war, Joab led out the army, ravaged the land of the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. David remained in Jerusalem. Joab attacked Rabbah and pulled it down.",
      "2": "David took the gold crown of their king from his head. It weighed seventy-five pounds and had a precious stone in it. It was placed on David’s head. He brought out large amounts of plunder from the city.",
      "3": "He brought out the people who were in the city. He put them to work with saws, iron picks, and axes. David did the same to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the troops returned to Jerusalem.",
      "4": "After this, war arose at Gezer with the Philistines. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Sippai, one of the descendants of Rapha the giant, and the Philistines were subdued.",
      "5": "There was another battle with the Philistines. Elhanan, the son of Jair, killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gittite. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam.",
      "6": "There was another battle, this time at Gath. There was a very tall man who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four digits in all. He also was descended from Rapha the giant.",
      "7": "He taunted Israel, but Jonathan, the son of Shimeah, David’s brother, killed him.",
      "8": "These were descended from the giant in Gath. They fell by the hand of David and the men who served him."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count Israel.",
      "2": "David said to Joab and to the officers of the army, “Go, count Israel from Beersheba to Dan. Let me know how many they are.”",
      "3": "Joab said, “The Lord will multiply his people a hundred times. Are not all of them your servants, my lord the king? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should there be guilt upon Israel?”",
      "4": "But the word of the king overruled Joab.\nJoab went throughout all Israel and came back to Jerusalem.",
      "5": "He reported the total number of the people to David: In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who could draw the sword, including four hundred seventy thousand from Judah who could draw the sword.",
      "6": "He did not include Levi and Benjamin in the census because the king’s directive was offensive to Joab.",
      "7": "This action was also evil in the eyes of God, so he struck Israel.",
      "8": "David said to God, “I have sinned greatly by doing this. Please forgive the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”",
      "9": "The Lord said to Gad, David’s seer,",
      "10": "“Go tell David this is what the Lord has said. I am offering you three choices. Choose one of them for yourself, and I will impose it on you.”",
      "11": "So Gad came to David and said to him, “This is what the Lord says. Choose one of these for yourself:",
      "12": "either three years of famine, or three months of devastation in which you are overwhelmed by the sword of your enemies, or three days of the sword of the Lord bringing plague on the land, with the angel of the Lord causing destruction throughout all the territory of Israel. Now decide what answer I should take back to the one who sent me with this directive.”",
      "13": "David said to Gad, “This puts me in a difficult position. Please let me fall into the hand of the Lord, because his compassion is very great. But do not let me fall into the hands of man.”",
      "14": "The Lord caused a plague in Israel. Seventy thousand men from Israel fell.",
      "15": "God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. The Lord saw the destruction, and he relented from this devastation. He said to the destroying angel, “Enough. Hold back your hand.”\nThe angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.",
      "16": "David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and the heavens, with his sword drawn in his hand and stretched out over Jerusalem. David and the elders, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.",
      "17": "David said to God, “Look, I am the one who said to count the people. I am the one who has sinned and acted very wickedly. But these sheep! What have they done, O Lord my God? Please let your hand be on me and on the house of my father. But not a plague on your people!”",
      "18": "The angel of the Lord told Gad to tell David to go and set up an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.",
      "19": "David went up according to the directive from Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord.",
      "20": "While Ornan was threshing wheat, he turned and saw the angel. Ornan and his four sons hid themselves.",
      "21": "As David approached Ornan, Ornan looked up and saw David. He went out from the threshing floor and bowed to David with his face to the ground.",
      "22": "David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of the threshing floor. I will build an altar to the Lord on it. You will give it to me for full price, and the plague will be averted from the people.”",
      "23": "Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself. My lord the king may do what is good in his eyes. Look here. I have given the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I have given everything.”",
      "24": "David said to Ornan, “No. I am determined to buy it for the full price, because I will not take what belongs to you for the Lord and for burnt offerings without paying for it.”",
      "25": "So David weighed out six hundred shekels of gold to Ornan for the site.",
      "26": "Then David built an altar to the Lord there, and he offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called to the Lord, and the Lord answered him with fire from heaven upon the altar for burnt offerings.",
      "27": "The Lord spoke to the angel. The angel put his sword back into its sheath.",
      "28": "At that time, when David saw the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.",
      "29": "The Dwelling for the Lord, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering at that time were at the high place at Gibeon.",
      "30": "David was not able to go before it to seek answers from God because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "Then David said, “This is the place for the House of the Lord God and for the altar for burnt offerings for Israel.”",
      "2": "David said to gather together the aliens who were residents in the land of Israel. He lined up stonecutters to prepare trimmed stones for building the house for God.",
      "3": "He provided a large amount of iron for making nails for the doors of the gates, and he provided so much bronze for the fittings that it was not weighed.",
      "4": "He provided cedar logs beyond number because the Sidonians and Tyrians brought a large supply of cedar logs to David.",
      "5": "David said, “My son Solomon is young and inexperienced. The house to be built for the Lord will make his name very great and give him glory in all the lands. Therefore, I will make preparations for it.” So David completed many of the preparations before his death.",
      "6": "He summoned his son Solomon and commanded him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "7": "David said to Solomon:\nMy son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the name of the Lord my God.",
      "8": "But this word of the Lord was laid upon me: “You have shed much blood. You have waged great wars. You will not build a house for my name because of the great amount of blood you have shed on the earth in my presence.",
      "9": "You see, a son has been born to you. He will be a man of peace. To him I will give peace from all the enemies around him. Solomon will be his name. I will bestow peace and quiet upon Israel in his days.",
      "10": "He will build a house for my name. He will be my son. I will be his father. I will establish the throne of his kingdom in Israel forever.”",
      "11": "Now, my son, the Lord will be with you. You will succeed. You will build the house for the Lord your God, as he has said about you.",
      "12": "The Lord will give you discretion and understanding. He will give you orders about Israel and about how to keep the Law of the Lord your God.",
      "13": "You will prosper if you will continue to carry out the statutes and the judgments that the Lord commanded Moses for Israel. Be strong and be courageous. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed.",
      "14": "Look! With great effort I have provided one hundred thousand talents of gold for the House of the Lord, a million talents of silver, and too much bronze and iron to be weighed. I have provided lumber and stones. You may add to what I have provided.",
      "15": "There are plenty of laborers available to you, namely, stonecutters, masons, and wood workers, and those capable in all kinds of crafts,",
      "16": "also workers with gold, silver, bronze, and iron, too many to count. Get up and do it. The Lord will be with you.",
      "17": "David commanded all the officials and officers of Israel to help his son Solomon. He said:",
      "18": "Is not the Lord your God with you? He has given you peace on all sides by giving the inhabitants of the land into my hand. The land has been subdued before the Lord and before his people.",
      "19": "Now devote your hearts and your minds to seek the Lord your God. Get up and build the holy place for the Lord God, in order to bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God into the house built for the name of the Lord."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "When David was old and had lived a long life, he made his son Solomon king over Israel.",
      "2": "He gathered together all the officials and officers of Israel, along with the priests and the Levites.",
      "3": "The Levites who were thirty years old and over were counted, and their total number, man by man, was thirty-eight thousand.",
      "4": "David said, “Of these, twenty-four thousand are to oversee the work of the Lord’s house, six thousand are to be officers and judges,",
      "5": "four thousand are to be gatekeepers, and four thousand are to praise the Lord with the musical instruments that I made for giving praise.”",
      "6": "David assigned them to divisions based on their descent from the sons of Levi, namely, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.",
      "7": "The Gershonites were descended from Ladan and Shimei.",
      "8": "The sons of Ladan were Jehiel, who was the head, then Zetham and Joel, three in all.",
      "9": "The sons of Shimei were Shelomoth, Haziel, and Haran, three in all. These were the heads of the fathers’ households of Ladan.",
      "10": "The sons of Shimei were Jahath, Ziza, Jeush, and Beriah. These four were the sons of Shimei.",
      "11": "Jahath was the chief, and Zizah the second, but Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons. That is why they were counted as only one father’s house.",
      "12": "The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four in all.",
      "13": "The sons of Amram were Aaron and Moses.\nAaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things. He and his sons received a permanent assignment to burn incense before the Lord, to minister to him, and to bless his name forever.",
      "14": "The sons of Moses, the man of God, however, were classified along with the rest of the tribe of Levi.",
      "15": "The sons of Moses were Gershom and Eliezer.",
      "16": "The son of Gershom was Shebuel the head.",
      "17": "The son of Eliezer was Rehabiah the head.\n    Eliezer had no other sons, but Rehabiah had very many sons.",
      "18": "The son of Izhar was Shelomith the head.",
      "19": "The sons of Hebron were Jeriah the head, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, and Jekameam the fourth.",
      "20": "The sons of Uzziel were Micah the head, and Ishiah the second.",
      "21": "The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi.\n    The sons of Mahli were Eleazar and Kish.",
      "22": "Eleazar died, and he had no sons but only daughters, so their cousins the sons of Kish took them as wives.",
      "23": "The sons of Mushi were Mahli, Eder, and Jeremoth, three in all.",
      "24": "These were the descendants of Levi who were registered by their fathers’ houses. They were listed under the heads of their fathers’ houses. All those twenty years old and older were counted man by man and registered by name to perform the work for the service of the Lord’s house.",
      "25": "For David had said, “The Lord, the God of Israel, has given rest to his people, and he dwells in Jerusalem forever,",
      "26": "so the Levites will no longer need to carry the Dwelling and all the vessels and utensils for its service.”",
      "27": "So according to the last directions given by David, the descendants of Levi twenty years old and older were counted.",
      "28": "Their work was to assist the descendants of Aaron in the service of the Lord’s house, in the courtyards, in the storage rooms, and in the purification of all the holy things, that is, in all the work of the service of God’s house.",
      "29": "Their responsibilities included the bread that was to be set out and the fine flour for the grain offerings (whether for unleavened wafers, or for offerings baked in a pan, or those soaked in oil). They also did all of the measuring and mixing.",
      "30": "They also were to stand and thank and praise the Lord every morning, and likewise in the evening,",
      "31": "and to offer all burnt offerings to the Lord on the sabbaths, on the new moons, and on the prescribed festivals. They were to serve continually before the Lord, in the number specified by the regulations,",
      "32": "so that they would diligently carry out their duties for the Tent of Meeting, their duties for the Holy Place, and their duties with their brothers, the descendants of Aaron, for the service of the Lord’s house."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "The following were the divisions for the sons of Aaron.\nThe sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.",
      "2": "But because Nadab and Abihu died before their father and had no children, Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests.",
      "3": "David, together with Zadok, the representative of the male descendants of Eleazar, and Ahimelek, the representative of the male descendants of Ithamar, divided the priests into divisions to be assigned different forms of service.",
      "4": "Because the descendants of Eleazar had more men who were leaders of large groups than the descendants of Ithamar did, this is how the priests were divided: From the descendants of Eleazar there were sixteen heads of fathers’ houses, and from the descendants of Ithamar there were eight heads of their fathers’ houses.",
      "5": "They were assigned to their duties impartially by drawing lots. There were officials for the sanctuary and officials to serve in the presence of God from the sons of Eleazar and from the sons of Ithamar.",
      "6": "Shemaiah son of Nethanel, the scribe, who was a Levite, recorded the lots in the presence of the king and the government officials, namely, Zadok the priest, Ahimelek son of Abiathar, and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the priests and of the Levites. One father’s house was chosen from the descendants of Eleazar, then another, and then one was chosen from the descendants of Ithamar.",
      "7": "The first lot came out for Jehoiarib,\n    the second for Jedaiah,",
      "8": "the third for Harim,\n    the fourth for Seorim,",
      "9": "the fifth for Malkijah,\n    the sixth for Mijamin,",
      "10": "the seventh for Hakkoz,\n    the eighth for Abijah,",
      "11": "the ninth for Jeshua,\n    the tenth for Shekaniah,",
      "12": "the eleventh for Eliashib,\n    the twelfth for Jakim,",
      "13": "the thirteenth for Huppah,\n    the fourteenth for Jeshebeab,",
      "14": "the fifteenth for Bilgah,\n    the sixteenth for Immer,",
      "15": "the seventeenth for Hezir,\n    the eighteenth for Happizzez,",
      "16": "the nineteenth for Pethahiah,\n    the twentieth for Jehezkel,",
      "17": "the twenty-first for Jakin,\n    the twenty-second for Gamul,",
      "18": "the twenty-third for Delaiah,\n    and the twenty-fourth for Ma’aziah.",
      "19": "These were their assigned groups for their service, to come into the Lord’s house according to the regulations given to them by their forefather Aaron, as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded him.",
      "20": "From the rest of the descendants of Levi, the following were the heads and founders of divisions.\nShubael was from the sons of Amram,\nand Jehdeiah was from the sons of Shubael.",
      "21": "Ishiah was the head from Rehabiah and the sons of Rehabiah.",
      "22": "Shelomoth was from the Izharites,\nand Jahath was from the sons of Shelomoth.",
      "23": "The sons of Hebron were Jeriah, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, and Jekameam the fourth.",
      "24": "Micah was from the sons of Uzziel,\nand Shamir was from the sons of Micah.",
      "25": "Ishiah was the brother of Micah,\nand Zechariah was from the sons of Ishiah.",
      "26": "The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi.\nThe son of Ja’aziah was Beno.",
      "27": "The sons of Merari from Ja’aziah were Beno, Shoham, Zakkur, and Ibri.",
      "28": "From Mahli: Eleazar, who had no sons.",
      "29": "From Kish: the son of Kish was Jerahme’el.",
      "30": "The sons of Mushi were Mahli, Eder, and Jerimoth.\nThese were the descendants of the Levites according to their fathers’ houses.",
      "31": "These all cast lots just as their brothers the sons of Aaron had done in the presence of King David and of Zadok, Ahimelek, and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the priests and of the Levites. The fathers’ houses of the oldest son cast lots just as those of his youngest brother did."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "In addition, David and the officers of the army set apart for service certain of the sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, who were to prophesy with lyres, harps, and cymbals. This is the list of the men set apart for this work of service.",
      "2": "From the sons of Asaph:\nZakkur, Joseph, Nethaniah, and Asarelah. The sons of Asaph were under the direction of Asaph, who prophesied at the order of the king.",
      "3": "From Jeduthun, the sons of Jeduthun were:\nGedaliah, Zeri, Jeshaiah, Shimei, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the direction of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied by giving thanks and praising the Lord with the lyre.",
      "4": "From Heman, the sons of Heman were:\n    Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel, Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, Romamti Ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, and Mahazioth.",
      "5": "All these were the sons of Heman, the king’s seer, to fulfill the promise of God to exalt him. God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.",
      "6": "All these were under the direction of their father to make music in the Lord’s house, with cymbals, harps, and lyres, for the service of God’s house. Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman were under the direction of the king.",
      "7": "The number of them, with their brothers who were instructed in singing to the Lord, all of whom were skillful, was two hundred eighty-eight.",
      "8": "They cast lots for their offices, all alike, the least as well as the greatest, the teacher as well as the student.",
      "9": "So the first lot came out for Asaph’s son Joseph. ⎣He and his brothers and sons totaled twelve.⎦\n    The second lot fell to Gedaliah, his brothers and sons, twelve,",
      "10": "the third to Zakkur, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "11": "the fourth to Izri, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "12": "the fifth to Nethaniah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "13": "the sixth to Bukkiah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "14": "the seventh to Jesarelah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "15": "the eighth to Jeshaiah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "16": "the ninth to Mattaniah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "17": "the tenth to Shimei, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "18": "the eleventh to Azarel, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "19": "the twelfth to Hashabiah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "20": "for the thirteenth lot Shubael, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "21": "for the fourteenth Mattithiah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "22": "for the fifteenth Jeremoth, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "23": "for the sixteenth Hananiah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "24": "for the seventeenth Joshbekashah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "25": "for the eighteenth Hanani, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "26": "for the nineteenth Mallothi, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "27": "for the twentieth Eliathah, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "28": "for the twenty-first Hothir, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "29": "for the twenty-second Giddalti, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "30": "for the twenty-third Mahazioth, his sons and his brothers, twelve,",
      "31": "for the twenty-fourth Romamti Ezer, his sons and his brothers, twelve."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "For the gatekeepers, the following were the divisions.\nFrom the Korahites: Meshelemiah son of Kore, from the sons of Asaph.",
      "2": "Meshelemiah had sons: Zechariah the firstborn, Jediael the second, Zebadiah the third, Jathniel the fourth,",
      "3": "Elam the fifth, Jehohanan the sixth, and Eliehoenai the seventh.",
      "4": "Obed Edom had sons because God blessed him: Shemaiah the firstborn, Jehozabad the second, Joah the third, Sakar the fourth, Nethanel the fifth,",
      "5": "Ammiel the sixth, Issachar the seventh, and Pe’ullethai the eighth.",
      "6": "Sons were also born to his son Shemaiah, who ruled over the house of their father, for they were strong, capable men.",
      "7": "The sons of Shemaiah were Othni, Rephael, Obed, and Elzabad, whose brothers were capable men, Elihu and Semakiah.",
      "8": "All these were male descendants of Obed Edom. They and their sons and their brothers were strong, capable men for the service. There were sixty-two of them from Obed Edom.",
      "9": "Meshelemiah had sons and brothers, capable men, eighteen in all.",
      "10": "Hosah from the descendants of Merari also had sons. They were Shimri the head (for though he was not the firstborn, yet his father made him head),",
      "11": "Hilkiah the second, Tebaliah the third, and Zechariah the fourth. All the sons and brothers of Hosah totaled thirteen.",
      "12": "The following were the divisions of the gatekeepers, according to their influential leaders, who had offices like their brothers, to minister in the Lord’s house.",
      "13": "They cast lots for every gate according to their fathers’ houses, the small as well as the great.",
      "14": "The lot for the east side fell to Shelemiah.\nThen they cast lots for his son Zechariah, a wise counselor, and his lot came out for the north side.",
      "15": "For Obed Edom the lot was for the south side, and for his sons the lot was for the storehouse.",
      "16": "For Shuppim and Hosah the lot was for the west side, by the gate of Shalleketh, by the ramp that goes up. They were stationed with one watchman next to another.",
      "17": "On the east side there were six Levites each day,\non the north side four each day,\nand on the south side four each day,\nand at the storehouse two at a time.",
      "18": "For the covered courtyard on the west side, four were stationed at the ramp, and two at the courtyard.",
      "19": "These were the divisions of the gatekeepers from the descendants of the Korahites and from the descendants of Merari.",
      "20": "From the Levites, Ahijah was in charge of the treasuries of God’s house and the treasuries for the consecrated things.",
      "21": "The sons of Ladan (who were descendants of Gershon through Ladan and who were the heads of the fathers’ households descended from Ladan the Gershonite) included Jehieli,",
      "22": "the sons of Jehieli, Zetham and his brother Joel. They were in charge of the treasuries of the Lord’s house.",
      "23": "From the Amramites, the Izharites, the Hebronites, and the Uzzielites:",
      "24": "Shebuel, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was supervisor over the treasuries.",
      "25": "His relatives were Eliezer, his son Rehabiah, and his son Jeshaiah, and his son Joram, and his son Zikri, and his son Shelomoth.",
      "26": "This Shelomoth and his brothers were over all the treasuries for the consecrated things, which David the king, together with the heads of the fathers’ households, the officers over thousands and hundreds, and the officers of the army, had dedicated.",
      "27": "They dedicated some of the plunder won in battles, to repair the Lord’s house.",
      "28": "Everything that Samuel the seer, Saul son of Kish, Abner son of Ner, and Joab son of Zeruiah had dedicated, regardless of who had dedicated it, was under the control of Shelomoth and of his brothers.",
      "29": "From the Izharites, Kenaniah and his sons were assigned to the civil administration of Israel as officers and judges.",
      "30": "From the Hebronites, Hashabiah and his brothers, seventeen hundred capable men were in charge of the administration of Israel west of the Jordan, for all the work of the Lord and for the service of the king.",
      "31": "For the Hebronites, Jeriah was the head of the Hebronites on the basis of their genealogical records according to their fathers’ households. The genealogical records were verified in the fortieth year of the reign of David, and capable men were found among them at Jazer of Gilead.",
      "32": "Among Jeriah’s brothers, who were capable men, there were twenty-seven hundred heads of fathers’ households, whom King David made overseers over the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of the Manassites, for every matter pertaining to God, and for every matter pertaining to the king."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "The following is the list of the leaders of the people of Israel, those who were the heads of fathers’ houses and the commanders of military units of a thousand and of a hundred, and the officers who served the king in any matter. They served in divisions that came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year. In every division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "2": "Over the first division for the first month was Jashobeam son of Zabdiel. In his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "3": "He was from the sons of Perez. He was the head of all the commanders of the army for the first month.",
      "4": "Over the division for the second month was Dodai the Ahohite. Mikloth was the leader of his division. In his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "5": "The third commander of the army for the third month was Benaiah son of Jehoiada the head priest. In his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "6": "This is the same Benaiah who was the powerful warrior among the Thirty and the leader of the Thirty. Ammizabad his son was commander of his division.",
      "7": "The fourth commander for the fourth month was Asahel, the brother of Joab. Zebadiah his son succeeded him, and in his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "8": "The fifth commander for the fifth month was Shamhuth the Izrahite, and in his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "9": "The sixth commander for the sixth month was Ira son of Ikkesh the Tekoan, and in his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "10": "The seventh commander for the seventh month was Helez the Pelonite, from the descendants of Ephraim, and in his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "11": "The eighth commander for the eighth month was Sibbecai the Hushathite, from the descendants of Zerah. In his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "12": "The ninth commander for the ninth month was Abiezer the Anathothite, from the descendants of Benjamin. In his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "13": "The tenth commander for the tenth month was Mahrai the Netophathite, from the descendants of Zerah. In his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "14": "The eleventh commander for the eleventh month was Benaiah the Pirathonite, from the descendants of Ephraim. In his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "15": "The twelfth commander for the twelfth month was Heldai the Netophathite, from Othniel. In his division there were twenty-four thousand men.",
      "16": "The following were over the tribes of Israel:\nOf the Reubenites, Eliezer son of Zikri was the leader,\nOf the Simeonites, Shephatiah son of Ma’akah,",
      "17": "Of Levi, Hashabiah son of Kemuel,\nOf the descendants of Aaron, Zadok,",
      "18": "Of Judah, Elihu, one of the brothers of David,\nOf Issachar, Omri son of Michael,",
      "19": "Of Zebulun, Ishmaiah son of Obadiah,\nOf Naphtali, Jeremoth son of Azriel,",
      "20": "Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Azaziah,\nOf the half tribe of Manasseh, Joel son of Pedaiah,",
      "21": "Of the half tribe of Manasseh in Gilead, Iddo son of Zechariah,\nOf Benjamin, Ja’asiel son of Abner,",
      "22": "Of Dan, Azarel son of Jeroham.\nThese were the officers of the tribes of Israel.",
      "23": "David did not count those twenty years old and under, because the Lord had said he would increase Israel like the stars of the sky.",
      "24": "Joab son of Zeruiah began to take a census but did not finish, and wrath came on Israel because of this. The number was not put into the account in the annals of King David.",
      "25": "Azmaveth son of Adiel was in charge of the king’s storehouses.\n    Jonathan son of Uzziah was in charge of the storehouses in the fields, in the cities, in the villages, and in the towers.",
      "26": "Ezri son of Kelub was in charge of those who worked in the fields, farming the land.",
      "27": "Shimei the Ramathite was in charge of the vineyards.\n    Zabdi the Shiphmite was in charge of the produce of the vineyards for the wine cellars.",
      "28": "Baal Hanan the Gederite was in charge of the olive trees and the sycamore fig trees that were in the Shephelah.\n    Joash was in charge of the storehouses for oil.",
      "29": "Shitrai the Sharonite was in charge of the herds that grazed in Sharon.\n    Shaphat the son of Adlai was in charge of the herds that were in the lowlands.",
      "30": "Obil the Ishmaelite was in charge of the camels.\n    Jehdeiah the Meronothite was in charge of the donkeys.",
      "31": "Jaziz the Hagrite was in charge of the flocks.\nAll these were in charge of the property which belonged to King David.",
      "32": "Also Jonathan, David’s uncle, was an advisor, a man of understanding, and a scribe. Jehiel son of Hakmoni took care of the king’s sons.",
      "33": "Ahithophel was the king’s counselor, and Hushai the Arkite was the confidant.",
      "34": "Ahithophel was succeeded by Jehoiada son of Benaiah and by Abiathar. Joab was the commander of the king’s army."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "David gathered all the officials of Israel in Jerusalem: namely, the officials over the tribes, the officers over the military divisions that served the king (the officers over the units of a thousand and the units of a hundred), the officials who were in charge of all the property and cattle that belonged to the king and his sons, together with the palace officials, the powerful men, all the strong, capable men.",
      "2": "Then King David stood up and said:\nListen to me, my brothers and my people. In my heart I wanted to build a house as a resting place for the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and as a footstool for our God. So I made preparations to build.",
      "3": "But God said to me, “You will not build a house for my name because you are a man of war, and you have shed blood.”",
      "4": "Yet the Lord, the God of Israel, chose me from the whole house of my father to become king over Israel forever, because he chose Judah as leader, and in the house of Judah he chose the house of my father, and among the sons of my father he took pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel.",
      "5": "From all my sons (the Lord has given me many sons) he has chosen my son Solomon to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel.",
      "6": "He said to me, “Solomon, your son, is the one who will build my house and my courtyards, because I have chosen him for myself as a son. I will be his father.",
      "7": "I will establish his kingdom forever, if he is committed to keeping my commandments and my ordinances, as is happening today.”",
      "8": "Now in the sight of all Israel, the assembly of the Lord, and in the hearing of our God, keep and seek out all the commandments of the Lord your God so that you may possess the good land and live in it as an inheritance for your children after you, forever.",
      "9": "You, Solomon, my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind because the Lord searches all hearts. He understands every thought people plan. If you seek him, he will let you find him. If you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.",
      "10": "Consider this carefully! Because the Lord has chosen you to build a house for the holy place, be strong and do it.",
      "11": "David gave his son Solomon the plan for the porch, its buildings, its storage rooms, its upper rooms, its inner chambers, and the chamber for the atonement seat.",
      "12": "He also gave him the plans for everything he had in mind for the courtyard of the House of the Lord, for all the chambers around it, for the storage rooms, and for the storage rooms for the dedicated gifts.",
      "13": "He gave the plans for the divisions of the priests and Levites, for all the work of service of the House of the Lord, and the designs for all the vessels and utensils for the service of the House of the Lord.",
      "14": "He prescribed the weight of the gold for all the vessels for every kind of service and the weight of the silver for all the vessels for every kind of service.",
      "15": "This included the weight of the gold for each gold lampstand and its lamps, the weight of the silver for the silver lampstands and their lamps according to the prescribed use of each lampstand,",
      "16": "the weight of gold for each table for the bread that is arranged, the silver for the silver tables,",
      "17": "the weight for the meat hooks, the sprinkling bowls, the pure gold pitchers, the weight for each gold bowl, the weight of silver for each small silver bowl,",
      "18": "the weight of refined gold for the altar of incense, and the plan for the chariot for the gold cherubim who are spreading their wings and covering the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.",
      "19": "David said, “All this is in writing. Because the hand of the Lord was on me, he made clear all the specifications involved in the plan.”",
      "20": "Then David said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and be courageous and do this. Do not fear and do not be overwhelmed, because the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you. He will not forsake you while all the work for the service for the House of the Lord is being finished.",
      "21": "Look, the divisions of the priests and the Levites have been designated for all the service in the house of God. With you in all this work is every willing man, skilled for every form of service, the officials, and all the people who are ready for all your directions.”"
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "King David said this to the whole assembly:\nMy son Solomon, the one God has chosen, is young and inexperienced. The work is great because this citadel is not for a man. It is for the Lord God.",
      "2": "According to all my strength, I have provided these things for the house of my God: gold for the gold items, silver for the silver, bronze for the bronze, iron for the iron, wood for the wooden, onyx stones and settings, antimony, stones of many different colors, every kind of precious stone, and alabaster in abundance.",
      "3": "Because of my devotion to the house of my God, from my personal treasure of gold and silver I am also giving for the house of my God in addition to all that I have already provided for this holy house:",
      "4": "three thousand talents of gold from Ophir and seven thousand talents of refined silver for overlaying the walls of the structures.",
      "5": "I have given gold for gold items and silver for silver items for all the work by the craftsmen. Who else is willing to dedicate himself to the Lord today?",
      "6": "The officials of fathers’ houses, the officials of the tribes of Israel, and the officers of the thousands and of the hundreds made their offerings to the officials who were in charge of the king’s work.",
      "7": "They gave for the service of the house of God five thousand talents and ten thousand darics of gold, ten thousand talents of silver, eighteen thousand talents of bronze, and one hundred thousand talents of iron.",
      "8": "Anyone who possessed stones gave them to the treasury of the House of the Lord, which was under the control of Jehiel the Gershonite.",
      "9": "The people rejoiced over their willing giving, since with an undivided heart they had offered freely to the Lord. King David also was very joyful.",
      "10": "David blessed the Lord in the presence of the entire assembly. He said:\nBlessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel, our father, from eternity to eternity.",
      "11": "To you, O Lord, belong greatness, power, glory, victory, and majesty, because everything in the heavens and on the earth belongs to you. You, Lord, are exalted as head above everything. The kingdom belongs to you.",
      "12": "Riches and honor come from you. You are ruling over everything. In your hand are power and strength. It is in your power to make anyone great and strong.",
      "13": "Now, our God, we are thanking you and praising your glorious name.",
      "14": "Who am I? Who are my people that we are able to offer willingly like this? For everything comes from you. What we have given to you came from your hand.",
      "15": "We are aliens and temporary residents before you, as were all our fathers. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope of staying.",
      "16": "Lord, our God, all this abundance, which we have provided for building a house for you, for your holy name, is from your hand. This abundance belongs to you.",
      "17": "I know, my God, that you test the heart, and you take pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things. Now with joy I see your people, who are present here to bring the offering freely to you.",
      "18": "Lord, the God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, preserve forever this purpose and way of thinking in the heart of your people. Direct their heart to you.",
      "19": "To my son Solomon, give an undivided heart to keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, to do everything needed to build the citadel for which I have made preparations.",
      "20": "David said to the whole assembly, “Now bless the Lord your God.” So all the assembly blessed the Lord, the God of their fathers. They bowed and stretched out flat on the ground before the Lord and the king.",
      "21": "They offered sacrifices to the Lord. On the next day they offered burnt offerings to the Lord (one thousand bulls, one thousand rams, one thousand lambs), their drink offerings, and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel.",
      "22": "They ate and drank before the Lord on that day with great joy. They made Solomon, the son of David, king a second time. They anointed him as the ruler for the Lord and Zadok as the priest.",
      "23": "Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king in the place of David his father. He prospered, and all Israel obeyed him.",
      "24": "All the officials, the strong warriors, and also all the sons of King David pledged loyalty to Solomon the king.",
      "25": "The Lord made Solomon extremely great in the presence of all Israel. He gave him kingly majesty, such as had not been bestowed upon any king before him in Israel.",
      "26": "David son of Jesse had been king over all Israel.",
      "27": "He was king over Israel for forty years, in Hebron for seven years and in Jerusalem for thirty-three years.",
      "28": "He died at a good age, full of days, riches, and honor. Then Solomon his son reigned as king in his place.",
      "29": "The acts of King David from first to last are written in the records of Samuel the seer, the records of Nathan the prophet, and the records of Gad the seer,",
      "30": "including everything about his kingship, his mighty deeds, and the events that happened during his time, to him, to Israel, and to the kingdoms of the other lands."
    }
  },
  "2 Chronicles": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Solomon, the son of David, firmly established his rule over his kingdom. The Lord his God was with him and made him very great.",
      "2": "Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of the units of a thousand and a hundred, to the judges, to all the leaders of all Israel, that is, to all the leading fathers.",
      "3": "Solomon and the whole assembly with him went to the high place at Gibeon, because God’s Tent of Meeting, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had made in the wilderness, was located there.",
      "4": "(David had brought up the Ark of God from Kiriath Jearim to the place he had prepared for it, because he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.",
      "5": "But the bronze altar, which Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, was set up in front of the Tent of the Lord, so that was where Solomon and the assembly sought God.)",
      "6": "Solomon went to the bronze altar there in the presence of the Lord at the Tent of Meeting, and he offered a thousand burnt offerings upon the altar.",
      "7": "That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, “Ask for whatever you want me to give to you.”",
      "8": "Solomon said to God, “You have shown great mercy and faithfulness to my father David, and you have made me king in his place.",
      "9": "Now, Lord God, let your commitment to David my father be fully realized, because you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.",
      "10": "Now give me wisdom and knowledge, so that I can come and go before this people, for who is up to the task of judging this great people of yours?”",
      "11": "God said to Solomon, “Because this was on your heart, and you did not ask for riches, possessions, and honor, or for the lives of those who hate you, or even for many days of life, and because you have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself so that you can judge my people, over whom I have made you king,",
      "12": "wisdom and knowledge will be given to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, the likes of which the kings before you never had, nor will those who come after you.”",
      "13": "After Solomon had gone up to the high place in Gibeon, he returned from the Tent of Meeting to Jerusalem, and he ruled as king over Israel.",
      "14": "Solomon accumulated chariots and charioteers. He had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand charioteers, and he stationed them in the chariot cities, as well as with the king in Jerusalem.",
      "15": "In Jerusalem the king made silver and gold as plentiful as ordinary stones. He made cedar as plentiful as sycamore fig trees in the Shephelah.",
      "16": "Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and Kue. The king’s dealers bought them from Kue for the market price.",
      "17": "They could import a chariot from Egypt for six hundred silver shekels and a horse for one hundred fifty. In the same way these dealers exported chariots to all the kings of the Hittites and Aram."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Solomon said that he would build a temple for the Name of the Lord and a palace for his kingdom.",
      "2": "He assigned seventy thousand men to transport materials, eighty thousand to quarry stone in the hills, and thirty-six hundred to supervise them.",
      "3": "Solomon sent this message to Huram king of Tyre:\nSend me cedar as you did for my father David, when you sent him cedar to build a house for himself to live in.",
      "4": "I am building a house for the Name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him for burning fragrant incense before him, for the continual arrangement of bread, for burnt offerings in the morning and evening, for the sabbaths, the new moons, and the appointed festivals of the Lord our God. This is to be a permanent regulation for Israel.",
      "5": "The house that I am building will be great, because our God is greater than all the gods.",
      "6": "But who is able to build a house for him? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain him. Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to send incense and sacrifices up in smoke before him?",
      "7": "Now send me a man who is skillful at working with gold, silver, bronze, and iron, as well as with purple, crimson, and blue material, and who is trained in engraving. He will work with the skilled craftsmen who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom my father David provided.",
      "8": "Send me cedar, fir, and algum timber from Lebanon, because I know that your servants know how to cut timber from Lebanon. Look, my servants will work with your servants",
      "9": "to prepare lumber for me in abundance because the house which I am building will be great and wonderful.",
      "10": "To support the lumberjacks who work for you, I have set aside one hundred twenty thousand bushels of crushed wheat, and one hundred twenty thousand bushels of barley, one hundred twenty thousand gallons of wine, and one hundred twenty thousand gallons of olive oil.",
      "11": "Huram king of Tyre sent a letter to Solomon which said:\nBecause of the love of the Lord for his people, he has made you king over them.",
      "12": "Huram also said:\nBlessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who made the heavens and the earth. He has given King David a wise son, who has discretion and understanding, who will build a house for the Lord and a house for his kingdom.",
      "13": "Now I have sent a skilled man who has expertise, Huram Abi,",
      "14": "the son of a woman from among the daughters of Dan. His father is a man from Tyre. He is skillful at working with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and with purple, blue, and crimson material and fine white linen. He is qualified to do all the engraving and to execute every design which is given to him, together with your craftsmen and the craftsmen of my lord David, your father.",
      "15": "Now let my lord Solomon send the wheat, barley, oil, and wine that he promised to us, his servants.",
      "16": "We will cut timber from Lebanon according to all your needs and will ship it to you at Joppa, as rafts upon the sea. You can then transport it up to Jerusalem.",
      "17": "Solomon took a census of all the male aliens who were residing in the land of Israel, after the census his father David had taken. There were 153,600.",
      "18": "Out of that number he designated 70,000 to transport materials, 80,000 to quarry stone in the hills, and 3600 overseers to make the people work."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Then Solomon began to build the House of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. He constructed it on the site that David had specified, namely, the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.",
      "2": "He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.",
      "3": "Now these are the dimensions of the foundations which Solomon laid for the building of God’s house. The length was ninety feet and the width thirty feet.",
      "4": "The porch that was in front of the temple building was thirty feet wide, the same as the width of the building, and it was thirty feet high.\nHe overlaid the inside with pure gold.",
      "5": "He lined the larger front room of the building with fir paneling, which he overlaid with fine gold and decorated with palm trees and chains.",
      "6": "He beautified the house with dazzling precious stones. The gold was gold of Parvaim.",
      "7": "He also overlaid the house, the beams and rafters, the thresholds and door frames, its walls, and its doors with gold, and he carved cherubim on the walls.",
      "8": "He made the Most Holy Place. It was thirty feet by thirty feet, the same dimensions as the width of the building, and he overlaid it with six hundred talents of fine gold.",
      "9": "The weight of the gold nails was more than a pound. He overlaid the upper areas with gold.",
      "10": "In the Most Holy Place he made two carved cherubim that were overlaid with gold.",
      "11": "The total wingspan of the cherubim was thirty feet. One wing of the first cherub was seven and a half feet long and touched the outer wall of the house. The other wing was also seven and a half feet long and touched the wing of the other cherub.",
      "12": "One wing of the other cherub was seven and a half feet long and touched the outer wall of the house. The other wing was also seven and a half feet long and touched the wing of the first cherub.",
      "13": "The wings of these cherubim spread out over thirty feet. They stood upright on their feet, and they faced toward the front of the sanctuary building.",
      "14": "He made the veil of blue, purple, and crimson material and fine white linen, and he decorated it with cherubim.",
      "15": "For the front of the house he made two pillars with a combined height of fifty-three feet, and the capitals that were on top of each of them were seven and a half feet tall.",
      "16": "He made chains for the inner sanctuary and also put them on the tops of the pillars. He also made one hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains.",
      "17": "He set up the pillars in front of the temple building, one on the south side and the other on the north. He named the one on the south Jakin and the one on the north Boaz."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "He made a bronze altar thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and fifteen feet high.",
      "2": "He also made the sea of cast metal. It was round and fifteen feet from rim to rim. It was seven and a half feet high and forty-five feet in circumference.",
      "3": "Under the rim, figurines of cattle completely encircled it, one every two inches, all the way around the sea. These cattle were in two rows, cast as one piece with the sea.",
      "4": "The sea stood on twelve cattle, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The sea was set on them, with all their hindquarters toward the center.",
      "5": "The sea was three inches thick. Its rim was shaped like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held eighteen thousand gallons.",
      "6": "He also made ten basins for washing and put five on the south side and five on the north. The pieces of the burnt offering were washed in the basins, but the priests washed in the sea.",
      "7": "He made ten gold lampstands according to the specifications that had been given for them, and he set them in the outer room of the temple building, five on the south side and five on the north.",
      "8": "He made ten tables and placed them in the outer room of the temple, five on the south side and five on the north. He also made one hundred gold sprinkling bowls.",
      "9": "He also made the courtyard of the priests and the great enclosure, and he made doors for the enclosure and overlaid them with bronze.",
      "10": "He set the sea on the south side of the temple building near its southeast corner.",
      "11": "Huram also made the pots, the shovels, and the bowls.\nSo Huram finished the work that he carried out for King Solomon for God’s house:",
      "12": "the two pillars, the two globe-shaped capitals on top of the pillars, the two latticeworks to cover the two globe-shaped capitals on top of the pillars,",
      "13": "and the four hundred pomegranates for the two latticeworks (two rows of pomegranates for each latticework to cover the two globe-shaped capitals that were on the pillars).",
      "14": "He also made the carts, and he made the basins on the carts,",
      "15": "one sea, and the twelve cattle under it.",
      "16": "Huram Abi also made the pots, the shovels, the meat hooks, and all the vessels of burnished bronze for King Solomon, for the House of the Lord.",
      "17": "The king cast them in clay molds, in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zeredatha.",
      "18": "Solomon made all these vessels in such great quantity that the weight of the bronze was not determined.",
      "19": "Solomon made all the furnishings that were in God’s house: the gold altar, the tables on which the Bread of the Presence was arranged,",
      "20": "and the lampstands with their lamps, which were to burn in front of the inner sanctuary according to the regulations. He made them of pure gold.",
      "21": "He also made the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs of the purest gold,",
      "22": "and the snuffers, the sprinkling bowls, the small dishes, and the fire pans of pure gold. For the entrances into the sanctuary, he made the gold inner doors for the Most Holy Place and the gold doors for the front room of the sanctuary."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "All the work which Solomon carried out for the House of the Lord was completed, so Solomon brought the things his father David had dedicated, namely, the silver, the gold, and all the vessels and utensils, and put them into the treasuries of the House of God.",
      "2": "Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leading fathers of the people of Israel, in Jerusalem, in order to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the City of David, that is, from Zion.",
      "3": "All the men of Israel gathered in the presence of the king at the festival that takes place during the seventh month.",
      "4": "Then when all the elders of Israel had come, the priests, who were Levites, lifted up the Ark.",
      "5": "They brought the Ark, the Tent of Meeting, and all the holy vessels which were in the tent. The priests and Levites brought them up.",
      "6": "King Solomon and the whole congregation of Israel that had gathered with him in front of the Ark were sacrificing sheep and oxen, too many to be counted or numbered.",
      "7": "The priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the House, that is, to the Most Holy Place, and they placed it under the wings of the cherubim.",
      "8": "The cherubim were spreading their wings over the place for the Ark, so that the cherubim covered the Ark and its poles from above.",
      "9": "The poles were so long that the ends of the poles could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from outside. They are there to this day.",
      "10": "There was nothing in the Ark except the two tablets which Moses placed there at Horeb, where the Lord had made a covenant with the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt.",
      "11": "The priests then came out from the Holy Place. (All the priests who were present had consecrated themselves. They did not remain separated by their divisions.)",
      "12": "The levitical musicians, the divisions of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, including their sons and their relatives, were standing east of the altar. They were clothed in fine linen and had their cymbals, harps, and lyres with them. With them there were also one hundred twenty priests who blew trumpets.",
      "13": "The trumpeters and the singers joined together as one to praise and give thanks to the Lord. As they raised their voices to praise the Lord, accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other musical instruments, they sang:\nTruly, he is good, because his mercy endures forever.\nThen the sanctuary of the House of the Lord was filled with a cloud.",
      "14": "The priests were not able to take their positions to minister because of the presence of the cloud, because the Glory of the Lord had filled the House of God."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he dwells in thick darkness,",
      "2": "but I have truly built a majestic house for you, a place for you to dwell in forever.”",
      "3": "Then the king turned and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while the whole assembly of Israel was standing there.",
      "4": "Then Solomon said:\nBlessed be the Lord, the God of Israel.\nWhat he said with his mouth to my father David,\nhe has fulfilled with his hands.",
      "5": "The Lord said, “From the day I brought my people out from the land of Egypt, I did not choose a city from all the tribes of Israel to build a house for my Name to be there. I did not choose a man to be ruler over my people Israel.",
      "6": "But now I have chosen Jerusalem as the place where my Name will be, and I have chosen David to be over my people Israel.”",
      "7": "It was on my father David’s heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "8": "However, the Lord said to my father David, “That it was on your heart to build a house for my Name was a good thing to have on your heart,",
      "9": "but you will not build the house. Your son, who will come from your own body, will build the house for my Name.”",
      "10": "So the Lord kept his word which he had spoken, and I arose in the place of my father David. Now I am seated on the throne of Israel just as the Lord said. I have built this house for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "11": "There I have placed the Ark, which contains the covenant of the Lord, which he made with the people of Israel.",
      "12": "Then Solomon stood in front of the altar of the Lord, in the presence of the whole assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands.",
      "13": "Solomon had made a bronze platform and had placed it in the middle of the courtyard. It was seven and a half feet by seven and a half feet square, and four and a half feet tall. He stood on it. Then he knelt in the presence of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven,",
      "14": "and said:\nO Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in the heavens above and on the earth below. You keep the covenant of mercy and faithfulness with your servants who walk before you with all their heart.",
      "15": "You have kept the word which you spoke to your servant, my father David. What you have said with your mouth, you have fulfilled with your hand, as can be seen today.",
      "16": "Now, Lord God of Israel, guard for your servant, my father David, the promise you made to him when you said, “You will never fail to have a man sitting on the throne of Israel in my presence, if your sons guard their ways by walking in my law just as you have walked before me.”",
      "17": "Now, O God of Israel, let the words which you spoke to your servant, my father David, be confirmed.",
      "18": "But will God really dwell with man on the earth? Truly, the heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you! How much less this house which I have built!",
      "19": "But turn your face toward the prayer of your servant and to his plea for mercy. O Lord my God, listen to the cry and to the prayer that your servant offers before you.",
      "20": "Let your eyes be open toward this house day and night, toward the place where you have promised to set your Name and to listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.",
      "21": "When you hear your servant’s pleas for mercy and those of your people Israel when they pray toward this place, then hear in your dwelling place in heaven—hear and forgive.",
      "22": "If a man sins against his neighbor, and his neighbor places him under an oath, and the oath is presented before your altar in this house,",
      "23": "then hear from heaven and take action. Provide justice for your servants by repaying the guilty person and bringing his ways down on his own head, and by declaring the righteous person innocent and dealing with him according to his righteousness.",
      "24": "If your people Israel are defeated by their enemies because they sinned against you, and they return to you and praise your Name and pray and seek your favor in this house,",
      "25": "then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land which you gave to them and to their fathers.",
      "26": "When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they sinned against you, and then they pray toward this place, praise your Name, and turn from their sin because you have humbled them,",
      "27": "then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and your people Israel, for you teach them the good way in which they are to walk. Provide rain upon our land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.",
      "28": "When there is famine in the land, when there is plague, when there is blight or mildew, or locusts or grasshoppers, or when their enemies are in the land besieging their gates, or when any disease or any sickness is present,",
      "29": "hear every prayer and every plea for mercy from each individual and from your whole people Israel, because each person knows his own affliction and his own sorrow. When he stretches out his hands toward this house,",
      "30": "then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and give to each man according to his ways, since you know his heart. You alone know the heart of everyone,",
      "31": "so that they fear you and walk in your ways all the days they live on the soil that you gave to our fathers.",
      "32": "Also for the foreigner, who is not one of your people Israel, but who comes from a distant land because of your great Name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm, and who comes and prays toward this house,",
      "33": "for that foreigner, hear in heaven, which is your dwelling place, and do everything for which that foreigner cries out to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your Name and fear you, just as your people Israel do, because they know that your Name is proclaimed in this house that I have built.",
      "34": "When your people go out for battle against their enemies on whatever way you send them, and they pray to you, facing toward this city which you have chosen and toward the house which I have built for your Name,",
      "35": "then from heaven hear their prayer and their plea for mercy, and provide justice for them.",
      "36": "When they sin against you (for there is no one who does not sin), and you become angry with them, and you give them up to an enemy, and they are taken captive to a land whether far or near,",
      "37": "when they come to their senses in the land to which they were carried, and they repent and plead to you for mercy in the land where they were exiled, and they say, “We have sinned. We have been guilty, and we have done evil,”",
      "38": "and they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land where they are exiled, and they pray toward their land which you gave to their fathers, and toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your Name,",
      "39": "then from heaven, from your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea for mercy and provide justice for them, and forgive your people, who have sinned against you.",
      "40": "Now please, my God, I ask that your eyes will be open and your ears attentive to prayer offered at this place.",
      "41": "Now arise, Lord God, to enter your resting place—you and the ark of your power. May your priests, Lord God, be clothed with salvation. May your faithful ones rejoice in goodness.",
      "42": "Lord God, you will not turn away the face of your anointed one. Remember the mercy promised to your servant David."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices. The Glory of the Lord filled the house.",
      "2": "The priests were not able to go into the House of the Lord because the Glory of the Lord filled the House of the Lord.",
      "3": "When all the people of Israel saw the fire coming down and the Glory of the Lord over the house, they bowed to the ground with their faces on the pavement, and they worshipped, giving thanks to the Lord:\nTruly, he is good, because his mercy endures forever.",
      "4": "The king and all the people were offering sacrifices before the Lord.",
      "5": "King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand cattle and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. The king and all the people dedicated the House of God.",
      "6": "The priests stood at their assigned positions. The Levites, using the musical instruments for the Lord, which King David had made to give thanks to the Lord because his mercy endures forever, were offering the praises written by David. The priests who blew the trumpets stood across from them. All Israel was standing there.",
      "7": "Solomon consecrated the center of the courtyard that was in front of the Lord’s house, so that he could present the burnt offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings there, because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not large enough to hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat from the fellowship offerings.",
      "8": "At that time Solomon celebrated the festival for seven days, and all Israel was with him, a very large assembly of people, who had come from as far away as Lebo Hamath and the Stream of Egypt.",
      "9": "On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, because they had spent seven days on the dedication of the altar and on the festival.",
      "10": "On the twenty-third day of the seventh month, Solomon sent the people to their homes. When they left, they were joyful, and their hearts were glad because of the good things which the Lord had done for David, for Solomon, and for his people Israel.",
      "11": "Solomon completed the Lord’s house and the king’s house. Solomon accomplished everything that was on his heart, everything he wanted to accomplish for the house for the Lord and for the house for the king.",
      "12": "Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him:\nI have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house for sacrifice.",
      "13": "When I close up the sky and there is no rain, or I command locusts to eat up the land, or I send a plague on my people,",
      "14": "and my people, who are called by my Name, humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sins and heal their land.",
      "15": "Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer from this place.",
      "16": "I have chosen and consecrated this house for my Name to be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there every day.",
      "17": "And you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, and if you do everything I have commanded you and keep my statutes and ordinances,",
      "18": "I will establish the throne of your kingdom as I affirmed in my covenant with your father David: “You will never fail to have a man ruling over Israel.”",
      "19": "But if your people turn away and forsake my statutes and my commands which I have given them, and they go to serve and worship other gods,",
      "20": "I will uproot them from my soil I have given to them. This house, which I have consecrated to my Name, I will toss away, out of my sight. I will make it proverbial as an object of ridicule among all the peoples.",
      "21": "Though this house is now exalted, everyone who passes by it will be appalled and say, “Why has the Lord done this to this land and this house?”",
      "22": "The answer will be: “Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out from the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods, worshipped them, and served them. That is why he has brought all this disaster on them.”"
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "At the end of the twenty years during which Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house,",
      "2": "Solomon also rebuilt the cities that Huram had given to him, and he settled Israelites in them.",
      "3": "Solomon went to Hamath Zobah and seized it.",
      "4": "He built Tadmor in the wilderness and all the towns for storehouses in Hamath.",
      "5": "He built Upper Beth Horon and Lower Beth Horon as fortified cities with walls and barred gates.",
      "6": "He also built Baalath, all the towns for storehouses which belonged to him, and all the cities which housed the chariots and the charioteers. Solomon built everything he desired in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his kingdom.",
      "7": "All the people who remained from the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not part of the people of Israel—",
      "8": "their descendants remaining in the land, who had not been completely destroyed by Israel—were drafted for forced labor by Solomon. They are serving right up to this day.",
      "9": "But Solomon did not press the people of Israel into service. Rather, they were soldiers, leaders among his officers, and commanders of his chariots and charioteers.",
      "10": "There were two hundred fifty leaders of King Solomon’s officials who exercised authority over the people.",
      "11": "Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the house which he had built for her, because he said, “My wife will not live in the house of David, king of Israel, because those places to which the Ark of the Lord has come are holy.”",
      "12": "At that time Solomon offered whole burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord, which he had built in front of the porch,",
      "13": "in keeping with the day-by-day requirement for burnt offerings commanded by Moses for the sabbaths, for the new moons, and for the appointed festivals three times during the year, namely, the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Shelters.",
      "14": "He appointed the divisions of the priests to serve according to the regulations of his father David, as well as the Levites for their offices of praise and service in the presence of the priests, in keeping with each day’s requirement. He also appointed the gatekeepers by their divisions, gate by gate, because this was the command of David, the man of God.",
      "15": "They did not turn aside from the king’s command for the priests and the Levites concerning any matter, including the treasuries.",
      "16": "So all Solomon’s work was accomplished, from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s house was laid until its completion. So the House of the Lord was finished.",
      "17": "Then Solomon went to Ezion Geber and to Elat on the shore of the sea in the land of Edom.",
      "18": "Huram sent him ships and experienced crews, who knew the sea. They were under the direction of his officers. They went to Ophir with Solomon’s crews, and from there they obtained four hundred fifty talents of gold and brought it to King Solomon."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "The Queen of Sheba heard about Solomon’s fame, so she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with difficult questions. She came with a very great entourage, with camels carrying spices, a large quantity of gold, and precious stones. She came to Solomon and spoke with him about everything that was on her heart.",
      "2": "Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing hidden from Solomon that he could not explain to her.",
      "3": "When the Queen of Sheba saw the wisdom of Solomon, the house which he had built,",
      "4": "the food on his table, the council meeting of his officials, the careful attention of his ministers and their attire, also his cupbearers and their attire, and the passageway by which he went up to the House of the Lord, it took her breath away.",
      "5": "She said to the king, “The report I heard in my land about your accomplishments and about your wisdom is true.",
      "6": "I did not believe the report, until I came and saw it with my own eyes. Now I find that I was not informed about even half of the greatness of your wisdom. You surpass the report that I heard.",
      "7": "Blessed are your men! Blessed are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!",
      "8": "“Blessed be the Lord your God, who has been delighted with you and has placed you on his throne as king to serve the Lord your God. Because of your God’s love for Israel and his purpose of establishing Israel forever, he has placed you over them as king to administer justice and righteousness.”",
      "9": "Then she gave the king one hundred twenty talents of gold, a very great quantity of spices and incense, and precious stones. There was nothing comparable to these spices and incense that the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.",
      "10": "In addition, the servants of Huram and Solomon who brought gold from Ophir also brought algum wood and precious stones.",
      "11": "The king made the algum wood into steps for the Lord’s house and for the house of the king and into lyres and harps for the singers. Nothing like them had ever been seen before in the land of Judah.",
      "12": "King Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba everything she desired, whatever she asked for, more than what she had brought to the king. Then she returned to her land along with her servants.",
      "13": "The weight of the gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred sixty-six talents,",
      "14": "not counting what the traders and merchants were bringing. All the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land also kept bringing gold and silver to Solomon.",
      "15": "King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold. Seven and a half pounds of hammered gold went into each shield.",
      "16": "He made three hundred small shields of hammered gold. Almost four pounds of gold went into each shield. The king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.",
      "17": "The king made a large ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold.",
      "18": "There were six steps up to the throne. A golden footstool was attached to the throne, and there were armrests on either side of the seat. There were two lions standing beside the armrests",
      "19": "and twelve lions standing on the steps, one on each end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any kingdom.",
      "20": "All of King Solomon’s drinking vessels were gold. All the utensils in the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Silver was not thought to be worth anything in the days of Solomon,",
      "21": "because the king’s ships would go to Tarshish with the servants of Huram, and once every three years the Tarshish ships would return, bringing gold, silver, ivory, monkeys, and peacocks.",
      "22": "King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and wisdom.",
      "23": "All the kings of the earth were seeking an audience with Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.",
      "24": "Each of them would bring his gift: articles of silver and gold, clothing, scents, spices, horses, and mules, year after year.",
      "25": "Solomon had four thousand teams of horses and chariots and twelve thousand charioteers. He stationed them in the chariot cities and in Jerusalem with him.",
      "26": "He was ruling over all the kings from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, to the border of Egypt.",
      "27": "The king made silver in Jerusalem as plentiful as ordinary stones, and the cedars were like the sycamore fig trees, which are so abundant in the Shephelah.",
      "28": "Horses were imported for Solomon from Egypt and from all the lands.",
      "29": "The rest of the acts of Solomon, from the first to the last, are they not written in the records of Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah from Shiloh, and in the visions of Iddo the seer about Jeroboam son of Nebat?",
      "30": "Solomon ruled in Jerusalem and over all Israel for forty years,",
      "31": "and then Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam became king in his place."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Rehoboam went to Shechem, because all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king.",
      "2": "When Jeroboam son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon, heard about this, he returned from Egypt,",
      "3": "and the people then sent for Jeroboam.\nJeroboam and all Israel came to Rehoboam and said,",
      "4": "“Your father made our yoke heavy. Now lighten your father’s harsh service and the heavy yoke that he laid on us, and we will serve you.”",
      "5": "Rehoboam said to them, “Return to me in three days.” So the people left.",
      "6": "King Rehoboam asked for advice from the old men who had served his father Solomon while he was alive: “How would you advise me to respond to these people?”",
      "7": "They said to him, “If you are good to these people and respond favorably to their request, and you speak accommodating words to them, they will be your servants forever.”",
      "8": "But Rehoboam did not follow the advice the old men gave him. Instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who were serving as his advisors.",
      "9": "He said to them, “How would you advise me to respond to these people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke which your father laid upon us’?”",
      "10": "The young men who had grown up with him said to him, “This is what you should say to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy. You make it light for us.’ This is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.",
      "11": "My father imposed a heavy yoke on you. I will add to your yoke. My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.’”",
      "12": "So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day as the king had directed: “Come back to me on the third day.”",
      "13": "The king answered them harshly. King Rehoboam rejected the advice of the old men.",
      "14": "Instead, he spoke to them as the young men had advised: “My father made your yoke heavy. I will add to it. My father punished you with whips. I will punish you with scorpions.”",
      "15": "The king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events was from God, so that the Lord would keep his word, as he had spoken it to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah from Shiloh.",
      "16": "When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, they responded to the king:\nWhat share do we have in David?\nNo inheritance with the son of Jesse!\nTo your tents, Israel!\nNow, look after your own house, David!\nSo all Israel went to their tents.",
      "17": "Rehoboam continued to rule over the people of Israel who were living in the cities of Judah.",
      "18": "King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was in charge of the forced labor, but the people of Israel stoned Hadoram to death. King Rehoboam, however, was able to get into his chariot to flee to Jerusalem.",
      "19": "So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David until this day."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "When Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, he assembled the house of Judah and Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand specially chosen soldiers, to wage war against Israel in order to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam.",
      "2": "But the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, the man of God:",
      "3": "“Say the following to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin:",
      "4": "This is what the Lord says. Do not attack and do not fight against your brother Israelites. Go home, every one of you, for this turn of events is from me.”\nThey listened to the words of the Lord and refrained from going against Jeroboam.",
      "5": "Rehoboam resided in Jerusalem. He built cities for defense in Judah.",
      "6": "He built Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,",
      "7": "Beth Zur, Soko, Adullam,",
      "8": "Gath, Mareshah, Ziph,",
      "9": "Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah,",
      "10": "Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron. These are fortified cities in Judah and in Benjamin.",
      "11": "He built up their fortifications. He placed commanders in them and stores of food, oil, and wine.",
      "12": "In each and every city he placed shields and spears and made the cities very strong. Judah and Benjamin belonged to him.",
      "13": "The priests and Levites who were living in Israel left the land allotted to them and took their stand with Rehoboam.",
      "14": "The Levites left their pasturelands and their holdings. They came to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had removed them from their ministry as priests of the Lord.",
      "15": "Jeroboam had appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goats and calves he had made.",
      "16": "From all the tribes of Israel, those people who set their hearts on seeking the Lord, the God of Israel, followed the priests and Levites and came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their fathers.",
      "17": "They strengthened the kingdom of Judah and made Rehoboam son of Solomon secure for three years, because for those three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon.",
      "18": "Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath, who was the daughter of David’s son Jerimoth and of Abihail, the daughter of Jesse’s son Eliab.",
      "19": "She gave birth to these sons for him: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.",
      "20": "In addition to her, he took Ma’akah, the granddaughter of Absalom. She gave birth for him to Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.",
      "21": "Rehoboam loved Ma’akah, the granddaughter of Absalom, more than any of his other wives and concubines. He took eighteen wives and sixty concubines and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.",
      "22": "Rehoboam appointed Abijah, the son of Ma’akah, as crown prince among his brothers, because he was going to make him king.",
      "23": "Rehoboam acted wisely and dispersed his sons throughout all the areas of Judah and Benjamin, in all the fortified cities. He provided them with abundant provisions and obtained many wives for them."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "When Rehoboam had established his rule as king and had become strong, he abandoned the law of the Lord. All Israel went along with him.",
      "2": "In the fifth year of King Rehoboam’s reign, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because Israel had been unfaithful to the Lord.",
      "3": "He came with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand charioteers. The forces that came with him from Egypt, including Libyans, Sukkites, and Cushites, could not be counted.",
      "4": "He captured the fortified cities of Judah and advanced as far as Jerusalem.",
      "5": "Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the officials of Judah, who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak. He said to them, “This is what the Lord says. You abandoned me, so now I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak.”",
      "6": "Then the officials of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The Lord is righteous.”",
      "7": "When the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, saying: “They have humbled themselves, so I will not destroy them. I will give them deliverance in a little while. My anger will not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.",
      "8": "However, they will become his servants. They will learn what it is to serve me and to serve the kingdoms of the foreign lands.”",
      "9": "Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. He took away the treasures from the house of the Lord and the treasures from the house of the king. He took everything, including the gold shields that Solomon had made.",
      "10": "King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place, and he entrusted them to the captains of the guard who were keeping watch at the entrance of the king’s palace.",
      "11": "Whenever the king went to the House of the Lord, the guards would go along and carry the shields. Then they would return them to the guardroom.",
      "12": "Because he humbled himself, the anger of the Lord turned from him. He did not completely destroy them, so conditions were good in Judah.",
      "13": "King Rehoboam strengthened his position in Jerusalem and ruled as king. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and for seventeen years he ruled as king in Jerusalem, the city that the Lord had chosen from among all the tribes of Israel to put his Name there. Rehoboam’s mother’s name was Na’amah the Ammonite.",
      "14": "He did evil, because he did not set his heart to seek the Lord.",
      "15": "The acts of Rehoboam, from first to last, are they not written in the annals of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer, which deal with genealogy? Rehoboam and Jeroboam waged war with each other throughout all their days.",
      "16": "Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. His son Abijah ruled as king in his place."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over Judah.",
      "2": "He ruled for three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Micaiah, the daughter of Uriel from Gibeah.\nThere was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.",
      "3": "Abijah got ready for battle with an army of four hundred thousand strong warriors, each man specially chosen. Jeroboam lined up for battle against him with eight hundred thousand strong warriors, each man specially chosen.",
      "4": "Abijah stood on Mount Zemaraim in the hill country of Ephraim and said this to them:\nListen to me, Jeroboam and all Israel.",
      "5": "You should know that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the kingship over Israel to David forever, to him and to his sons, with a covenant of salt.",
      "6": "But Jeroboam son of Nebat, an official who served Solomon, the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his master.",
      "7": "Worthless, good-for-nothing men gathered around him. They strongly opposed Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when he was young and indecisive and not strong enough to stand up against them.",
      "8": "Now you are planning to take your stand against the kingdom of the Lord, which is under the control of the sons of David. You are a great horde, and you have the golden calves with you, which Jeroboam made to be your gods.",
      "9": "But haven’t you driven out the priests of the Lord, who are the descendants of Aaron, as well as the Levites? You have made priests for yourselves like the peoples of other lands. Anyone who comes with a young bull and seven rams can ordain himself—but only as a priest to nonexistent gods!",
      "10": "As for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not abandoned him, and we have not abandoned the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who minister to the Lord, or the Levites, who serve with them.",
      "11": "They send burnt offerings up to the Lord in smoke, every morning and every evening, along with incense made of sweet spices. They arrange the bread on the pure table and take care of the gold lampstand, lighting its lamps every evening. We are fulfilling our duties to the Lord our God, but you have forsaken him.",
      "12": "Look! God is with us as our head, and his priests with their trumpets are sounding the call to battle against you. People of Israel, do not fight against the Lord, the God of your fathers, for you will not succeed.",
      "13": "However, Jeroboam had set up an ambush to come around them from behind. So the main enemy forces were in front of Judah, and the ambush was behind them.",
      "14": "When Judah turned and saw that the battle line was in front of them and behind them, they cried out to the Lord while the priests kept blowing the trumpets.",
      "15": "The men of Judah raised a battle cry. When they raised the battle cry, God defeated Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.",
      "16": "The men of Israel fled from Judah, and God gave them into their hand.",
      "17": "Abijah and his people inflicted very heavy casualties on them. Five hundred thousand specially chosen men of Israel fell in battle.",
      "18": "So the men of Israel were subdued at that time. The men of Judah prevailed because they relied on the Lord, the God of their fathers.",
      "19": "Abijah pursued Jeroboam and took these cities from him: Bethel and its villages, Jeshanah and its villages, and Ephron and its villages.",
      "20": "Jeroboam never recovered his power during the days of Abijah. Then the Lord struck Jeroboam, and he died.",
      "21": "But Abijah grew strong. He took for himself fourteen wives and fathered twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.",
      "22": "The rest of the acts of Abijah, his ways and his words, are written in the notes of the prophet Iddo."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Abijah rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. His son Asa became king in his place. In his days the land was quiet for ten years.",
      "2": "Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God.",
      "3": "He removed the foreign altars and the high places. He demolished the sacred memorial stones and chopped down the Asherah poles.",
      "4": "He told Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, and to obey his law and command.",
      "5": "He removed the high places and the sun pillars from all the cities of Judah. The kingdom enjoyed peace and quiet under him.",
      "6": "He built fortified cities in Judah because the land was quiet. He had no wars in those years because the Lord gave him rest.",
      "7": "Asa said to Judah, “We will build these cities and surround them with walls, towers, and barred gates. The land before us is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God. We sought him, and he has given us peace all around.”\nSo they built and prospered.",
      "8": "Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men from Judah, who carried large shields and spears, and two hundred eighty thousand men from Benjamin, who carried shields and were armed with bows. These were all strong, powerful warriors.",
      "9": "Zerah the Cushite came out against them with an army of a million men and three hundred chariots and advanced as far as Mareshah.",
      "10": "Asa went out to confront him, and they formed battle lines in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah.",
      "11": "Asa cried to the Lord his God, “Lord, there is no one except you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O Lord our God, because we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this horde. Lord, you are our God. Men will not prevail against you.”",
      "12": "The Lord defeated the Cushites before Asa and Judah, and the Cushites fled.",
      "13": "Asa and the people who were with him pursued them as far as Gerar. The Cushites fell until none of them were left alive, because they were broken before the Lord and before his army, who carried away a large amount of plunder.",
      "14": "They struck all the cities around Gerar, because the dread of the Lord was upon them. They looted all the cities because there was a great deal of plunder in them.",
      "15": "Also they struck the tents of the herdsmen and carried off very many sheep and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded.",
      "2": "He went out to meet Asa and said this to him:\nListen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin.\nThe Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he is there to be found. If you forsake him, he will forsake you.",
      "3": "For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach, and without the law.",
      "4": "Then in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel. They sought him, and he was found by them.",
      "5": "During those times there was no peace for those who went out and came in, because there were great disturbances affecting all the inhabitants of the lands.",
      "6": "It was nation against nation and city against city. They were broken in pieces because God troubled them with every kind of distress.",
      "7": "But take courage and do not let your hands be slack, because there will be a reward for your work.",
      "8": "When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he took courage. He put away the disgusting idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities which he had taken from the hill country of Ephraim. He repaired the altar of the Lord, which was in front of the porch of the Lord’s house.",
      "9": "He gathered all Judah and Benjamin, as well as those who had settled among them from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, because people from Israel had gone over to Asa in great numbers since they saw that the Lord his God was with him.",
      "10": "They gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign.",
      "11": "On that day they sacrificed to the Lord seven hundred cattle and seven thousand sheep from the plunder they had brought.",
      "12": "They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul.",
      "13": "Anyone who did not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.",
      "14": "They swore an oath to the Lord with a loud voice, with shouting, and with trumpets and ram’s horns.",
      "15": "All Judah rejoiced over the oath, because they had sworn with all their heart, and they very eagerly sought the Lord. He was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest on every side.",
      "16": "Asa even removed his grandmother Ma’akah from her position as queen mother, because she had made an obscene image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image and crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley.",
      "17": "The high places, however, were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless, Asa’s heart was completely committed throughout all his days.",
      "18": "He brought silver and gold and vessels and utensils to the House of the Lord as dedicated offerings for himself and his father.",
      "19": "There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, Ba’asha king of Israel attacked Judah, and he fortified Ramah, in order to keep anyone from going in or coming out from Asa king of Judah.",
      "2": "So Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of the House of the Lord and from the palace of the king and sent it to Ben Hadad king of Aram, who ruled in Damascus.\nHe said,",
      "3": "“There should be a treaty between you and me as there was between my father and your father. Look! I have sent you silver and gold. Go, break your treaty with Ba’asha king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me.”",
      "4": "Ben Hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. They conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim, and all the towns for storehouses in Naphtali.",
      "5": "When Ba’asha heard about it, he stopped building Ramah and put an end to his work on it.",
      "6": "King Asa then summoned all Judah, and they carried away from Ramah the stones and the timber which Ba’asha had been using to build it. With them he built Geba and Mizpah.",
      "7": "At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Aram, and you did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand.",
      "8": "Weren’t the Cushites and the Libyans a huge army, with very many chariots and charioteers? When you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand.",
      "9": "The Lord! It is his eyes that go back and forth over all the earth to offer strong support to the hearts of those who are completely committed to him. You have acted foolishly in this. From now on you will be at war.”",
      "10": "Asa was angry with the seer, so he put him in prison because he was in a rage against him on account of this. At this time Asa also crushed some of the people.",
      "11": "You can find the acts of Asa, from first to last, written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.",
      "12": "Asa’s feet became diseased in the thirty-ninth year of his reign. His disease was very serious, but even when he was sick, he did not seek the Lord, but only his physicians.",
      "13": "Asa rested with his fathers. He died in the forty-first year of his reign.",
      "14": "They buried him in his tomb, which he had cut out for himself in the City of David. They laid him on a bier that was covered with all kinds of fragrant spices and perfumed ointments, skillfully blended by the perfume makers. They burned a very large bonfire in his honor."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Asa’s son Jehoshaphat ruled in his place. He strengthened his position against Israel and",
      "2": "placed troops in all the fortified cities of Judah. He placed garrisons in the land of Judah and in the cities of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.",
      "3": "The Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he walked in the ways that his father David walked in the beginning. He did not seek the Baals,",
      "4": "but he sought the God of his father, and he walked in his commandments. He did not follow the example of Israel.",
      "5": "So the Lord established the kingdom in his hand. All Judah gave tribute to Jehoshaphat. He had abundant riches and honor.",
      "6": "His heart was bold in the ways of the Lord. Furthermore, he removed the high places and the Asherah poles from Judah.",
      "7": "In the third year of his reign he sent his officials Ben Hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah to teach in the cities of Judah.",
      "8": "Along with them he sent these Levites: Shemaiah, Nethaniah, Zebadiah, Asahel, Shemiramoth, Jehonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah, and Tobadonijah, as well as the priests Elishama and Jehoram.",
      "9": "They taught in Judah. They took the Book of the Law of the Lord with them and traveled around through all the cities of Judah, teaching among the people.",
      "10": "The fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands surrounding Judah. They did not wage war against Jehoshaphat.",
      "11": "Some of the Philistines brought gifts and silver to Jehoshaphat as tribute. Also the Arabs brought flocks to him: seven thousand seven hundred rams and seven thousand seven hundred male goats.",
      "12": "Jehoshaphat was continually becoming greater and greater. He built fortresses and towns for storehouses in Judah.",
      "13": "He had large amounts of supplies in the cities of Judah, and soldiers who were powerful warriors were stationed in Jerusalem.",
      "14": "Their numbers, based on their fathers’ houses, were as follows.\nBelonging to Judah, these were the commanders of units of a thousand:\nAdnah the commander, and with him 300,000 powerful warriors.",
      "15": "Next to him Jehohanan the captain, and with him 280,000.",
      "16": "Next to him Amasiah son of Zikri, who volunteered to serve the Lord, and with him 200,000 powerful warriors.",
      "17": "From Benjamin:\nEliada, a powerful warrior, and with him 200,000 men armed with bow and shield.",
      "18": "Next to him Jehozabad, and with him 180,000 men armed for war.",
      "19": "These were the men who served the king, in addition to those forces that the king had placed in the fortified cities throughout Judah."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "Jehoshaphat had abundant riches and honor. He also formed a marriage alliance with Ahab.",
      "2": "After some years passed, Jehoshaphat went down to visit Ahab in Samaria. Ahab sacrificed sheep and cattle in great numbers for him and for the troops with him. So Ahab persuaded him to go up against Ramoth Gilead.",
      "3": "Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “Will you go with me to Ramoth Gilead?”\nJehoshaphat answered him, “I am like you. My people are like your people. We are with you in the war.”",
      "4": "But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “Please seek the word of the Lord today.”",
      "5": "So the king of Israel assembled the prophets, four hundred men, and he said to them, “Should we go up to make war on Ramoth Gilead, or should I refrain?”\nThey said, “Go up! God will give it into the hand of the king.”",
      "6": "But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here? We should inquire from him.”",
      "7": "Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is still one man from whom we could inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he doesn’t prophesy anything good about me. He continually prophesies only bad things. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.”\nJehoshaphat said, “The king should not talk like that.”",
      "8": "So the king of Israel summoned one of his officials and said, “Quickly bring Micaiah son of Imlah here.”",
      "9": "Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah were sitting on their thrones, arrayed in their robes. They were sitting by the threshing floor at the entrance to the gate to Samaria, and all the prophets were prophesying before them.",
      "10": "Zedekiah son of Kena’anah had made iron horns for himself, and he said, “This is what the Lord says. With these you will gore the Arameans until they are destroyed.”",
      "11": "All the prophets were prophesying in this same way: “Go up to Ramoth Gilead and triumph, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.”",
      "12": "The messenger who was sent to summon Micaiah said to him, “Pay attention to the words of the prophets. With one mouth they are promising good things to the king. Please! Your words should be like the words of one of them. You should say something good.”",
      "13": "But Micaiah said, “As surely as the Lord lives, whatever my God says, that is what I will say.”",
      "14": "Then he came to the king, and the king said to him, “Micaiah, should we go to Ramoth Gilead for battle, or should I refrain?”\nMicaiah answered him, “Go up and triumph. They will be given into your hand.”",
      "15": "The king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear to me that you will tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?”",
      "16": "Micaiah said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep that have no shepherd. The Lord said, ‘They have no masters. Let each one return to his home in peace.’”",
      "17": "The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you that he does not prophesy anything good about me but only bad?”",
      "18": "Then Micaiah proclaimed:\nNow hear this word from the Lord.\nI saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and the whole army of heaven was standing on his right and on his left.",
      "19": "The Lord said, “Who will entice Ahab king of Israel, so that he goes up and falls at Ramoth Gilead?”\nOne spirit said this; another one said that.",
      "20": "Finally a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, “I will entice him.”\nThe Lord said to him, “How?”",
      "21": "He said, “I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.”\nThe Lord said, “You will entice him successfully. Go and do that.”",
      "22": "Now look! The Lord has put a lying spirit into the mouth of all your prophets, for the Lord has decreed disaster for you.",
      "23": "Then Zedekiah son of Kena’anah came over and struck Micaiah on his cheek and said, “Where is this pathway on which the spirit of the Lord has traveled from me to speak to you?”",
      "24": "Micaiah said, “You will see on the day you go into the inner room to hide.”",
      "25": "Then the king of Israel said, “Seize Micaiah and take him back to Amon, the administrator of the city, and to Joash, son of the king.",
      "26": "You are to say to them, ‘This is what the king says. Put this man in prison and feed him nothing more than bread and water until I come back safely.’”",
      "27": "Micaiah said, “If you ever come back safely, then the Lord has not spoken through me.”\nHe also said, “Hear this, you people, all of you!”",
      "28": "Then the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up to Ramoth Gilead.",
      "29": "The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will disguise myself when I go into the battle, but you wear your robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself, and they went into battle.",
      "30": "The king of Aram had ordered his chariot commanders, “Do not fight against anyone, whether small or great, but only against the king of Israel.”",
      "31": "When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “That is the king of Israel!” So they turned to fight against him.\nJehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him. God drew them away from him.",
      "32": "When the chariot commanders realized that he was not the king of Israel, they stopped pursuing him.",
      "33": "But a man shot an arrow at random and struck the king of Israel in the seam between two parts of his armor.\nAhab said to the chariot driver, “Turn around and take me out of the battle, because I have been wounded.”",
      "34": "The battle increased in intensity all that day. The king of Israel was propped up in his chariot facing Aram until evening. He died at sunset."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Jehoshaphat king of Judah returned to his house in Jerusalem safely.",
      "2": "Jehu son of Hanani, the seer, went out to meet King Jehoshaphat and said to him, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this, wrath from the Lord is upon you.",
      "3": "Nevertheless, good things are present in you, because you destroyed the Asherah poles from the land and have set your heart to seek God.”",
      "4": "Jehoshaphat ruled from Jerusalem.\nHe once again went out among the people, from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim, and brought them back to the Lord, the God of their fathers.",
      "5": "He appointed judges throughout the land in all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city.",
      "6": "He said to the judges, “Watch what you do, because you are not judging for the people, but for the Lord. He is with you as you judge.",
      "7": "Now may the dread of the Lord be upon you. Watch what you do, because there is no injustice, partiality, or taking bribes with the Lord our God.”",
      "8": "In Jerusalem too Jehoshaphat appointed men from the Levites, the priests, and the leading fathers of Israel to act as judges on behalf of the Lord and to settle disputes, and they presided in Jerusalem.",
      "9": "He commanded them:\nThis is how you are to conduct yourselves in the fear of the Lord, in faithfulness, and with your whole heart.",
      "10": "In every case concerning bloodshed, law, commands, statutes, or ordinances that comes to you from your brother Israelites who live in their cities, you will instruct them so that they will not incur guilt before the Lord, and so that wrath does not come upon you and upon your brothers. If you do this, you will not incur guilt.",
      "11": "Take note of this. Amariah the head priest is over you in all matters concerning the Lord. Zebadiah son of Ishmael is the governor for the house of Judah in all matters concerning the king. The Levites are officials for you. Act courageously. The Lord will be with those who do what is good."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "After this the Moabites, the Ammonites, and some of the Meunites with them, all came against Jehoshaphat for battle.",
      "2": "Jehoshaphat was told, “A huge horde is coming against you from beyond the sea and from Edom. Look! They are already in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).",
      "3": "Jehoshaphat was afraid, but he focused on seeking the Lord. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.",
      "4": "So Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord. From all the cities of Judah people came to seek the Lord.",
      "5": "Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the House of the Lord in front of the new courtyard.",
      "6": "He said:\nLord, God of our fathers, are you not the God in heaven? You are ruling over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might. There is no one who can stand up against you.",
      "7": "Was it not you, our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land in front of your people Israel? You gave it to the descendants of your friend Abraham forever.",
      "8": "They have lived in it, and in it they have built a holy place for your Name, and they said,",
      "9": "“If disaster comes on us—the sword of judgment, plague, and famine, we will stand before this house and before you, for your Name is in this house. We will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear and save.”",
      "10": "Now look! Men from Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir have invaded. When Israel came up from the land of Egypt, you did not allow Israel to invade their land. So Israel went around them and did not destroy them.",
      "11": "Look how they are rewarding us by coming to drive us out from your possession, which you have given to us as an inheritance.",
      "12": "Our God, will you not judge them? For there is no power in us to face this huge horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.",
      "13": "All Judah was standing before the Lord along with their dependents, their wives, and their children.",
      "14": "The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite from the descendants of Asaph. He was standing in the middle of the assembly.",
      "15": "He said:\nListen, all Judah, all you residents of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat. This is what the Lord says to you. Do not be afraid. Do not be terrified because of this huge horde, for the battle is not yours. It is God’s.",
      "16": "Tomorrow go down against them. Look, they are coming up by the Ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley east of the Wilderness of Jeruel.",
      "17": "It is not up to you to fight this battle. Just take up your position. Stand still, Judah and Jerusalem, and see that the victory of the Lord is with you. Do not be afraid. Do not be terrified. Tomorrow go out against them. The Lord will be with you.",
      "18": "Then Jehoshaphat bowed down with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the residents of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord to worship the Lord.",
      "19": "Then the Levites from the Kohathites and the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice.",
      "20": "They got up early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, Judah and you residents of Jerusalem. Have faith in the Lord your God, and you will find him to be faithful. Believe his prophets and you will succeed.”",
      "21": "After he consulted with the people, he appointed singers to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness, as they went out ahead of the army, singing:\nGive thanks to the Lord, for his mercy endures forever.",
      "22": "At the time when they began the jubilant songs of praise to the Lord, he set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who were marching against Judah, and they were routed,",
      "23": "because the men of Ammon and Moab rose up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir to destroy them and wipe them out. When they were finished with the inhabitants of Seir, they helped destroy each other.",
      "24": "When Judah came to a spot overlooking the wilderness and looked out toward that horde, they saw nothing but dead bodies lying on the ground. No one had escaped.",
      "25": "Jehoshaphat and his people came to gather the spoils. They found huge amounts of equipment and valuables among the bodies. They collected so much for themselves that they could not carry it. It took them three days to gather the spoils because there was so much.",
      "26": "On the fourth day they assembled in the Valley of Berakah, where they blessed the Lord. That is why that place is named the Valley of Berakah to this day.",
      "27": "Then all the men of Judah and Jerusalem joyfully returned to Jerusalem with Jehoshaphat at their head, because the Lord had given them reason to rejoice over their enemies.",
      "28": "They came to Jerusalem to the House of the Lord with harps, lyres, and trumpets.",
      "29": "The dread of the Lord was upon all the kingdoms of the lands, when they heard that the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel.",
      "30": "Then Jehoshaphat’s kingdom was quiet. His God gave him rest on every side.",
      "31": "Jehoshaphat ruled as king over Judah. He was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for twenty-five years. His mother’s name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi.",
      "32": "He walked in the ways of his father Asa by doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He did not turn from it.",
      "33": "The high places, however, were not removed. The people still did not set their hearts toward the God of their fathers.",
      "34": "The rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, from first to last, are recorded in the annals of Jehu son of Hanani, which are included in the Book of the Kings of Israel.",
      "35": "After this, Jehoshaphat king of Judah joined with Ahaziah king of Israel, who did wicked things.",
      "36": "He joined with him to build ships to go to Tarshish. They built the ships in Ezion Geber.",
      "37": "Eliezer son of Dodavahu from Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat: “Because you joined with Ahaziah, the Lord has destroyed what you have made.” The ships were wrecked, so they were not able to go to Tarshish."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. His son Jehoram ruled in his place.",
      "2": "Jehoram had brothers, who were the sons of Jehoshaphat. They were Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariahu, Michael, and Shephatiah. All these were sons of Jehoshaphat king of Israel.",
      "3": "Their father gave them many gifts: silver, gold, and valuable possessions, as well as fortified cities in Judah, but he gave the kingship to Jehoram because he was the firstborn.",
      "4": "Jehoram ascended to the throne of his father and strengthened his position. Then he killed all his brothers with the sword and also killed some of the officials of Israel.",
      "5": "Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for eight years.",
      "6": "He walked in the way of the kings of Israel as the house of Ahab had done, because the daughter of Ahab was his wife. So he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "7": "But the Lord was not willing to destroy the house of David, because of the covenant he had made with David, when he promised him and his sons that he would keep a light shining for all time.",
      "8": "In Jehoram’s days Edom revolted from Judah’s control and set up a king for themselves.",
      "9": "So Jehoram crossed over to Edom with his commanders and with all the chariots. He got up at night and attacked the Edomites who had surrounded him and his chariot officers.",
      "10": "Edom has successfully revolted from the control of Judah to this day. Libnah also revolted from his control at that time because he had forsaken the Lord, the God of his fathers.",
      "11": "Jehoram also made high places in the hill country of Judah and caused those living in Jerusalem to prostitute themselves. He caused Judah to go astray.",
      "12": "A letter came to him from Elijah the prophet which said:\nThis is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says. Because you have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat and in the ways of Asa king of Judah,",
      "13": "but you have walked in the way of the kings of Israel and have caused Judah and the residents of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves, as the house of Ahab led Israel to prostitute themselves, and because you have even killed your own brothers from your father’s household, who were better than you,",
      "14": "the Lord is going to strike a severe blow against your people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions.",
      "15": "You yourself will have great pain from a disease of your intestines, until your intestines fall out, because the disease is going to last so long.",
      "16": "The Lord stirred up against Jehoram the hostility of the Philistines and the Arabs who were next to the Cushites.",
      "17": "They came up against Judah, successfully invaded it, and carried away all the possessions found at the king’s palace, as well as his sons and his wives. None of his sons were left except Jehoahaz, the youngest.",
      "18": "After all this the Lord struck Jehoram with an incurable disease in his intestines.",
      "19": "He suffered day after day, until the end of the second year, when his intestines fell out because of the disease. He died in great pain. His people did not make a bonfire for him like the fires for his fathers.",
      "20": "He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned as king in Jerusalem for eight years. He departed without anyone regretting it. He was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "The residents of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, Jehoram’s youngest son, king in Jehoram’s place because the raiding band, which had come to the camp with the Arabs, had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram ruled as the king of Judah.",
      "2": "Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, granddaughter of Omri.",
      "3": "He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, because his mother was advising him how to do wicked things.",
      "4": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the house of Ahab did, because they were his advisors after the death of his father. This led to his destruction.",
      "5": "He also followed their advice and went with Jehoram, the son of Ahab, the king of Israel, to wage war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram there.",
      "6": "So he returned to Jezre’el to recover from the wounds he had received at Ramah when he was fighting against Hazael king of Aram. Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to visit Jehoram son of Ahab in Jezre’el because Jehoram had been wounded.",
      "7": "It was due to God that Ahaziah’s downfall came about when he went to visit Joram. After Ahaziah had arrived, he went out with Jehoram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab.",
      "8": "When Jehu was carrying out judgment on the house of Ahab, he met the officials of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah’s brothers, who attended Ahaziah, and he killed them.",
      "9": "He also searched for Ahaziah and captured him, while he was hiding in Samaria. They brought him to Jehu, who put him to death. They buried him, because they said, “He is the grandson of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his heart.” There was nobody from the house of Ahaziah strong enough to rule the kingdom.",
      "10": "When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she went into action and destroyed all the royal heirs belonging to the house of Judah.",
      "11": "But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash, the son of Ahaziah. She stole him away from among the king’s sons, who were to be killed. She put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Because she was a sister of Ahaziah, Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest, hid Joash from Athaliah, so that she could not kill him.",
      "12": "He was kept hidden with them in the House of God for six years, while Athaliah was ruling over the land."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "In the seventh year Jehoiada strengthened himself by entering into a covenant with the commanders of the hundreds, namely, Azariah son of Jeroham, Ishmael son of Jehohanan, Azariah son of Obed, Ma’aseiah son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat son of Zikri.",
      "2": "They went around Judah and gathered the Levites from all the cities of Judah and the leading fathers of Israel, who came to Jerusalem.",
      "3": "The whole assembly made a covenant with the king in the House of God. Jehoiada said to them:\nLook! Here is the king’s son. He will rule as king, just as the Lord has promised concerning the sons of David.",
      "4": "This is what you will do. One third of you who are coming on duty on the Sabbath to perform your duties as priests and Levites are to guard the gates.",
      "5": "One third of you will be in the palace of the king, and one third at the Foundation Gate. All the people will be stationed in the courtyards of the House of the Lord.",
      "6": "No one will come into the house of the Lord except the priests and the Levites who are serving. They are allowed to enter because they are holy. All the rest of the people will follow the directions of the Lord.",
      "7": "The Levites will completely surround the king, each with his weapons in his hand. Anyone who enters the house will be put to death. You accompany the king when he comes in and goes out.",
      "8": "The Levites and all Judah did exactly as Jehoiada the priest had commanded. Each leader combined the men coming on duty on the Sabbath with those going off duty on the Sabbath, because Jehoiada the priest did not dismiss the divisions.",
      "9": "Jehoiada the priest gave the commanders of the hundreds the spears, the large shields, and the small shields which belonged to King David and which were in the House of God.",
      "10": "He stationed all the people, each man with his weapon in his hand, in a circle from the south side of the temple building to the north side of the building, around the altar and all around the building, completely surrounding the king.",
      "11": "Then they brought out the king’s son. They set the crown on him and gave him the Testimony, and they made him king. Jehoiada and his sons anointed him and said, “Long live the king!”",
      "12": "When Athaliah heard the noise made by the people who were running and praising the king, she went to the crowd of people at the House of the Lord.",
      "13": "She looked, and there was the king standing by his pillar at the entrance. The officials and the trumpeters were beside the king. All the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing the trumpets. The singers with their musical instruments were leading the praise. Athaliah tore her clothes and shouted, “Treason! Treason!”",
      "14": "Then Jehoiada the priest brought out the commanders who were in charge of the units of a hundred in the army. He told them, “Bring her out between the ranks. Anyone who follows her is to be put to death with the sword,” but the priest also told them, “You must not put her to death in the House of the Lord.”",
      "15": "So they laid their hands on her, and she was taken to the entrance of the Horse Gate by the palace of the king, where she was put to death.",
      "16": "Jehoiada made a covenant including himself, all the people, and the king, that they would be the Lord’s people.",
      "17": "All the people then went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They smashed Baal’s altars and his images. They killed Mattan, the priest of Baal, in front of the altars.",
      "18": "Jehoiada posted a watch over the House of the Lord. It was under the supervision of the levitical priests, whom David had given assignments in the House of the Lord to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, as written in the Law of Moses, with rejoicing and singing as David had directed.",
      "19": "He stationed the gatekeepers at the gates of the House of the Lord, so that no one could enter if he was unclean in any way.",
      "20": "He took the commanders of the hundreds, the nobles, the governors of the people, and all the people of the land. He brought the king down from the House of the Lord. They came through the upper gate of the palace of the king. They seated the king on the throne of the kingdom.",
      "21": "All the people of the land rejoiced. The city was quiet after they killed Athaliah with the sword."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah from Beersheba.",
      "2": "Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest.",
      "3": "Jehoiada obtained two wives for him, and he fathered sons and daughters.",
      "4": "After this, it was on Joash’s heart to restore the House of the Lord,",
      "5": "so he gathered the priests and the Levites and said to them, “Go out to the cities of Judah and collect money from all Israel for the repairs to the house of your God. Do this annually. Get started immediately.”\nThe Levites, however, did not act on it quickly,",
      "6": "so the king summoned Jehoiada, the head of the project, and said to him, “Why have you not required the Levites to collect from Judah and Jerusalem the tax which Moses, the servant of the Lord, established with the congregation of Israel for the Tent of Testimony?”",
      "7": "(Because Athaliah was wicked, her sons had broken into the House of God and used all the dedicated things of the House of the Lord for the Baals.)",
      "8": "The king gave a command that a chest was to be made and set outside the gate of the House of the Lord.",
      "9": "A proclamation was issued in Judah and Jerusalem that the tax imposed upon Israel in the wilderness by Moses, the servant of God, should be brought to the Lord.",
      "10": "All the officials and all the people rejoiced. They brought the money and dropped it into the chest until it was full.",
      "11": "From time to time the chest was delivered from the custody of the Levites to the king’s administrators. Whenever they saw that there was a large amount of silver in it, the secretary of the king and the administrator of the head priest came and emptied the chest. Then they would take the chest and return it to its place. They did this regularly and collected a large amount of silver.",
      "12": "The king and Jehoiada gave the silver to those carrying out the work on the House of the Lord. They hired stonemasons and carpenters to restore the House of the Lord, and also craftsmen who worked with iron and bronze to repair the House of the Lord.",
      "13": "The laborers carrying out the project worked hard, and the work of restoration moved forward because of the diligent work of their hands. They restored the House of God to its proper condition and strengthened it.",
      "14": "When they finished, they brought the rest of the silver to the king and to Jehoiada. They used it to make items for the House of the Lord, utensils for use in the service and for the burnt offerings, such as small dishes and gold and silver vessels. So they offered burnt offerings in the House of the Lord continually, throughout all the days of Jehoiada.",
      "15": "Jehoiada grew old and full of days, and he died. He was one hundred thirty years old at his death.",
      "16": "They buried him in the City of David with the kings, because he had done good things for Israel in connection with God and his house.",
      "17": "After the death of Jehoiada, the officials of Judah came and bowed down to the king. Then the king began to listen to them.",
      "18": "They abandoned the House of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherahs and the idols. Wrath fell upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their guilt.",
      "19": "God sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord. The prophets testified against them, but they did not listen.",
      "20": "The Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood in front of the people and said to them, “This is what God says. Why do you disobey the commandments of the Lord? You will not prosper. Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.”",
      "21": "But they conspired against him, and by the command of the king they stoned him to death in the courtyard of the House of the Lord.",
      "22": "Thus King Joash did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada, his mentor, had shown to him. Instead, he killed Jehoiada’s son. As Zechariah was dying, he said, “The Lord will see and avenge.”",
      "23": "At the end of the year, the army of Aram marched out against Joash. They came to Judah and Jerusalem. They slaughtered all the officials from among the people, and they sent all their spoils to the king of Damascus.",
      "24": "Although the army of Aram had come with only a few men, the Lord delivered a very great army into their hand because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers. So the Arameans carried out judgment against Joash.",
      "25": "When they withdrew, leaving behind Joash, who was severely wounded, his own officials conspired against him because of the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest. They violently attacked him on his bed, and he died. They buried him in the City of David, but they did not bury him in the tombs of the kings.",
      "26": "Those who conspired against him were Zabad son of Shimath, an Ammonite woman, and Jehozabad son of Shimrith, a Moabite woman.",
      "27": "The accounts about his sons, about the many prophetic warnings against him, and about the restoration of the House of God are recorded in the notes in the Book of the Kings. His son Amaziah ruled as king in his place."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem.",
      "2": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord but not with a completely committed heart.",
      "3": "As soon as the royal power was firmly in his possession, he put to death the officials who had assassinated his father the king.",
      "4": "But he did not put their children to death, because of what is written in the law in the Book of Moses, in which the Lord commanded, “Fathers are not to be put to death on account of their sons, and sons are not to be put to death on account of their fathers, but each person will die for his own sin.”",
      "5": "Amaziah then assembled Judah. He organized the troops on the basis of their fathers’ houses, under commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds for all of Judah and Benjamin. He took a count of all of those who were twenty years old and older. He found three hundred thousand men capable of going to war, able to handle spear and shield.",
      "6": "He also hired from Israel one hundred thousand powerful warriors for one hundred talents of silver.",
      "7": "A man of God came to him, saying, “O King, the army of Israel must not go along with you because the Lord is not with Israel. He is not with any of these descendants of Ephraim.",
      "8": "Even if you go and you take action, and you are strong for battle, God will defeat you in the face of the enemy, because God has power both to help and to defeat.”",
      "9": "Amaziah said to the man of God, “What am I to do about the hundred talents I gave to the army of Israel?”\nThe man of God answered, “The Lord is able to give to you much more than that.”",
      "10": "So Amaziah dismissed the troops who had come to him from Ephraim. They were told to return home, but they were very angry against Judah. They returned to their homes, burning with anger.",
      "11": "But Amaziah took courage. He led his troops out to the Valley of Salt, where he struck down ten thousand men of Seir.",
      "12": "The men of Judah captured ten thousand of them alive. They took them to the top of a cliff and threw them down from the top of the cliff. All of them were dashed to pieces.",
      "13": "But the men from the army, whom Amaziah had not allowed to go with him to battle, attacked the cities of Judah from Samaria to Beth Horon. They killed three thousand people from those cities. They also carried off a lot of plunder.",
      "14": "After Amaziah came back from the slaughter of the Edomites, he brought with him the gods of the men of Seir and set them up as his own gods. He worshipped them and made offerings to them.",
      "15": "The Lord was angry with Amaziah, so he sent a prophet to him, who said to him, “Why are you seeking the gods of another people, gods who did not deliver their own people from your hand?”",
      "16": "But while he was speaking to him, the king said to him, “Have we made you an advisor to the king? Stop! Why should you be struck down?”\nSo the prophet stopped, but he said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you because you have done this, and you have not listened to my advice.”",
      "17": "After consulting with his advisors, Amaziah king of Judah sent a challenge to Joash son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel: “Come. We will confront each other face-to-face.”",
      "18": "Joash king of Israel sent a response to Amaziah king of Judah:\nA thorn bush in Lebanon sent a message to a cedar in Lebanon: “Give your daughter to my son as his wife.” But a wild animal in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thorn bush.",
      "19": "You have congratulated yourself for striking down Edom, and your heart has given you confidence to boast. But now stay home. Why should you stir up trouble? You will fall, and Judah will fall with you.",
      "20": "But Amaziah did not listen, because this was from God, in order that he might hand them over to Israel, because they had sought the gods of Edom.",
      "21": "Joash king of Israel attacked, so he and Amaziah king of Judah confronted each other face-to-face at Beth Shemesh, which belongs to Judah.",
      "22": "Judah was defeated by Israel, and each man fled to his tent.",
      "23": "At Beth Shemesh Joash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and brought him to Jerusalem. Joash broke down six hundred feet of the wall of Jerusalem, from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate.",
      "24": "Joash took all the gold and silver, all the articles that he found with Obed Edom in the House of God and in the treasuries of the king’s palace. He also took Amaziah’s sons as hostages and returned to Samaria.",
      "25": "Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah lived for fifteen years after the death of Joash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel.",
      "26": "The rest of the deeds of Amaziah, from the first to the last, are they not written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel?",
      "27": "After Amaziah had turned away from the Lord, a conspiracy was formed against him in Jerusalem, so he fled to Lachish. But they sent men after him to Lachish, and they killed him there.",
      "28": "They brought him back on horses and buried him with his fathers in the City of Judah."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "All the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.",
      "2": "He was the one who built Elat and restored it to Judah after King Amaziah rested with his fathers.",
      "3": "Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for fifty-two years. His mother’s name was Jekoliah from Jerusalem.",
      "4": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father Amaziah had done.",
      "5": "He continued to seek God throughout the days of Zechariah, who trained him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.",
      "6": "He went out and waged war against the Philistines. He broke down the wall of Gath, the wall of Javneh, and the wall of Ashdod. He built cities in the territory of Ashdod and among the Philistines.",
      "7": "God helped him against the Philistines, against the Arabs who lived in Gur Baal, and against the Meunites.",
      "8": "The Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah. His reputation spread as far as the border of Egypt because he had become very strong.",
      "9": "Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, at the Valley Gate, and at the Angle, and he fortified them.",
      "10": "He built towers in the wilderness. He dug many cisterns because he had large herds both in the Shephelah and on the plains. He also had farmers and vineyard workers in the highlands and in the fertile lands, because he loved the soil.",
      "11": "Uzziah had an army, well trained and ready for war, organized in divisions based on the numbers from the census taken by Jeiel the secretary and Ma’aseiah the officer, under the direction of Hananiah, one of the king’s officials.",
      "12": "The total number of the leading fathers who led the powerful warriors was 2,600.",
      "13": "Under their command there was a strong army of 307,500 men, able to wage war as a very powerful force, to help the king against the enemy.",
      "14": "Uzziah supplied the whole army with shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slingshots.",
      "15": "In Jerusalem he made war machines produced by clever inventors to be mounted on the towers and at the corners, to shoot arrows and hurl large stones. His reputation spread far and wide because he received marvelous help until he was strong.",
      "16": "But when he had grown powerful, the pride in his heart led to his destruction. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God. He entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.",
      "17": "Azariah the priest went in after him. He was followed by eighty priests of the Lord, brave men.",
      "18": "They confronted King Uzziah and said to him, “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, because you have been unfaithful. This action will not result in any praise for you from the Lord God.”",
      "19": "Uzziah became angry. He had a censer for burning incense in his hand. When he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests, beside the altar of incense in the House of the Lord.",
      "20": "When Azariah, the head priest, and all the other priests looked at him, they immediately realized he had leprosy on his forehead. They rushed him out of there. He himself also was in a hurry to leave because the Lord had struck him.",
      "21": "King Uzziah remained a leper until the day of his death. He lived in a quarantined house because he was a leper. He was excluded from the House of the Lord. Jotham his son was in charge of the palace of the king and administered justice for the people of the land.",
      "22": "The rest of the acts of Uzziah, from first to last, were recorded by Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet.",
      "23": "Uzziah rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the burial field that belonged to the kings, because they said, “He is a leper.” His son Jotham ruled as king in his place."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years. His mother’s name was Jerushah daughter of Zadok.",
      "2": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord in everything, as his father Uzziah had done, but he did not go into the temple of the Lord as Uzziah had done. The people, however, still followed corrupt practices.",
      "3": "He built the upper gate of the House of the Lord. He also carried out extensive construction work on the wall of Ophel.",
      "4": "He also built cities in the hill country of Judah. On the wooded hills he built forts and towers.",
      "5": "He waged war against the king of the Ammonites and defeated them. That year the Ammonites gave him one hundred talents of silver, sixty thousand bushels of wheat, and sixty thousand bushels of barley. The Ammonites paid him this amount also in the second and third years.",
      "6": "Jotham became powerful because he aligned his ways with the ways of the Lord his God.",
      "7": "You can find the rest of the acts of Jotham and all his wars and his ways written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.",
      "8": "He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years.",
      "9": "Jotham rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. His son Ahaz ruled as king in his place."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years. He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord as his father David had done.",
      "2": "Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made cast images for the Baals",
      "3": "and sent up sacrifices in smoke in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. He burned his sons in the fire, in keeping with the disgusting practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel.",
      "4": "He also sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every leafy tree.",
      "5": "So the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and captured a great number of prisoners, who were taken to Damascus. Ahaz was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who dealt him a heavy blow.",
      "6": "In one day, Pekah son of Remaliah killed one hundred twenty thousand men in Judah, all of them strong warriors, because they had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers.",
      "7": "Zikri, a strong warrior from Ephraim, killed the king’s son Ma’aseiah, as well as Azrikam chief officer of the palace, and Elkanah second in command to the king.",
      "8": "The men from Israel took two hundred thousand of their fellow Israelites captive, including wives, sons, and daughters. They also seized a large amount of plunder from them and took it to Samaria.",
      "9": "There was a prophet of the Lord there, whose name was Oded. He went out to meet the army that came to Samaria and said to them, “Look! Because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry against Judah, he gave them into your hand. You have killed them in a rage that reaches up to heaven.",
      "10": "Now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem as male and female slaves for yourselves. Do you not have enough guilt of your own against the Lord your God?",
      "11": "Now hear me. Send back the captives whom you have taken from your brothers, because the fierce anger of the Lord is upon you.”",
      "12": "Some of the leaders of Ephraim, Azariah son of Johanan, Berekiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai, took a stand against those returning from the battle.",
      "13": "They said to them, “You must not bring the captives here, because it would make us guilty before the Lord. You are proposing to increase our sins and our guilt, because great guilt rests upon us and fierce anger burns against Israel.”",
      "14": "So the armed men left the captives and the plunder in front of the officials and the whole assembly.",
      "15": "The men who had been designated by name got up and took custody of the captives. From the spoils they provided clothing for all those who were naked. They clothed them and provided them with sandals, with food and drink, and with salve for their wounds. They transported all those who were weak on donkeys. They brought them to Jericho, the City of Palms, to their fellow Israelites. Then they returned to Samaria.",
      "16": "At that time King Ahaz sent a request for help to the kings of Assyria.",
      "17": "Once again the Edomites came and defeated Judah and carried away captives.",
      "18": "The Philistines also made raids on the cities in the Shephelah and the Negev of Judah. They captured Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soko with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and Gimzo with its villages, and they settled there.",
      "19": "The Lord brought Judah low, because Ahaz king of Israel had led Judah to throw off all restraint. He had been very unfaithful to the Lord.",
      "20": "When Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came, he marched against Ahaz and oppressed him instead of strengthening him.",
      "21": "Ahaz took some things from the House of the Lord, from the palace of the king, and from the officials, and he gave them to the king of Assyria, but it did not help him.",
      "22": "In the time of his distress King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord. That was the way he was.",
      "23": "He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him. He said, “Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them so that they may help me.” But they were his ruin and the ruin of all Israel.",
      "24": "Ahaz gathered the articles from the House of God and cut all these things from the House of God to pieces. He shut the doors of the House of the Lord and made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem.",
      "25": "In each and every city throughout Judah, he made high places to burn incense to other gods. He provoked the Lord, the God of his fathers, to anger.",
      "26": "As for the rest of his acts and all his ways, from first to last, you can find them written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.",
      "27": "Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of Jerusalem. They did not bury him in the tombs of the kings of Israel. His son Hezekiah ruled as king in his place."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.",
      "2": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father David had done.",
      "3": "In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them.",
      "4": "He brought the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the eastern square.",
      "5": "He said to them:\nListen to me, you Levites! Consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the House of the Lord, the God of your fathers. Remove the filth from the holy place,",
      "6": "for our fathers have been unfaithful. They have done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God. They have forsaken him. They have turned their faces away from the dwelling of the Lord. They have turned their backs.",
      "7": "They also have shut the doors of the porch of the temple and have extinguished the lamps. They have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.",
      "8": "So the wrath of the Lord is on Judah and Jerusalem. He has made them into an object of terror, horror, and hissing, as you see with your own eyes.",
      "9": "Look! Our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity because of this.",
      "10": "Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us.",
      "11": "Now, you my sons, do not be negligent, for you are the ones the Lord has chosen to stand in his presence, to minister to him, to serve him, and to burn incense to him.",
      "12": "These are the Levites who responded:\nfrom the descendants of the Kohathites: Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah,\nfrom the descendants of Merari: Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jahallelel,\nfrom the Gershonites: Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah,",
      "13": "from the descendants of Elizaphan: Shimri and Jeiel, from the descendants of Asaph: Zechariah and Mattaniah,",
      "14": "from the descendants of Heman: Jehiel and Shimei, and from the descendants of Jeduthun: Shemaiah and Uzziel.",
      "15": "They gathered their brother Levites, consecrated themselves, and went to cleanse the House of the Lord, as the king commanded by the words of the Lord.",
      "16": "The priests entered the inner part of the Lord’s house to cleanse it. They brought every unclean thing that they found in the Lord’s temple out into the courtyard of the House of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley.",
      "17": "On the first day of the first month, they began to consecrate the temple. By the eighth day of the month they had gotten as far as the porch of the Lord. They continued to purify the House of the Lord for eight more days. On the sixteenth day of the first month, they completed the work.",
      "18": "They went in to King Hezekiah and said, “We have cleansed the entire House of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the table for the presentation of bread and all its utensils.",
      "19": "We have prepared and consecrated all the utensils which King Ahaz discarded during his reign, when he was unfaithful. Look! They are right there in front of the altar of the Lord.”",
      "20": "King Hezekiah got up early. He gathered the officials of the city and went up to the House of the Lord.",
      "21": "They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. He commanded the sons of Aaron, the priests, to offer them on the altar of the Lord.",
      "22": "So they slaughtered the cattle. The priests collected the blood and splashed it against the altar. They killed the rams and splashed the blood against the altar. They killed the lambs and splashed the blood against the altar.",
      "23": "Then they brought the male goats for the sin offering to the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them.",
      "24": "The priests slaughtered them and made a sin offering with their blood on the altar to make atonement for all Israel, because the king had commanded a burnt offering and a sin offering for all Israel.",
      "25": "He stationed the Levites in the House of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres according to the command of David, of Gad the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet, because a command that comes through the hand of his prophets is a command from the hand of the Lord.",
      "26": "The Levites stood with the musical instruments prescribed by David, and the priests stood with the trumpets.",
      "27": "Hezekiah commanded that the burnt offering be offered on the altar. At the time that the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord and the trumpets also began. While the instruments prescribed by David king of Israel were playing,",
      "28": "the whole assembly bowed down and worshipped. The singers sang. The trumpeters sounded the trumpets. All this continued until the burnt offering was completed.",
      "29": "When the burnt offering was finished, the king and all those present with him bowed down and worshipped.",
      "30": "King Hezekiah and his officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. They sang glad praises and bowed down and worshipped.",
      "31": "Hezekiah responded, “Now you have taken up your duty to the Lord. Approach and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the House of the Lord.” The assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings. All those whose hearts were willing brought burnt offerings.",
      "32": "The number of burnt offerings which the assembly brought was seventy cattle, one hundred rams, and two hundred lambs. All these served as a burnt offering to the Lord.",
      "33": "The consecrated offerings consisted of six hundred cattle and three thousand sheep.",
      "34": "But the priests were too few to be able to skin all the burnt offerings. So, their brothers, the Levites, helped them until the work was completed and until more priests had consecrated themselves, because the Levites were more upright in heart in consecrating themselves than the priests.",
      "35": "In addition to the great number of burnt offerings, they presented both the fat of the fellowship offerings and the drink offerings that accompanied the burnt offerings. So the service of the House of the Lord was restored.",
      "36": "Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because God had restored this for the people, and all this had been done very quickly."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "Hezekiah sent messengers to all Israel and Judah. He also wrote letters inviting Ephraim and Manasseh to come to the House of the Lord at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover for the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "2": "The king, his officials, and the whole assembly in Jerusalem had made plans to celebrate the Passover in the second month.",
      "3": "They were not able to celebrate it at its proper time, because the priests had not consecrated themselves in sufficient number, and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem.",
      "4": "The plan seemed right in the eyes of the king and in the eyes of the whole assembly.",
      "5": "So they decided to issue a proclamation throughout Israel from Beersheba to Dan to come to observe the Passover for the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, because they had not been celebrating it with large numbers of people as had been commanded.",
      "6": "Runners were sent out with letters from the hand of the king and from his officials to all Israel and Judah. Because of the command of the king, they made the following announcement:\nPeople of Israel! Return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.",
      "7": "You must not be like your fathers or like your brothers, who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their fathers. That is why he gave them up to desolation, as you see.",
      "8": "Now you must not be stiff-necked like your fathers. Give your hand to the Lord. Come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you.",
      "9": "For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your children will be shown compassion in the presence of their captors and be permitted to return to this land, for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful. He will not turn his face away from you if you return to him.",
      "10": "The runners went from city to city through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and even as far as Zebulun, but people laughed at them and ridiculed them.",
      "11": "Nevertheless, some men from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.",
      "12": "But in Judah the hand of God was present to give them one heart to follow the command of the king and the command of the officials, in agreement with the word of the Lord.",
      "13": "Many people gathered in Jerusalem to keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the second month—a very great assembly.",
      "14": "They quickly removed the altars from Jerusalem. They took away all the altars for burning incense and threw them into the Kidron Valley.",
      "15": "They slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites had been put to shame, so they consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings into the House of the Lord.",
      "16": "They took up their positions as prescribed in the Law of Moses, the man of God. The priests splashed the blood, which was given to them by the Levites, against the altar.",
      "17": "Because many of the assembly had not consecrated themselves, the Levites carried out the slaughtering of the Passover lambs for everyone who was not ceremonially clean, to make them holy to the Lord.",
      "18": "A large number of the people, many of whom were from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not purified themselves, but they ate the Passover anyway, in a manner not in keeping with what is written. So Hezekiah prayed for them: “May the good Lord pardon everyone all around,",
      "19": "that is, everyone who seeks God the Lord, the God of his fathers, with all his heart, even though he does not have the ceremonial purity required by the holy place.”",
      "20": "The Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.",
      "21": "The people of Israel who were present in Jerusalem observed the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great rejoicing. The Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day with loud instruments for the Lord.",
      "22": "Hezekiah encouraged the hearts of all the Levites, who displayed wonderful skills in service of the Lord. They ate the food of the festival for the appointed seven days, presenting fellowship sacrifices and giving thanks to the Lord, the God of their fathers.",
      "23": "The entire assembly agreed to celebrate for another seven days. They gladly did it for another seven days,",
      "24": "because Hezekiah king of Judah provided one thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep for the assembly, and the officials contributed one thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep for the assembly. The priests consecrated themselves in great number.",
      "25": "The whole assembly of Judah rejoiced together with the priests, the Levites, the entire assembly from Israel, the aliens who resided in the land of Israel, and the people who lived in Judah.",
      "26": "There was great joy in Jerusalem, because since the time of Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel, there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem.",
      "27": "Then the levitical priests arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard. Their prayer ascended to the Lord’s holy dwelling in heaven."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "When all this was finished, all the Israelites who were present went out to the cities of Judah. They broke the sacred memorial pillars into pieces, chopped down the Asherah poles, and smashed the high places and the altars throughout Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh until the task was finished. Then all the people of Israel returned to their cities, each of them to his own property.",
      "2": "Hezekiah appointed the divisions of the priests and Levites, assigning each man to his area of service according to his division. The priests and Levites were responsible for burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, in order to minister and to give thanks and praise in the gates of the camps of the Lord.",
      "3": "The king’s contribution from his own personal property was designated for the morning and evening burnt offerings, as well as for burnt offerings on the sabbaths, the new moons, and the designated festivals, as it is written in the Law of the Lord.",
      "4": "He commanded the people living in Jerusalem to contribute the portion designated for the priests and the Levites, so that they could hold tightly to the Law of the Lord.",
      "5": "As soon as the order was made public, the people of Israel gave their firstfruits of grain, wine, oil, honey, and all the produce of the field in abundance. They brought an abundant tithe of everything.",
      "6": "All the people of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought their tithe of the cattle and sheep, and a tithe of the holy things dedicated for the Lord their God. They piled up one heap on top of another.",
      "7": "In the third month they began to accumulate it, and they finished by the seventh month.",
      "8": "When Hezekiah and the officials came, they saw the piles and blessed the Lord and his people Israel.",
      "9": "Hezekiah asked the priests and Levites about the piles.",
      "10": "Azariah, the head priest of the house of Zadok, answered, “Ever since they began bringing their contributions into the House of the Lord, the people have had plenty to eat and drink, enough to be full, with plenty left over. The Lord has blessed his people, and this great amount is left over.”",
      "11": "Hezekiah told them to prepare rooms in the House of the Lord, and they did so.",
      "12": "They faithfully brought the special contributions, tithes, and dedicated things. Konaniah the Levite was the chief officer over them, and his brother Shimei was second in command.",
      "13": "Jehiel, Azaziah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismakiah, Mahath, and Benaiah were administrators under the supervision of Konaniah and his brother Shimei, by the appointment of King Hezekiah. Azariah was the chief officer of the House of God.",
      "14": "Kore son of Imnah the Levite, the keeper of the East Gate, was in charge of the voluntary offerings to God. He was responsible for distributing the special contribution given to the Lord and the most holy offerings.",
      "15": "Faithfully assisting him in the cities of the priests were Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shekaniah, who were making distributions to their brothers, according to their divisions, the same to old and young alike.",
      "16": "Besides that, they gave support to all those enrolled by genealogy, to the males from three years old and up, to all who came to the House of the Lord for their daily service in their assigned offices in their divisions.",
      "17": "They also gave support to those enrolled as priests on the basis of the house of their fathers, also to the Levites from twenty years old and older, according to their assigned offices in their divisions,",
      "18": "to those enrolled with all their dependents, their wives and their sons and daughters—to the entire group—because they were faithfully keeping themselves holy.",
      "19": "For the descendants of Aaron, those priests who were living in the fields of the common pastureland around their cities, in every city, men designated by name were assigned to give portions to every male among the priests and to all the enrolled Levites.",
      "20": "Hezekiah carried this out in all Judah. He did what was good, right, and faithful before the Lord his God.",
      "21": "In all the work which he began in service to the House of God, to the law, and to the commandment, he sought his God and acted with all his heart, and he prospered."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "After these events and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came into Judah and laid siege to the fortified cities. He intended to capture them for himself.",
      "2": "When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and was ready to wage war against Jerusalem,",
      "3": "he made plans with his officials and soldiers to block the water supply from the springs outside the city. They helped him",
      "4": "by gathering a large group of people, who stopped all the springs and the water channel that flowed through the middle of the land. They said, “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?”",
      "5": "Hezekiah strengthened his position. He rebuilt the whole part of the wall that had been broken down. He made the towers taller. He made a second wall outside the first wall. He strengthened the Millo of the City of David. He made many weapons and shields.",
      "6": "He set military officers over the people. He brought them together with him in the square at the city gate. He spoke to encourage them:",
      "7": "“Be strong. Be courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be terrified because of the presence of the king of Assyria and the horde that is with him, because the one with us is greater than all those who are with him.",
      "8": "With him is only an arm of flesh. With us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” The people were encouraged by the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.",
      "9": "After this, while Sennacherib king of Assyria was attacking Lachish with his powerful forces, he sent his officials to Jerusalem, to Hezekiah king of Judah and to all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem.",
      "10": "Sennacherib’s officials proclaimed:\nThis is what Sennacherib king of Assyria says. What are you relying on as you sit there under siege in Jerusalem?",
      "11": "Isn’t Hezekiah misleading you? He is handing you over to die by famine and by thirst, when he says, “The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria.”",
      "12": "Hasn’t this same Hezekiah taken away the Lord’s high places and altars and commanded Judah and Jerusalem: “You are to worship in front of one altar, and you are to send up sacrifices only from it”?",
      "13": "Don’t you know what I and my fathers have done to all the people of the other lands? Were the gods of those foreign nations ever able to deliver their land from my hand?",
      "14": "Who among all the gods of those nations that my fathers devoted to destruction was able to deliver his people from my hand? So, will your God be able to deliver you from my hand?",
      "15": "Now don’t let Hezekiah deceive you and mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my father. How much less will your God! He will not deliver you from my hand.",
      "16": "These officials had even more to say against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah.",
      "17": "The king of Assyria wrote letters to heap scorn on the Lord, the God of Israel, and to speak against him by saying, “Like the gods of those foreign nations, which have not delivered their people from my hands, the god of Hezekiah will not deliver his people from my hand.”",
      "18": "They shouted loudly in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, in order to frighten them and terrify them so that they could take the city.",
      "19": "They spoke about the God of Jerusalem in the same way that they spoke about the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of human hands.",
      "20": "Hezekiah the king and Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, prayed about this, crying out to heaven.",
      "21": "So the Lord sent an angel, who wiped out all the powerful warriors, the commanders, and the officers in the camp of the king of Assyria, and he returned to his land in disgrace. There he went into the house of his god, and some of his offspring from his own body struck him down with the sword.",
      "22": "So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of everyone else. He gave them rest on all sides.",
      "23": "Many people kept bringing gifts for the Lord to Jerusalem and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah. He was exalted in the eyes of all the nations after this.",
      "24": "In those days Hezekiah became sick and was dying. He prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered him and gave him a sign.",
      "25": "But Hezekiah did not respond to the benefit granted to him, because his heart was proud. So there was wrath against him and against Judah and Jerusalem.",
      "26": "But Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. So the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah.",
      "27": "Hezekiah had very great wealth and honor. He made treasuries for his silver, gold, precious stones, spices and incense, shields, and all kinds of expensive items.",
      "28": "He made storehouses for the harvest of grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as stalls for all kinds of cattle and pens for flocks of sheep and goats.",
      "29": "He built cities for himself and amassed flocks of sheep and very many cattle, for God had given him very much property and many possessions.",
      "30": "This Hezekiah was the one who closed the upper outlet of the Gihon Spring. He directed the water down to the west side of the City of David. Hezekiah was successful in everything he did.",
      "31": "When the envoys from the officials of Babylon were sent to him to inquire about the sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.",
      "32": "You can find the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his faithfulness written in the vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.",
      "33": "Hezekiah rested with his fathers and was buried in the upper part of the tombs of the sons of David. All Judah and the residents of Jerusalem honored him at his death. Then his son Manasseh became king in his place."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for fifty-five years.",
      "2": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord by following the disgusting practices of the nations which the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel.",
      "3": "He rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had torn down. He erected altars to the Baals and made Asherah poles. He worshipped the whole army of the heavens and served them.",
      "4": "He built altars in the House of the Lord, about which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem my Name will be forever.”",
      "5": "He built altars for the whole army of the heavens in the two courtyards of the House of the Lord.",
      "6": "He made his sons pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. He practiced fortune telling and sought omens and consulted mediums and spiritists. He greatly increased the evil deeds he did in the eyes of the Lord and provoked him to anger.",
      "7": "He placed the image of the carved idol that he had made in the House of God, about which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever.",
      "8": "I will not make the feet of Israel wander again from the land which I assigned to their fathers, but only if they are conscientious to carry out everything I have commanded them, all of the law, the statutes, and the ordinances given through Moses.”",
      "9": "Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the people of Israel.",
      "10": "The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.",
      "11": "So the Lord brought the officials of the army of the king of Assyria against them. They led Manasseh captive with hooks. They bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.",
      "12": "When he was in distress, he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself deeply before the God of his fathers.",
      "13": "He prayed to the Lord, and the Lord responded to his prayer and heard his plea for mercy. He brought him back to Jerusalem into his own kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is the true God.",
      "14": "Afterward he built an outer wall for the City of David in the valley, from west of the Gihon Spring up to the entrance by the Fish Gate. He encircled Ophel with it and raised it to a very great height. He also put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities in Judah.",
      "15": "He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the House of the Lord. He removed all the altars he had built on the mountain of the House of the Lord and in Jerusalem and threw them outside of the city.",
      "16": "He restored the altar of the Lord and offered sacrifices of fellowship offerings and thank offerings on it. He commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "17": "Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.",
      "18": "You can find the rest of the acts of Manasseh, his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, in the annals of the kings of Israel.",
      "19": "His prayer and how the Lord received it, all his sin and his unfaithfulness, and the sites on which he built the high places and set the Asherah poles and the carved images before he humbled himself, you can find recorded in the chronicles of the seers.",
      "20": "Manasseh rested with his fathers, and he was buried in his own house. Amon his son became king in his place.",
      "21": "Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for two years.",
      "22": "He did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the images that Manasseh his father had made, and he served them.",
      "23": "But he did not humble himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself. Instead, Amon even multiplied the guilt.",
      "24": "His servants conspired against him and put him to death in his own house.",
      "25": "Then the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon. The people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place."
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for thirty-one years.",
      "2": "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He walked in the ways of his father David. He did not turn aside to the right or to the left.",
      "3": "In the eighth year of his reign, when he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father David. In the twelfth year he began to purify Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved images, and the cast images.",
      "4": "In his presence they tore down the altars of the Baals. He chopped down the sun pillars, which stood above them. He broke the Asherah poles, the carved images, and the cast images into pieces and ground them to dust, which he scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.",
      "5": "He burned the bones of their priests on their altars. In this way he purified Judah and Jerusalem.",
      "6": "In the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, as well as in the ruins around them,",
      "7": "he tore down the altars, the Asherah poles, and the images. He ground them into powder. He cut to pieces all the sun pillars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.",
      "8": "In the eighteenth year of his rule, in order to purify the land and the House, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, Ma’aseiah the administrator of the city, and Joah son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the House of the Lord his God.",
      "9": "They went to Hilkiah the high priest and gave him the silver that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim, from all of the remnant of Israel, and from all of Judah, Benjamin, and the residents of Jerusalem.",
      "10": "They gave it to those doing the work, to the ones who were organized to work in the House of the Lord. Those who were doing the work in the House of the Lord used it to repair and restore the building.",
      "11": "They gave it to the carpenters and the builders to buy quarried stones and timbers for joists and beams for the buildings which the kings of Judah had allowed to fall into ruin.",
      "12": "The men were doing the work faithfully. The supervisors appointed to oversee the work were Jahath and Obadiah, who were Levites descended from Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, who were Levites descended from Kohath. These Levites were all skillful with musical instruments.",
      "13": "They were in charge of the people transporting material and were overseers for all those doing the different kinds of work. Some of the Levites also served as scribes, officials, and gatekeepers.",
      "14": "When they brought out the silver that had been brought into the House of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord that had been received from the hand of Moses.",
      "15": "Hilkiah responded by telling Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the House of the Lord.” Hilkiah then gave the scroll to Shaphan.",
      "16": "Shaphan brought the scroll to the king. He also brought this report to the king: “Your servants are doing everything they were assigned to do.",
      "17": "They have emptied the silver found in the House of the Lord from the chest and have delivered it to the overseers and to the workmen.”",
      "18": "Shaphan the secretary then told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a scroll.” Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.",
      "19": "When the king heard the words of the law, he tore his clothing.",
      "20": "The king gave this command to Hilkiah and to Ahikam son of Shaphan, Abdon son of Micah, Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah servant of the king:",
      "21": "“Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for those who remain in Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book which has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is being poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord by doing everything that is written in this book.”",
      "22": "Hilkiah and the men the king sent with him went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, the keeper of the vestments. She was living in Jerusalem in the Second District. They spoke to her concerning this matter.",
      "23": "She told them:\nThis is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Tell the man who sent you to me that",
      "24": "this is what the Lord says:\nLook! I am bringing disaster on this place and on its inhabitants—all the curses written in the book which they read before the king of Judah—",
      "25": "because they have forsaken me and have burned incense to other gods, provoking me to anger with all the work of their hands. My anger will be poured out on this place. It will not be quenched.",
      "26": "To the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, you will also say this:\nThe Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken the words which you have heard.",
      "27": "But because your heart was receptive, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and because you have humbled yourself before me, have ripped your clothing, and have wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord.",
      "28": "Listen to my response! I will gather you to your fathers. You will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants.\nThey brought back this message to the king.",
      "29": "The king then summoned all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.",
      "30": "The king went up to the House of the Lord with all the men of Judah, with the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the Levites, and all the people from the least to the greatest. In their hearing he read all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the House of the Lord.",
      "31": "The king stood in his place by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to walk in the way of the Lord, to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, and to uphold the words of the covenant that were written in this book.",
      "32": "Then he made all those who were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin stand up and do the same. The inhabitants of Jerusalem acted according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.",
      "33": "Josiah removed all the abominations from all the lands that belonged to the people of Israel. He influenced everyone in Israel to serve the Lord their God. Throughout all his days, they did not turn away from the Lord, the God of their fathers."
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "Josiah celebrated a Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem. They slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month.",
      "2": "He appointed the priests to their offices. He encouraged them in the service for the House of the Lord.",
      "3": "He said this to the Levites, who taught all Israel and who were holy to the Lord:\nKeep the holy ark in the house built by Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel. Do not carry it on your shoulders anymore. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel.",
      "4": "Prepare yourselves according to your divisions, by your fathers’ house, as instructed by David king of Israel and his son Solomon.",
      "5": "Take up your positions in this holy place with a group of Levites assigned to each fathers’ house of your brothers, the people of Israel. Part of a fathers’ house of the Levites is assigned to each group.",
      "6": "Slaughter the Passover lamb. Consecrate yourselves. Prepare it for your brother Israelites according to the word of the Lord through Moses.",
      "7": "Josiah contributed a total of thirty thousand lambs and young goats as Passover offerings for all the people who were present, and three thousand cattle. These were contributed from the possessions of the king.",
      "8": "His officials contributed toward a voluntary offering on behalf of the people, the priests, and the Levites.\nHilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the chief officers of the House of God, gave the priests twenty-six hundred lambs for Passover offerings and three hundred cattle.",
      "9": "Konaniah and his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, with Hashabiah, Jeiel and Jozabad, the officials of the Levites, contributed five thousand Passover lambs and five hundred cattle to the Levites.",
      "10": "When preparations for the service had been completed, the priests stood in their places, and the Levites stood in their divisions as the king had commanded.",
      "11": "They slaughtered the Passover lambs. The priests applied the blood they had received, while the Levites skinned the animals.",
      "12": "They set aside the burnt offerings to present them on behalf of the groups of fathers’ houses of the people, to offer them to the Lord as is written in the Book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle.",
      "13": "They roasted the Passover lamb with fire according to the regulation. They boiled the holy offerings in pots, kettles, and pans. They distributed them quickly to all the people.",
      "14": "Afterward, they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were busy offering the burnt offerings and the fat portions until it was nighttime. So the Levites prepared for themselves and for the priests, the descendants of Aaron.",
      "15": "The singers, the descendants of Asaph, were in their places according to the command of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, the king’s seer.\nThe gatekeepers at each gate did not need to leave their assigned posts because their brother Levites prepared the Passover for them.",
      "16": "So all the service for the Lord was prepared on that day to celebrate the Passover and to offer burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord, according to the command of King Josiah.",
      "17": "The people of Israel who were present celebrated the Passover at that time and also the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days.",
      "18": "No Passover like it had been celebrated in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings of Israel had celebrated such a Passover as Josiah did with the priests and the Levites, and with all Judah and Israel, whoever was present, and with the inhabitants of Jerusalem.",
      "19": "This Passover was celebrated in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah.",
      "20": "After all this, when Josiah had restored the House, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to confront him.",
      "21": "Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What do we have to do with each other, King of Judah? I am not against you this day, but only against the house against which I am waging war. God has said that I should hurry. Stop opposing God, who is with me, so he will not destroy you.”",
      "22": "But Josiah did not turn aside from him. Instead, he disguised himself to fight with him. He did not listen to the words of Neco, which were from the mouth of God, but he went out to battle on the plain near Megiddo.",
      "23": "The archers shot King Josiah, so the king said to his attendants, “Take me away, because I am badly wounded.”",
      "24": "His attendants took him out of the chariot and carried him to his second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem. He died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.",
      "25": "Jeremiah composed a lament for Josiah, and all the male and female singers have sung about Josiah in their laments right up until the present day. They made this into a customary practice in Israel. You can find them recorded among the laments.",
      "26": "The rest of the acts of Josiah and his faithful deeds, which were performed according to what is written in the Law of the Lord,",
      "27": "and his actions from first to last, you can find these written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah."
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "The people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and made him king in Jerusalem in place of his father.",
      "2": "Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned as king in Jerusalem for three months.",
      "3": "The king of Egypt removed him from the kingship in Jerusalem. He also imposed on the land a penalty of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.",
      "4": "The king of Egypt made Eliakim, Jehoahaz’s brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim’s brother, and carried him off to Egypt.",
      "5": "Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king. He ruled as king in Jerusalem for eleven years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God.",
      "6": "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched up against him. He bound him in bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.",
      "7": "Nebuchadnezzar carried off some of the vessels from the House of the Lord to Babylon and put them in his palace in Babylon.",
      "8": "The rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, the abominations which he committed, and the charges that were established against him, you can find written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin ruled as king in his place.",
      "9": "Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king. He reigned as king for three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.",
      "10": "In the spring of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar sent men and had him brought to Babylon, along with the precious vessels of the House of the Lord. He made his uncle Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.",
      "11": "Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned as king in Jerusalem for eleven years.",
      "12": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord.",
      "13": "He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear an oath by God. Zedekiah stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "14": "All the officials of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, by following all the abominations of the nations and polluting the House of the Lord, which he had made holy in Jerusalem.",
      "15": "The Lord, the God of their fathers, persistently sent warnings to them through his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.",
      "16": "But the people kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the anger of the Lord rose up against his people, until there was no remedy.",
      "17": "He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. The Lord gave them all into his hand.",
      "18": "All the articles from the House of God, great and small, and the treasures of the House of the Lord and of the king and his officials—all these he brought to Babylon.",
      "19": "They burned the house of God and tore down the wall of Jerusalem. They burned all its fortified buildings with fire. All its precious articles were destroyed.",
      "20": "He sent those who escaped from the sword into exile in Babylon. They became servants for him and for his sons until Persia took over the kingdom.",
      "21": "To fulfill the word of the Lord that had come by the mouth of Jeremiah, the land completed its sabbath rests. The entire time the land was desolate, it was completing a sabbath rest, which lasted for seventy years.",
      "22": "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord that came by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout his kingdom and put it in writing:",
      "23": "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says.\nThe Lord, the God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He himself has appointed me to build a house for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. From all his people, whoever among you is willing (may the Lord his God be with him) is permitted to go up to Jerusalem."
    }
  },
  "Ezra": {
    "1": {
      "1": "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord given through the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia. Cyrus circulated a proclamation throughout his kingdom and recorded it in a written document.",
      "2": "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:\nThe Lord, the God of Heaven, has given all the kingdoms of the earth to me. He has appointed me to build a house for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.",
      "3": "From all his people, whoever among you is willing (may the Lord his God be with him) is permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah. He may build the House of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.",
      "4": "Any of the exiles who have survived, in any place where they are living as resident aliens, may receive support from the people of that place: silver, gold, goods, and livestock, along with their voluntary contributions for the House of the God who is in Jerusalem.",
      "5": "Then the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, the priests, and the Levites arose—everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to build the House of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem.",
      "6": "All of their neighbors supported them with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, with livestock, and with valuables, in addition to all kinds of voluntary contributions.",
      "7": "King Cyrus also brought out the vessels of the House of the Lord which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and put into the house of his gods.",
      "8": "Now Cyrus king of Persia entrusted them to the treasurer Mithredath, and he counted them out to Sheshbazzar, the leader of Judah.",
      "9": "This is a tally of several different kinds of vessels:gold dishes 30silver dishes 1,000pans 29",
      "10": "gold bowls 30silver bowls of other kinds 410other articles 1,000",
      "11": "The total number of all of the gold and silver vessels was 5,400.\nSheshbazzar brought these things up to Jerusalem along with the exiles who went up to Jerusalem."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Now these are the people of the province who went up from the captivity of the exiles whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had exiled to Babylon.",
      "2": "The people who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Re’elaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Ba’anah returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each man to his own city.\nThis is the tally of the men from the people of Israel:",
      "3": "the male descendants of Parosh: 2,172",
      "4": "the male descendants of Shephatiah: 372",
      "5": "the male descendants of Arah: 775",
      "6": "the male descendants of Pahath Moab through the descendants of Jeshua and Joab: 2,812",
      "7": "the male descendants of Elam: 1,254",
      "8": "the male descendants of Zattu: 945",
      "9": "the male descendants of Zakkai: 760",
      "10": "the male descendants of Bani: 642",
      "11": "the male descendants of Bebai: 623",
      "12": "the male descendants of Azgad: 1,222",
      "13": "the male descendants of Adonikam: 666",
      "14": "the male descendants of Bigvai: 2,056",
      "15": "the male descendants of Adin: 454",
      "16": "the male descendants of Ater through Hezekiah: 98",
      "17": "the male descendants of Bezai: 323",
      "18": "the male descendants of Jorah: 112",
      "19": "the male descendants of Hashum: 223",
      "20": "the male descendants of Gibbar: 95",
      "21": "the citizens of Bethlehem: 123",
      "22": "the men of Netophah: 56",
      "23": "the men of Anathoth: 128",
      "24": "the citizens of Azmaveth: 42",
      "25": "the citizens of Kiriath Arim, Kephirah, and Be’eroth: 743",
      "26": "the citizens of Ramah and Geba: 621",
      "27": "the men of Mikmash: 122",
      "28": "the men of Bethel and Ai: 223",
      "29": "the citizens of Nebo: 52",
      "30": "the citizens of Magbish: 156",
      "31": "the citizens of the other Elam: 1,254",
      "32": "the citizens of Harim: 320",
      "33": "the citizens of Lod, Hadid, and Ono: 725",
      "34": "the citizens of Jericho: 345",
      "35": "the citizens of Sena’ah: 3,630",
      "36": "The priests:the descendants of Jedaiah through the house of Jeshua: 973",
      "37": "the descendants of Immer: 1,052",
      "38": "the descendants of Pashhur: 1,247",
      "39": "the descendants of Harim: 1,017",
      "40": "The Levites:the descendants of Jeshua and Kadmiel through the descendants of Hodaviah: 74",
      "41": "The singers:the descendants of Asaph: 128",
      "42": "The descendants of the gatekeepers:the descendants of Shallum, the descendants of Ater,the descendants of Talmon, the descendants of Akkub,the descendants of Hatita, the descendants of Shobai, in total: 139",
      "43": "The temple servants:\n        the descendants of Ziha, the descendants of Hasupha,\n        the descendants of Tabbaoth,",
      "44": "the descendants of Keros,\n        the descendants of Siaha, the descendants of Padon,",
      "45": "the descendants of Lebanah, the descendants of Hagabah,\n        the descendants of Akkub,",
      "46": "the descendants of Hagab,\n        the descendants of Shamlai, the descendants of Hanan,",
      "47": "the descendants of Giddel, the descendants of Gahar,\n        the descendants of Reaiah,",
      "48": "the descendants of Rezin,\n        the descendants of Nekoda, the descendants of Gazzam,",
      "49": "the descendants of Uzza, the descendants of Paseah,\n        the descendants of Besai,",
      "50": "the descendants of Asnah,\n        the descendants of Meunim, the descendants of Nephusim,",
      "51": "the descendants of Bakbuk, the descendants of Hakupha,\n        the descendants of Harhur,",
      "52": "the descendants of Bazluth,\n        the descendants of Mehida, the descendants of Harsha,",
      "53": "the descendants of Barkos, the descendants of Sisera,\n        the descendants of Temah,",
      "54": "the descendants of Neziah,\n        the descendants of Hatipha.",
      "55": "The descendants of the servants of Solomon:\n        the descendants of Sotai, the descendants of Hassophereth,\n        the descendants of Peruda,",
      "56": "the descendants of Ja’alah,\n        the descendants of Darkon, the descendants of Giddel,",
      "57": "the descendants of Shephatiah, the descendants of Hattil,\n        the descendants of Pokereth Hazzebaim, the descendants of Ami.",
      "58": "The total of the temple servants and the descendants of Solomon’s servants was 392.",
      "59": "The following are the people who came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addan, and Immer. They were not able to prove their ancestry or descent—whether they were from Israel:",
      "60": "the descendants of Delaiah, the descendants of Tobiah,\nthe descendants of Nekoda: 652,",
      "61": "from the descendants of the priests: the descendants of Habaiah, the descendants of Hakkoz, the descendants of Barzillai, through a man who married one of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and so they were called by his family name.",
      "62": "These people searched for their genealogical records, but they could not find them, so they were disqualified from the priesthood.",
      "63": "The governor told them that they should not eat from the most holy sacrifices until a priest would arise who could serve with Urim and Thummim.",
      "64": "The entire assembly together numbered 42,360,",
      "65": "not counting their male slaves and their female slaves, who numbered 7,337. They also had 200 male and female singers.",
      "66": "Their horses numbered 736, their mules 245,",
      "67": "their camels 435, and their donkeys 6,720.",
      "68": "So when the heads of the families came to the House of the Lord in Jerusalem, they gave voluntary contributions for God’s house in order to construct it on its site.",
      "69": "On the basis of their wealth, they gave the following amounts to the treasury to support the work: 61,000 gold darics, 5,000 silver minas, and 100 garments for the priests.",
      "70": "The priests, the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, the temple servants, and some of the people settled in Jerusalem and its towns, and all the rest of Israel settled in their towns."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "When the seventh month arrived and the Israelites were living in their own cities, the people gathered together in Jerusalem.",
      "2": "Then Jeshua son of Jozadak with his fellow priests along with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel with his colleagues arose and built the altar of the God of Israel in order to offer burnt offerings upon it, as it is written in the Law of Moses, the man of God.",
      "3": "They set the altar on its foundations, although they were in terror of the peoples of the lands. They offered burnt offerings to the Lord upon it—burnt offerings in the evening and in the morning.",
      "4": "They observed the Festival of Shelters, according to the written directions, and they offered the daily burnt offerings in the number specified for each day of the festival.",
      "5": "After this, they offered the regular burnt offerings, those for the new moons, those for all the appointed assemblies of the Lord, and the offerings for everyone who was bringing a voluntary contribution to offer to the Lord.",
      "6": "From the first day of the seventh month, they began to offer burnt offerings, although the foundation of the temple of the Lord had not yet been laid.",
      "7": "They gave money to the stonemasons and craftsmen, and they gave food, drink, and olive oil to the Sidonians and Tyrians to pay them for bringing cedar logs from Lebanon to the seaport at Joppa, according to the authorization that had been given to them by Cyrus king of Persia.",
      "8": "In the second year after their arrival at the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, along with the rest of their colleagues, the priests and the Levites, and everyone who returned from the captivity to Jerusalem began the work.\nThey appointed Levites who were twenty years old and older to supervise the work on the house for the Lord.",
      "9": "Jeshua together with his sons and brothers and Kadmiel with his sons (they were descendants of Judah) assumed supervision over those working on the house for God. (The Levites who were descendants of Henadad, along with their sons and brothers, also supervised.)",
      "10": "When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests, dressed in their robes, stood by with trumpets, and the Levites, the descendants of Asaph, stood by with cymbals to praise the Lord as prescribed by David king of Israel.",
      "11": "They sang antiphonally to praise and thank the Lord:\nTruly, he is good, because his mercy toward Israel endures forever.\nAll the people shouted loud praise to the Lord when the foundation of the House of the Lord was laid.",
      "12": "However, when many of the older priests, Levites, and heads of families, who had seen the first house, saw this house being founded, they wept loudly, although many also raised their voices in a shout of joy.",
      "13": "The people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful cry from the sound of the people weeping, because the people were shouting loudly, and the sound could be heard far away."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel,",
      "2": "they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the families. They said to them, “Let us build with you, because, like you, we seek your God, and we have been sacrificing to him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here.”",
      "3": "Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel said to them, “We will not permit you to join us in building a house for our God, because we ourselves will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, just as King Cyrus of Persia commanded us.”",
      "4": "Then the people of the land kept discouraging the people of Judah and kept trying to make them too frightened to build.",
      "5": "They kept bribing officials against them to try to frustrate their plans. They did this throughout all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, until the reign of Darius king of Persia.",
      "6": "During the reign of Xerxes, at the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.",
      "7": "Then in Artaxerxes’ days, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabe’el, and the rest of his associates wrote to King Artaxerxes of Persia. A document was written in Aramaic and translated. What follows is the Aramaic version.",
      "8": "Rehum the head of the council and Shimshai the secretary wrote a letter concerning Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows:",
      "9": "Heading: Rehum the head of the council with Shimshai the secretary and the rest of their associates: the judges, the rulers, the officials, the administrators, people from Uruk and Babylon, people from Susa (that is, the Elamites),",
      "10": "and the rest of the peoples whom the great and glorious Ashurbanipal exiled and settled in the city of Samaria and the rest of the province called Trans-Euphrates.",
      "11": "(This is a copy of the letter that they sent to him.)\nTo King Artaxerxes.\nFrom your servants, men of the Trans-Euphrates.\nMessage:",
      "12": "The King should know that the Judeans who came up from you to us have gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. Soon they will have completed the walls, and they are now repairing the foundations.",
      "13": "Now let it be known to the King that if that city is rebuilt and the walls are completed, then taxes, tribute, and revenue will not be paid, and kings certainly will be harmed.",
      "14": "Now because we are duty-bound by an oath to the King and do not wish to see the King dishonored, for that reason we are sending this letter to inform the King,",
      "15": "so that a search may be made in the book containing the memoranda of your predecessors. In this book of memoranda you will discover and come to know that this city is a rebellious city, harmful to kings and provinces, producing rebellions within it from days of old. For this reason that city was destroyed.",
      "16": "We are informing the King that if that city is rebuilt and its walls are completed, then, because of that, you will retain possession of no portion of the Trans-Euphrates.",
      "17": "The king sent a reply:\nTo Rehum the head of the council, Shimshai the secretary, and the rest of their associates, who live in Samaria and the rest of the province called Trans-Euphrates.\nPeace.\nMessage:",
      "18": "The document that you sent to us was translated and read in my presence.",
      "19": "So a decree was issued by me. They searched and found that from ancient days that city has risen up against kings, and rebellion and insurrection have been made in it.",
      "20": "Powerful kings were over Jerusalem, and they ruled throughout the entire Trans-Euphrates, and taxes, tribute, and revenue were paid to them.",
      "21": "Therefore, issue a decree to stop these men, and this city shall not be rebuilt until a decree is issued by me.",
      "22": "Moreover, continue to be diligent. Do not neglect to do this. Why should damage increase to harm kings?",
      "23": "Then, when a copy of Artaxerxes’ document was read in the presence of Rehum, Shimshai the secretary, and their associates, they immediately went to the Judeans in Jerusalem, and they stopped them with armed force.",
      "24": "In this way, the work on the house of God in Jerusalem was stopped. Also, it had previously been stopped until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah grandson of Iddo, prophesied to the Judeans who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them.",
      "2": "Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak began to build the house of the God who is in Jerusalem. The prophets of God were with them, supporting them.",
      "3": "At that time, Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, together with Shethar Bozenai and their associates, came up to them and said this to them: “Who gave you an order to construct this building and to finish this project?”",
      "4": "They also said this to them: “What are the names of the men who are building this building?”",
      "5": "However, the eye of their God was on the Judean elders, and the officials did not make them stop until the report could go to Darius, and they could respond on the basis of a document concerning this matter.",
      "6": "This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar Bozenai and his associates, officials who are in Trans-Euphrates, sent to King Darius.",
      "7": "They sent him a report, and this is what was written in it:\nTo King Darius.\nAll peace.",
      "8": "We want the King to know that we went to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God. It was being built with large stones, and beams were being laid in the walls. This work was being done thoroughly and was progressing in their hands.",
      "9": "Then we questioned those elders, and we said this to them, “Who gave you an order to build this house and to finish this structure?”",
      "10": "We also asked them for their names, in order to inform you so that we could write the names of the men who were their leaders.",
      "11": "Now this was what they replied to us: “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago. A great king of Israel built it and finished it.",
      "12": "However, because our ancestors angered the God of Heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean. As a result, he destroyed this house and exiled the people to Babylon.",
      "13": "However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God.",
      "14": "Also the gold and silver vessels of the house of God that Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem and brought to the temple in Babylon—King Cyrus brought them out of the temple in Babylon, and they were given to a certain Sheshbazzar, whom he had appointed governor.",
      "15": "Moreover, he said to him, ‘Take these vessels. Go deposit them in the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its site.’",
      "16": "Then that Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of the house of God in Jerusalem. So from then until now, it has been under construction but has not been completed.”",
      "17": "Now if it seems good to the King, an investigation may be conducted in the royal archives there in Babylon to see whether it is true that a decree was issued by King Cyrus to build that house of God in Jerusalem. Then let the King send us his decision in this matter."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Then King Darius issued a decree, and they searched the archives which were deposited there at the treasury office in Babylon.",
      "2": "A scroll was located in Ecbatana, in the citadel that is in the province of Media, and this was written on it:\nMemorandum:",
      "3": "In the first year of King Cyrus, King Cyrus issued a decree regarding the house of God in Jerusalem.\nThat house is to be rebuilt at the place where sacrifices were sacrificed, and its foundations are to be laid. Its height: ninety feet. Its width: ninety feet.",
      "4": "Build with three layers of large stone and one layer of wood. The cost will be paid by the royal treasury.",
      "5": "Also the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple that is in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, are to be returned, and each vessel is to be taken to the temple that is in Jerusalem, each to its place. You are to deposit them in the house of God.",
      "6": "Now Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar Bozenai, and their associates, officials who are in Trans-Euphrates: You are to keep away from there.",
      "7": "Leave the work on that house of God alone. Let the governor of the Judeans and the elders of the Judeans rebuild that house of God on its site.",
      "8": "Furthermore, a decree is issued from me concerning what you should do together with the elders of these Judeans in order to rebuild that temple of God: The complete cost will be paid to these men from the royal treasury, out of the taxes of the Trans-Euphrates area, so that the builders will not have to stop.",
      "9": "Whatever they need—bulls, rams, or lambs for burnt offerings to the God of Heaven, wheat, salt, wine, olive oil, according to the request of the priests in Jerusalem—is to be given to them daily without neglect,",
      "10": "so that they may offer offerings to the God of Heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons.",
      "11": "Furthermore, a decree is issued from me that if any person tries to change this edict, a beam will be pulled out of his house and he will be impaled on it, and his house will be made a pile of rubble.",
      "12": "May the God who caused his name to dwell there overthrow any king or people who take action to change my decree, in order to destroy that house of God that is in Jerusalem.\nI, Darius, have issued a decree. Let it be carried out exactly.",
      "13": "Then Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar Bozenai, and their associates—because King Darius had sent his decree—did exactly what it said.",
      "14": "So the elders of the Judeans continued to build and prosper throughout the prophetic ministry of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah grandson of Iddo. They finished building the temple by the decree of the God of Israel and by the decree of Cyrus, Darius, and King Artaxerxes of Persia.",
      "15": "This house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, during the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.",
      "16": "The Israelites—the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles—dedicated this house of God with joy.",
      "17": "For the dedication of this house of God, they offered one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, as well as twelve male goats for sin offerings for all Israel, corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel.",
      "18": "They appointed the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their assigned groups for the service of the God who is in Jerusalem, as it is written in the Book of Moses.",
      "19": "The exiles celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.",
      "20": "Because the priests and the Levites together had purified themselves, all of them were ceremonially pure. The Levites slaughtered the Passover for all of the exiles, for their brothers the priests, and for themselves.",
      "21": "The Israelites who had returned from the exile ate the Passover lambs, together with every person who had separated himself from the impurity of the nations of the land in order to join them, in order to seek the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "22": "For seven days they celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread joyfully, because the Lord had made them joyful, since he had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, to encourage them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "After these things, during the reign of King Artaxerxes of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah,",
      "2": "the son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub,",
      "3": "the son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth,",
      "4": "the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukki,",
      "5": "the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the high priest—",
      "6": "this Ezra came up from Babylon.\nNow he was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given to them. The king granted him his entire request, because the hand of the Lord his God was resting upon him.",
      "7": "Some of the Israelites and some of the priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and temple servants went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes.",
      "8": "Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month (it was during the king’s seventh year).",
      "9": "On the first day of the first month, he began the ascent from Babylon. On the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem. The good hand of his God was resting upon him,",
      "10": "because Ezra had set his heart to seek the Law of the Lord and to obey it, and to teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel.",
      "11": "This is a copy of the document that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest and scribe, who was a scribe of the words of the commands of the Lord and of his statutes for Israel:",
      "12": "From Artaxerxes, King of Kings.\nTo Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of Heaven, etc.\nHere is the message:",
      "13": "A decree has been issued by me that anyone from among the people of Israel who is living in my kingdom who is willing to go to Jerusalem with you, including its priests and Levites, may go.",
      "14": "Since you are being sent from the king and his seven advisors to look after Judah and Jerusalem on the basis of the Law of your God, which is in your possession,",
      "15": "you may take along the silver and gold that the king and his advisors have voluntarily contributed to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem,",
      "16": "and you may also take along all the silver and gold that you collect throughout the province of Babylon as voluntary contributions from the people and the priests, which they are freely giving to the house of their God that is in Jerusalem.",
      "17": "Therefore, you are to be careful to use this money to purchase bulls, rams, lambs, and the grain offerings and drink offerings that go with them. You are to offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem.",
      "18": "Whatever seems good to you and to your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, you may do according to the will of your God.",
      "19": "Also the vessels that have been given to you for the service of the house of your God, you are to deliver to the God of Jerusalem.",
      "20": "As for the rest of the needs of the house of your God which you are responsible to pay, you may pay for them from the royal treasury.",
      "21": "From me—I, King Artaxerxes—a decree is issued to all the treasurers who are in the Trans-Euphrates region: Everything that Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of Heaven, asks from you is to be done exactly as specified.",
      "22": "Give him up to one hundred talents of silver, up to six hundred bushels of wheat, up to six hundred gallons of wine, up to six hundred gallons of olive oil, and salt without limit—",
      "23": "everything that is decreed by the God of Heaven shall be done correctly for the house of the God of Heaven. Why should there be anger against the kingdom of the king and his sons?",
      "24": "We are informing you concerning all of the priests and Levites, singers, gatekeepers, temple servants, and other servants of this house of God—taxes, tribute, and revenue shall not be imposed on them.",
      "25": "Now you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that you possess, are to appoint magistrates and judges who will judge all the people in the Trans-Euphrates region who know the laws of your God. If anyone does not know them, you will inform him about God’s laws.",
      "26": "Severe judgment will be imposed on everyone who does not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, whether death or banishment or fine or imprisonment.",
      "27": "Blessed be the Lord, the God of my fathers, who put this desire into the heart of the king—to glorify the House of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem!",
      "28": "He extended favor to me before the king, his advisors, and all of the king’s powerful officers. I was encouraged, since the hand of the Lord my God was resting on me. So I gathered the leaders of Israel to go up with me."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "These are the heads of their families who went up with me from Babylon during the reign of King Artaxerxes, listed according to their registration in the genealogy:",
      "2": "from the descendants of Phinehas: Gershom,\n    from the descendants of Ithamar: Daniel,\n    from the descendants of David: Hattush",
      "3": "from the sons of Shekaniah,\n    from the descendants of Parosh: Zechariah, also registered with him in the genealogy were 150 males,",
      "4": "from the descendants of Pahath Moab: Elihoenai son of Zerahiah, and with him were 200 males,",
      "5": "from the descendants of Zattu: Shekaniah son of Jahaziel, and with him were 300 males,",
      "6": "and from the descendants of Adin: Ebed son of Jonathan, and with him were 50 males,",
      "7": "and from the descendants of Elam: Jeshaiah son of Athaliah, and with him were 70 males,",
      "8": "and from the descendants of Shephatiah: Zebadiah son of Michael, and with him were 80 males,",
      "9": "from the descendants of Joab: Obadiah son of Jehiel, and with him were 218 males,",
      "10": "and from the descendants of Bani: Shelomith son of Josiphiah, and with him were 160 males,",
      "11": "and from the descendants of Bebai: Zechariah son of Bebai, and with him were 28 males,",
      "12": "and from the descendants of Azgad: Jonathan son of Hakkatan, and with him were 110 males,",
      "13": "and from the descendants of Adonikam—they were the last descendants—these are their names: Eliphelet, Jeiel, and Shemaiah, and with them were 60 males,",
      "14": "and from the descendants of Bigvai: Uthai and Zakkur, and with him were 70 males.",
      "15": "So I gathered them together at the canal that runs to Ahava, and we camped there three days. I looked over the people and the priests who were there, but I did not find any Levites among them.",
      "16": "So I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, who were leaders, and for Joiarib and Elnathan, who were teachers.",
      "17": "I sent them to Iddo, the leader serving in the place called Kasiphia, and I gave them a message to speak to Iddo and his brothers, the temple servants in the place called Kasiphia, so that they would bring us ministers for the house of our God.",
      "18": "So, since the good hand of our God was resting upon us, they brought us the following people: Sherebiah, a discerning man from the descendants of Mahli, the son of Levi, the son of Israel, along with his sons and his brothers, eighteen men;",
      "19": "also Hashabiah and with him Jeshaiah from the descendants of Merari and his brothers and their sons, twenty men;",
      "20": "and from the temple servants whom David and the leaders appointed to the service of the Levites, two hundred twenty temple servants. All of them were registered by name.",
      "21": "Then I proclaimed a fast there at the Ahava Canal in order to humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey—for us, for our children, and for all our possessions.",
      "22": "I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and cavalry to help protect us against enemies on the journey, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God rests upon all who seek him, for their good, but his power and anger are against all who forsake him.”",
      "23": "So we fasted and we sought help from our God concerning this, and he granted our request.",
      "24": "Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests to be with Sherebiah and Hashabiah and ten of their brothers with them.",
      "25": "I weighed out for them the silver and the gold and the vessels—the special contribution for the house of our God, which had been contributed by the king and his advisors and officials and by all the Israelites who were present there.",
      "26": "I weighed out and placed into their hands six hundred fifty talents of silver, silver vessels worth one hundred talents, one hundred talents of gold,",
      "27": "and twenty gold bowls worth one thousand darics, and two finely polished bronze vessels, as precious as gold.",
      "28": "Then I said to them, “You are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy. The silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord, the God of our fathers.",
      "29": "Guard them carefully until you weigh them again in front of the leaders of the priests and Levites and the leaders of the families of Israel in Jerusalem, before placing them into the storerooms of the House of the Lord.”",
      "30": "So the priests and the Levites received the full weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels in order to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God.",
      "31": "Then, on the twelfth day of the first month, we set out from the Ahava Canal to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of enemies and from ambushes on the way.",
      "32": "We arrived in Jerusalem and stayed there three days.",
      "33": "Then on the fourth day, in the house of our God we weighed out the silver and gold and the vessels before handing them over to Meremoth son of Uriah the priest. Also with him was Eleazar son of Phinehas, and with them were Jozabad son of Jeshua and Noadiah son of Binnui, the Levites.",
      "34": "Everything was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded at that time.",
      "35": "The exiles who had come from the captivity offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel: twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and twelve goats for a sin offering—all offered as a burnt offering to the Lord.",
      "36": "They also delivered the king’s laws to the king’s satraps and the governors of Trans-Euphrates, and they supported the people and the house of God."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Now when these things had been completed, the leaders approached me and said, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, who live according to their detestable practices—the practices of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites.",
      "2": "They have taken wives from their daughters for themselves and for their sons. They have thereby mixed the holy seed with the peoples of the lands, and the leaders and officials have taken the lead in this unfaithfulness!”",
      "3": "Then when I heard about this situation, I tore my clothing and my robe, and I pulled out some of the hair on my head and my beard and sat down appalled.",
      "4": "Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles, was gathered around me as I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.",
      "5": "At the time of the evening sacrifice, I arose from my self-humiliation, and with my clothing and my robe torn, I got down on my knees and stretched out my hands to the Lord my God.",
      "6": "I said:\nMy God, I am ashamed and too embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God, because our sinful deeds have risen above our heads, and our guilt is so great that it reaches to the heavens.",
      "7": "From the days of our ancestors until today, we have been extremely guilty. Because of our sinful deeds, we, our kings, and our priests have been turned over to the kings of the lands—by sword, by captivity, by plunder, and today by humiliation.",
      "8": "Now, for a short time, mercy has been shown to us from the Lord our God, in order to leave us a remnant that has escaped and to give us a stake in his Holy Place, so that our God may give light to our eyes and give us a little relief in our slavery,",
      "9": "because we are slaves. However, even in our slavery our God has not abandoned us but has extended favor to us before the kings of Persia in order to give us relief, to raise up the house of our God and to restore its ruins, and to give us a protective wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.",
      "10": "Now, what can we say after this, our God? For we have forsaken your commandments,",
      "11": "which you commanded through your servants the prophets when you said, “The land which you are entering to possess is a land polluted with the filth of the peoples of the lands and with their detestable practices that fill it from end to end with their impurity.",
      "12": "So now, do not give your daughters to their sons, and do not take their daughters as wives for your sons. Never seek their welfare or their prosperity, so that you may be strong and may eat the good things of the land and leave it as an inheritance for your children forever.”",
      "13": "After everything that has come upon us because of our evil acts and our extreme guilt, nevertheless you, our God, have punished us less than we deserved and have given us a remnant that has escaped like this.",
      "14": "Should we break your commandments again by intermarrying with the peoples who commit these detestable practices? Wouldn’t you remain angry with us until you completely destroyed us and left us without a survivor or a remnant that has escaped?",
      "15": "Lord, God of Israel, it is because you are righteous that we are left with a remnant today. Here we are before you in our guilt, but no one can stand before you because of this."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Now as Ezra prayed and confessed, weeping and throwing himself down in front of the house of God, a very large crowd from Israel gathered to him, including men, women, and children. The people also wept bitterly.",
      "2": "Then Shekaniah son of Jehiel from the descendants of Elam responded to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign wives from the peoples of the land. However, now there is hope for Israel in this matter.",
      "3": "So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all our wives and the children born to them, according to the advice of my lord and of those who tremble at the command of our God. Let it be done according to the law.",
      "4": "Get up, because the matter is your concern, and we are with you. Be strong and take action.”",
      "5": "Then Ezra got up and required the officials among the priests, the Levites, and all Israel to take an oath that they would deal with this matter. So they took an oath.",
      "6": "Then Ezra got up and left the front of the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan son of Eliashib and spent the night there. He did not eat any food or drink any water, because he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.",
      "7": "Then a proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem for all the exiles to gather in Jerusalem.",
      "8": "According to the decision of the officials and the elders, anyone who would not come within three days would forfeit all his property, and he would be banished from the community of the exiles.",
      "9": "So all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered in Jerusalem within three days. (It was in the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month.) All the people were sitting in the public square in front of the house of God, trembling because of the situation and as a result of the rains.",
      "10": "Ezra the priest arose and said to them, “You have been unfaithful and have married foreign wives, thereby adding to the guilt of Israel.",
      "11": "So now, give praise to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his will—separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from your foreign wives.”",
      "12": "The entire assembly answered in a loud voice, “It is so! We must do as you have said.",
      "13": "However, there are many people, and it is the rainy season. We can’t stand around outdoors, and the business will take more than a day or two, since we have rebelled greatly in this matter.",
      "14": "Let our officers represent the entire assembly, and let everyone in our cities who has married foreign wives come at appointed times. The elders from every city and its judges should come with them, until the fierce anger of our God concerning this matter has been turned away from us.”",
      "15": "(Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah opposed this, and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite supported them.)",
      "16": "So the exiles acted according to this decision. Ezra the priest and men who were the leading fathers of the fathers’ houses were selected, all of them identified by name. They convened on the first day of the tenth month to investigate the matter.",
      "17": "On the first day of the first month, they finished dealing with all the men who had married foreign wives.",
      "18": "From the descendants of the priests who had married foreign wives,\nthese men were identified:\nFrom the descendants of Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers they were Ma’aseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah.",
      "19": "They pledged to send away their wives and to offer guilt offerings: a ram from the flock for their guilt.",
      "20": "From the descendants of Immer they were Hanani and Zebadiah.",
      "21": "From the descendants of Harim they were Ma’aseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel, and Uzziah.",
      "22": "From the descendants of Pashhur they were Elioenai, Ma’aseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad, and Elasah.",
      "23": "From the Levites they identified Jozabad and Shimei and Kelaiah (that is, Kelita), Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer.",
      "24": "From the singers: Eliashib.\n    From the gatekeepers: Shallum, Telem, and Uri.",
      "25": "From the laypeople of Israel:\n    From the descendants of Parosh they were Ramiah, Izziah, Malkijah, Mijamin, Eleazar, Malkijah, and Benaiah.",
      "26": "From the descendants of Elam they were Mattaniah, Zechariah, Jehiel, Abdi, Jeremoth, and Elijah.",
      "27": "From the descendants of Zattu they were Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Jeremoth, Zabad, and Aziza.",
      "28": "From the descendants of Bebai they were Jehohanan, Hananiah, Zabbai, and Athlai.",
      "29": "From the descendants of Bani they were Meshullam, Malluk, and Adaiah, Jashub and Sheal and Jeremoth.",
      "30": "From the descendants of Pahath Moab they were Adna and Kelal,\nBenaiah, Ma’aseiah, Mattaniah, Bezalel, and Binnui and Manasseh,",
      "31": "and from the citizens of Harim they were Eliezer, Isshijah, Malkijah, Shemaiah, Simeon,",
      "32": "Benjamin, Malluk, and Shemariah.",
      "33": "From the descendants of Hashum they were Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, and Shimei.",
      "34": "From the descendants of Bani they were Ma’adai, Amram, and Uel,",
      "35": "Benaiah, Bedeiah, Keluhu,",
      "36": "Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib,",
      "37": "Mattaniah, Mattenai, and Ja’asai,",
      "38": "and Bani and Binnui, Shimei,",
      "39": "and Shelemiah and Nathan and Adaiah,",
      "40": "Maknadebai, Shashai, Sharai,",
      "41": "Azarel, and Shelemiah, Shemariah,",
      "42": "Shallum, Amariah, Joseph.",
      "43": "From the citizens of Nebo they were Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Jaddai, Joel, and Benaiah.",
      "44": "All these had taken foreign wives and had children with them."
    }
  },
  "Nehemiah": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The words of Nehemiah son of Hakaliah.\nIn the month of Kislev of the twentieth year, I was in Susa, the citadel.",
      "2": "Hanani, one of my brothers, came to me with men from Judah. I asked them about the remnant of the Jews, who had survived the captivity and had escaped from it, and about Jerusalem.",
      "3": "They said to me, “The survivors from the captivity who are there in the province are in great misery and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned.”",
      "4": "When I heard about these things, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of Heaven.",
      "5": "I said:\nPlease, Lord, the God of Heaven, the great and awe-inspiring God, who preserves the covenant and faithfulness for those who love him and keep his commands:",
      "6": "Let your ear be attentive and your eyes be open as you hear the prayer of your servant today, which I am now praying before you day and night, concerning the Israelites, who are your servants. I am also confessing the sins of the people of Israel that we committed against you. I and my father’s house have also sinned.",
      "7": "We have acted very corruptly against you, and we have not kept the commands, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances that you commanded Moses your servant.",
      "8": "Please remember the command you gave to Moses your servant when you said, “If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.",
      "9": "But when you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, even if you have been scattered to the end of heaven, from there I will gather them, and I will bring them to the place where I have chosen to make my name dwell.”",
      "10": "They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed with your great power and your mighty hand.",
      "11": "Please, my Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayers of your servants who are delighted to revere your name. Make your servant successful today, and give him mercy in this man’s presence.\nI was cupbearer to the king."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, wine was being served to the king, and I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence,",
      "2": "so the king said to me, “Why do you look sad, since you are not sick? This must be sadness in your heart.”\nThen I was very much afraid.",
      "3": "I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why shouldn’t I look sad when the city, the place of my ancestors’ tombs, lies in ruins, and its gates have been consumed by fire?”",
      "4": "Then the king said to me, “What do you want?”\nSo I prayed to the God of Heaven,",
      "5": "and I said to the king, “If it seems good to the king, and if you look upon your servant with favor, then send me to Judah, to the city where my ancestors’ tombs are, and let me rebuild it.”",
      "6": "The king said to me, while the queen was sitting next to him, “How long will your journey be and when will you return?”\nThe king was pleased to send me, so I gave him a definite time.",
      "7": "I also said to the king, “If it seems good to the king, please give me letters for the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will grant me safe passage through that province until I come to Judah,",
      "8": "also a letter to Asaph, superintendent of the king’s forest, so that he will give me lumber to lay beams for the gates of the citadel of the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy.” The king gave them to me, because the good hand of my God was upon me.",
      "9": "Then I came to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, and I gave them the king’s letters. The king had sent army officers and cavalry with me.",
      "10": "When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very upset that a man had come to seek the welfare of the Israelites.",
      "11": "So I arrived at Jerusalem and was there for three days.",
      "12": "At that time I got up in the middle of the night with a few men. I had not told anyone what God had placed into my heart to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal with me except the animal on which I was riding.",
      "13": "At night I went out through the Valley Gate and went toward the vicinity of the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate. I began inspecting the walls of Jerusalem, which had been breached, and its gates, which had been consumed by fire.",
      "14": "Then I crossed over to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no place for the animal that I was riding to get through.",
      "15": "So I kept going up the valley and inspecting the wall during the night. Then I turned around and went back the same way and came in through the Valley Gate.",
      "16": "The officials did not know where I had gone and what I was doing. I had not yet told the Jews—the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the rest of the people who would be doing the work.",
      "17": "So I said to them, “You see the very bad situation we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned. Come, let’s rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be disgraced.”",
      "18": "Then I told them that the hand of my God had been good to me, and I also told them the words the king had said to me.\nThey said, “Let’s get up and rebuild!” Then they encouraged each other for this good work.",
      "19": "When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they ridiculed us and held us in contempt. They said, “What are you doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”",
      "20": "I responded to them by saying, “The God of Heaven will make us successful. We, his servants, will rise up and rebuild. But you have no portion or right or heritage in Jerusalem.”"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "The high priest Eliashib and his fellow priests began to work, and they rebuilt the Sheep Gate. They consecrated it and installed its doors. They rebuilt the wall as far as the Tower of the Hundred. They consecrated it as far as the Tower of Hananel.",
      "2": "Next to him the men of Jericho rebuilt the wall.\nNext to them Zakkur son of Imri rebuilt the wall.",
      "3": "The citizens of Sena’ah rebuilt the Fish Gate. They laid its beams and hung its doors with their bolts and their bars.",
      "4": "Next to them Meremoth the son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, repaired the wall.\nNext to him Meshullam the son of Berekiah, the son of Meshezabel, repaired the wall.\nNext to him Zadok son of Ba’ana repaired the wall.",
      "5": "Next to him the men of Tekoa repaired the wall. However, their important people would not humble themselves in service to their lord.",
      "6": "Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah repaired the Old Gate. They laid its beams and installed its doors with their bolts and their bars.",
      "7": "Next to them Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite repaired the wall with the men from Gibeon and Mizpah, who lived under the jurisdiction of the governor of Trans-Euphrates.",
      "8": "Next to them Uzziel son of Harhaiah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired the wall.\nNext to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, repaired the wall. (However, they abandoned the part of Jerusalem that had been enclosed by the Broad Wall.)",
      "9": "Next to him Rephaiah son of Hur, administrator of half of the district of Jerusalem, repaired the wall.",
      "10": "Next to him Jedaiah son of Harumaph repaired the wall opposite his house.\nNext to him Hattush son of Hashabeneiah repaired the wall.",
      "11": "Malkijah son of Harim and Hasshub son of Pahath Moab repaired a second section of the wall, including the Tower of the Ovens.",
      "12": "Next to them Shallum son of Hallohesh, administrator of half of the district of Jerusalem—he and his daughters—repaired the wall.",
      "13": "Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They rebuilt it and installed its doors with their bolts and their bars, and they repaired fifteen hundred feet of the wall as far as the Dung Gate.",
      "14": "Also, Malkijah son of Recab, administrator of the district of Beth Hakkerem, repaired the Dung Gate. He rebuilt it and installed its doors with their bolts and their bars.",
      "15": "Also, Shallun son of Kol Hozeh, administrator of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain Gate. He rebuilt it and roofed it and installed its doors with their bolts and their bars. He also repaired the wall of the Pool of Shelah for the King’s Garden, as far as the steps that go down from the City of David.",
      "16": "Beyond him Nehemiah son of Azbuk, administrator of half the district of Beth Zur, repaired the wall up to a point opposite the tombs of David, as far as the Artificial Pool and as far as the House of the Warriors.",
      "17": "Beyond him the Levites repaired the wall: Rehum son of Bani and next to him Hashabiah, administrator of half of the district of Keilah, repaired the wall for his district.",
      "18": "Beyond them their relatives repaired the wall: Binnui son of Henadad, administrator of half the district of Keilah.",
      "19": "Next to him Ezer son of Jeshua, mayor of Mizpah, repaired a second section of the wall opposite the Ascent of the Armory at the Angle.",
      "20": "Beyond him Baruch son of Zabbai zealously repaired a second section of the wall from the Angle to the door of the house of the high priest Eliashib.",
      "21": "Beyond him Meremoth the son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, repaired a second section of the wall from the door of Eliashib’s house to the end of Eliashib’s house.",
      "22": "And beyond him, the priests, the men of the surrounding area, repaired the wall.",
      "23": "Beyond them Benjamin and Hasshub repaired the wall opposite their house.\nBeyond them Azariah the son of Ma’aseiah, the son of Ananiah, repaired the wall beside his house.",
      "24": "Beyond him Binnui son of Henadad repaired a second section of the wall from the house of Azariah to the Angle, that is, to the Corner.",
      "25": "Palal son of Uzai repaired the wall from opposite the Angle and the tower that projects from the king’s upper house, which belongs to the Courtyard of the Guard.\nBeyond him Pedaiah son of Parosh",
      "26": "and the temple servants who were living on the Ophel Hill repaired the wall as far as the Water Gate toward the east and the Projecting Tower.",
      "27": "Beyond them the men of Tekoa repaired a second length of the wall from opposite the large Projecting Tower to the Ophel Wall.",
      "28": "Above the Horse Gate the priests repaired the wall. Each man repaired the part opposite his own house.",
      "29": "Beyond them Zadok son of Immer repaired the wall opposite his own house.\nAnd beyond him Shemaiah son of Shekaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, repaired the wall.",
      "30": "Beyond him Hananiah son of Shelemiah and Hanun, the sixth son of Zalaph, repaired a second section of the wall. After him Meshullam son of Berekiah repaired the wall opposite his chamber.",
      "31": "Beyond him Malkijah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired the wall up to the building of the temple servants and the merchants, opposite the Inspection Gate and to the Upper Room at the Corner.",
      "32": "Between the Upper Room at the Corner and the Sheep Gate, the goldsmiths and the merchants repaired the wall."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, it infuriated him, and he became very angry. He ridiculed the Jews",
      "2": "and said in front of his allies and the army of Samaria, “What are those pathetic Jews doing? Will they restore it by themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish in one day? Will they refurbish the stones that came from the piles of rubble that have been burned?”",
      "3": "Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him. He said, “Whatever they are building, if even a fox climbed on it, it would break apart the wall made from their stones.”",
      "4": "Listen, O our God, because we are an object of contempt. Turn their ridicule back on their own heads. Hand them over as plunder in a land of captivity.",
      "5": "Do not cover over their guilt, and may their sin not be blotted out before you, because they have provoked your anger in the presence of the builders.",
      "6": "So we built the wall, and the entire wall was completed, up to half its height, because the people were determined to do it.",
      "7": "Now when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the people of Ashdod heard that the repair of Jerusalem’s walls had progressed and the breaches had begun to be filled, they were infuriated.",
      "8": "So all of them conspired to come to attack Jerusalem and to throw it into confusion.",
      "9": "However, we prayed to our God, and because of the enemies, we posted a guard over the builders day and night.",
      "10": "Then the people of Judah said, “The strength of those bearing the burden is failing. There is so much rubble. We will not be able to build the wall!”",
      "11": "Then our adversaries said, “They will not know about it or realize what we are doing, until we come among them and kill them and bring the work to a halt.”",
      "12": "When the Jews who lived near them came, they repeatedly told us, “No matter which way you turn, they will be upon us.”",
      "13": "So I stationed people behind the wall at the lowest places, at its open spots. I stationed the people by clans with their swords, spears, and bows.",
      "14": "Then I looked and got up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and fearsome. So fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”",
      "15": "When our enemies heard that their plan was known to us and that God had frustrated their strategy, all of us returned to the wall, each man to his own work.",
      "16": "From that day on, half of the young men who were serving under me were doing the work, and half of them were holding shields, spears, and bows and wearing armor. The officers were stationed behind the whole house of Judah.",
      "17": "The people who were building the wall and those who were carrying the materials for building were doing their work with one hand, while the other hand held a weapon.",
      "18": "As they built, the builders were armed, each man with his sword on his hip. The man who sounded the ram’s horn was next to me.",
      "19": "Then I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “There is a lot of work, and it is spread out, and we are separated along the wall—all the people are far away from each other.",
      "20": "Wherever you hear the sound of the ram’s horn, gather with us at that spot. Our God will fight for us.”",
      "21": "So we continued to work with half of the people holding spears, from the crack of dawn until the stars came out.",
      "22": "Also at that time I said to the people, “Let every man and his servant spend the night in Jerusalem. They will serve as a guard for us at night, and in the daytime they will work.”",
      "23": "Neither I nor my brothers nor my servants nor the men of the guard who were behind me—none of us took off our clothes. Each man had his weapon in his hand, even when getting a drink of water."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Now there was a great outcry by the people and their wives against their fellow Jews.",
      "2": "There were those who were saying, “We and our sons and our daughters are many! We need to acquire grain so that we can eat and stay alive.”",
      "3": "There were others who were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, vineyards, and houses so that we can acquire grain during the famine.”",
      "4": "There were others who were saying, “We borrowed money to pay the royal tax on our fields and vineyards.",
      "5": "Although our flesh is the same as the flesh of our countrymen, and our children are as good as their children, we must subject our sons and our daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we have no power to prevent it, since our fields and vineyards belong to others.”",
      "6": "It infuriated me when I heard their outcry and these words.",
      "7": "My heart guided me, and I accused the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “Each of you is loaning money at interest to his brother Israelite.”\nI called for a large meeting to deal with them.",
      "8": "I said to them, “As much as possible, we have bought back our fellow Judeans who have been sold to the Gentiles, and yet, you sell your countrymen so that they can be resold to us!” They were silent and could not find a word to say.",
      "9": "So I said, “What you are doing is not good. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God because of the ridicule from the Gentiles, who are our enemies?",
      "10": "In addition, I, my brothers, and my servants are lending them money and grain. I urge you. Let’s abandon the practice of charging this interest.",
      "11": "I urge you. Today give them back their fields, their vineyards, their olive trees, their homes, and the money they were charged as interest, also the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil for which you have been charging them.”",
      "12": "They said, “We will give it back, and we will not seek anything else from them. In this way we will do what you say.”\nSo I called the priests and made them swear to act according to this promise.",
      "13": "I also shook out the folds of my garment and said, “In this way may God shake out from his home and from his property every man who does not keep this promise. May he be shaken out and emptied in this way.”\nThe entire assembly said, “Amen,” and they praised the Lord. Then the people kept this promise.",
      "14": "In addition, from the day that he appointed me to be the governor of the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes—twelve years—I and my brothers did not eat the governor’s food allowance.",
      "15": "However, the previous governors who served before me had placed a heavy burden on the people. They took food and wine from them—valued at forty silver shekels. Even the lower officials lorded over the people. But because of the fear of God, I did not do this.",
      "16": "In addition, I dedicated myself to the work on this wall (although we had acquired no land), and all of my servants were gathered there for the work.",
      "17": "Moreover, at my table there were one hundred fifty Judeans and officials, and others who came to us from the nations around us.",
      "18": "Whatever was prepared for each day was at my expense: one ox, six choice sheep, and some birds, and every ten days plenty of every kind of wine. But even with this, I still did not requisition the governor’s food allowance, because the required service weighed heavily on this people.",
      "19": "Remember me, my God, for good, considering all that I have done for this people."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "When it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and there was no breach left in it (although at that time I had not installed doors in the gates),",
      "2": "Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me: “Come, let’s meet together in Kephirim in the Plain of Ono.” (However, they were planning to harm me.)",
      "3": "So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am working on an important project, and I am not able to come down. Why should the project stop while I leave it and come down to you?”",
      "4": "They sent messages like this to me four times, and I answered them that same way each time.",
      "5": "Then Sanballat sent his servant to me with a message like this for a fifth time, with an open letter in his hand.",
      "6": "In it was written, “It is rumored among the nations, and Gashmu also says that you and the Jews are planning to rebel. This is the reason you are building the wall. According to these reports, you will be their king.",
      "7": "You have also set up prophets to make a proclamation about you in Jerusalem: ‘A king is in Judah.’ Now reports like these will be heard by the king. So now come, let us consult with one another.”",
      "8": "So I sent a reply to him: “These things that you are saying have not been done, since you are simply making them up.”",
      "9": "So all of them were trying to intimidate us, thinking, “Their hands will grow weary of the work, and it will not be finished.”\nSo now, strengthen my hands!",
      "10": "Then I came to the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel. (He was restricted.) He said, “Let’s meet at the house of God in the middle of the temple. Let’s close the doors of the temple, since they are coming to kill you—at night they are coming to kill you.”",
      "11": "I said, “Should a man like me flee? Should someone like me go to the temple to save my life? I won’t go!”",
      "12": "I realized that God had not sent him, but he had spoken the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.",
      "13": "For this purpose he was hired—to make me afraid so that I would do this and sin. Then they would have given me a bad reputation, so that they could discredit me.",
      "14": "My God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat in light of these actions and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who were trying to intimidate me.",
      "15": "So the wall was finished in fifty-two days, on the twenty-fifth of Elul.",
      "16": "As all our enemies heard about it, all the nations that were around us became afraid and lost their confidence. They knew that this work had been accomplished by our God.",
      "17": "Furthermore, in those days the nobles of Judah were sending many letters to Tobiah, and letters from Tobiah were coming to them,",
      "18": "because many in Judah were bound to him by oath because he was the son-in-law of Shekaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah.",
      "19": "They were also talking about his good deeds in my presence, and they were reporting my words to him. Tobiah was sending letters to try to intimidate me."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "When the wall had been built and I had installed the doors, and when the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed,",
      "2": "I placed my brother Hanani along with Hananiah, the commander of the citadel, in charge of Jerusalem, because he was a trustworthy man and feared God more than many.",
      "3": "I said to them, “The gates of Jerusalem should not be left open until the heat of the day, but while the guards are still on duty, they are to shut the doors and secure them. Appoint guards from the residents of Jerusalem, some at their guard posts and some in front of their houses.”",
      "4": "Now the city was wide open and spacious, but there were few people in it, and no houses were being built.",
      "5": "So my God placed into my heart a plan to gather the nobles, the officials, and the people so they could be enrolled by genealogy. I found the genealogical record of those who were the first to come up from Babylon. I found this written in it:",
      "6": "These are the people of the province who went up from the captivity of the exiles, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had exiled. They returned to Jerusalem and to Judah, each man to his city.",
      "7": "These were the people who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Ra’amiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, and Ba’anah.\nThis was the number of men from the people of Israel:",
      "8": "the male descendants of Parosh: 2,172",
      "9": "the male descendants of Shephatiah: 372",
      "10": "the male descendants of Arah: 652",
      "11": "the male descendants of Pahath Moab through the descendants of Jeshua and Joab: 2,818",
      "12": "the male descendants of Elam: 1,254",
      "13": "the male descendants of Zattu: 845",
      "14": "the male descendants of Zakkai: 760",
      "15": "the male descendants of Binnui: 648",
      "16": "the male descendants of Bebai: 628",
      "17": "the male descendants of Azgad: 2,322",
      "18": "the male descendants of Adonikam: 667",
      "19": "the male descendants of Bigvai: 2,067",
      "20": "the male descendants of Adin: 655",
      "21": "the male descendants of Ater through Hezekiah: 98",
      "22": "the male descendants of Hashum: 328",
      "23": "the male descendants of Bezai: 324",
      "24": "the male descendants of Hariph: 112",
      "25": "the citizens of Gibeon: 95",
      "26": "the men of Bethlehem and Netophah: 188",
      "27": "the men of Anathoth: 128",
      "28": "the men of Beth Azmaveth: 42",
      "29": "the men of Kiriath Jearim, Kephirah, and Be’eroth: 743",
      "30": "the men of Ramah and Geba: 621",
      "31": "the men of Mikmash: 122",
      "32": "the men of Bethel and Ai: 123",
      "33": "the men of the other Nebo: 52",
      "34": "the citizens of the other Elam: 1,254",
      "35": "the citizens of Harim: 320",
      "36": "the citizens of Jericho: 345",
      "37": "the citizens of Lod, Hadid, and Ono: 721",
      "38": "the citizens of Sena’ah: 3,930",
      "39": "The priests: the descendants of Jedaiah through the house of Jeshua:973",
      "40": "the descendants of Immer:1,052",
      "41": "the descendants of Pashhur:1,247",
      "42": "the descendants of Harim:1,017",
      "43": "The Levites:\n        the descendants of Jeshua through Kadmiel through the descendants of Hodaviah: 74",
      "44": "the singers from the descendants of Asaph: 148",
      "45": "the gatekeepers from the descendants of Shallum, the descendants of Ater, the descendants of Talmon, the descendants of Akkub, the descendants of Hatita, and the descendants of Shobai: 138.",
      "46": "The temple servants:\n        the descendants of Ziha, the descendants of Hasupha,\n        the descendants of Tabbaoth,",
      "47": "the descendants of Keros,\n        the descendants of Sia, the descendants of Padon,",
      "48": "the descendants of Lebanah, the descendants of Hagabah,\n        the descendants of Shalmai,",
      "49": "the descendants of Hanan,\n        the descendants of Giddel, the descendants of Gahar,",
      "50": "the descendants of Reaiah, the descendants of Rezin,\n        the descendants of Nekoda,",
      "51": "the descendants of Gazzam,\n        the descendants of Uzza, the descendants of Paseah,",
      "52": "the descendants of Besai, the descendants of Meunim,\n        the descendants of Nephisim,",
      "53": "the descendants of Bakbuk,\n        the descendants of Hakupha, the descendants of Harhur,",
      "54": "the descendants of Bazlith, the descendants of Mehida,\n        the descendants of Harsha,",
      "55": "the descendants of Barkos,\n        the descendants of Sisera, the descendants of Temah,",
      "56": "the descendants of Neziah, and the descendants of Hatipha.",
      "57": "The descendants of the servants of Solomon:\n        the descendants of Sotai, the descendants of Sophereth,\n        the descendants of Perida,",
      "58": "the descendents of Ja’alah,\n        the descendants of Darkon, the descendants of Giddel,",
      "59": "the descendants of Shephatiah, the descendants of Hattil,\n        the descendants of Pokereth Hazzebaim, the descendants of Amon.",
      "60": "The total of the temple servants and the descendants of Solomon’s servants was 392.",
      "61": "The following are the people who came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer. They were not to prove their ancestry or descent—whether they were from Israel:",
      "62": "the descendants of Delaiah, the descendants of Tobiah, the descendants of Nekoda: 642,",
      "63": "and from the priests: the descendants of Habaiah, the descendants of Hakkoz, the descendants of Barzillai, that is, from a man who married one of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite and so was called by their name.",
      "64": "These people searched for their genealogical records, but they could not find them, so they were disqualified from the priesthood.",
      "65": "The governor told them that they should not eat from the most holy sacrifices until a priest would arise who could serve with Urim and Thummim.",
      "66": "The entire assembly together totaled 42,360,",
      "67": "not counting their male slaves and their female slaves, who numbered 7,337. They also had 245 male and female singers.",
      "68": "They had 736 horses, 245 mules,",
      "69": "435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys.",
      "70": "Some of the heads of the families gave support for the work.\nThe governor gave to the treasury:\n    gold darics: 1,000\n    bowls: 50\n    garments for the priests: 530.",
      "71": "Some of the heads of the families gave this to the treasury for the work:\n    gold darics: 20,000\n    silver minas: 2,200.",
      "72": "What the rest of the people gave was this:\n    gold darics: 20,000\n    silver minas: 2,000\n    and garments for the priests: 67.",
      "73": "The priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, and the temple servants, that is, all Israel, settled in their cities."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "When the seventh month came and the Israelites were in their cities, all the people gathered together at the public square that is in front of the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded Israel.",
      "2": "So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Law before the congregation, both men and women and all who were able to understand what they heard.",
      "3": "From dawn until midday in front of the public square in front of the Water Gate, he read from the scroll, while facing the men, the women, and those who could understand. All the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.",
      "4": "Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that was made for the occasion. Beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Ma’aseiah on his right, and on his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.",
      "5": "All the people could see Ezra as he opened the scroll, because he was elevated above all the people. As he opened the scroll, all the people stood.",
      "6": "Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen! Amen!” while they lifted up their hands and then knelt and bowed down with their faces to the ground.",
      "7": "Jeshua and Bani and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Ma’aseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the rest of the Levites helped the people understand the Law, while the people remained standing in their places.",
      "8": "So they read from the Book of the Law of God clearly and interpreted it, and the people understood what was read.",
      "9": "Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites, who helped the people understand, said to all the people, “Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or cry!” because all the people were crying as they heard the words of the Law.",
      "10": "Nehemiah said to them, “Go, eat rich food and drink sweet drinks and send portions to those who have nothing prepared, because today is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, because the joy of the Lord is your strength.”",
      "11": "Then the Levites silenced all the people, saying, “Hush! Today is holy. Do not grieve.”",
      "12": "All the people went to eat and drink and to send portions to others and to celebrate with great joy, because they understood the words that had been made known to them.",
      "13": "Now on the second day, the heads of the families of all the people, the priests, and the Levites were gathered around Ezra the scribe to study the words of the Law.",
      "14": "They found written in the Law, which the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses, that the Israelites should dwell in temporary shelters during the festival of the seventh month,",
      "15": "and that they should proclaim this and make this announcement in all their cities and in Jerusalem: “Go out to the mountains and bring branches from olive trees, wild olive trees, myrtle bushes, date palms, and leafy trees to make shelters, as it is written.”",
      "16": "So the people went out and brought branches and made shelters for themselves. Each man made a shelter on his roof. They also made shelters in their courtyards, in the courtyards of the house of God, in the square by the Water Gate, and in the square by the Ephraim Gate.",
      "17": "The entire congregation that had returned from the captivity made shelters and stayed in the shelters. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated in this way, because there was very great joy.",
      "18": "Ezra also read from the Book of the Law of God every day of the festival, from the first day to the last day. They celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day they held an assembly according to the ordinance."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "On the twenty-fourth day of this same month, the Israelites gathered together. They were fasting and wearing sackcloth, and they had dirt on their faces.",
      "2": "Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood and confessed their sins and the guilt of their ancestors.",
      "3": "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, and for another quarter they confessed their sins and worshipped the Lord their God.",
      "4": "Then Jeshua and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Kenani stood on the stairs for the Levites and cried out in a loud voice to the Lord their God.",
      "5": "The Levites Jeshua and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah said,\n“Stand up! Bless the Lord your God,\n        who is from eternity to eternity.\nMay they bless your glorious Name,\n        which is more exalted than all other blessing and praise.",
      "6": "You are the Lord—you alone.\n        You made the heavens—\n        the highest heavens and their entire army,\n        the earth and everything that is on it,\n        the seas and all that is in them.\n        You sustain life in all of them,\n        and the army of heaven worships you.",
      "7": "You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram.\n        You brought him from Ur of the Chaldeans,\n        and you gave him the name Abraham.",
      "8": "You found his heart to be faithful before you.\n        You made the covenant with him\n        to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites,\n        the Hittites, the Amorites and the Perizzites,\n        and the Jebusites and the Girgashites.\n        You kept your word, because you are righteous.",
      "9": "You saw the oppression of our ancestors in Egypt.\n        You heard their cry at the Red Sea.",
      "10": "You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh,\n        against all his officials,\n        and against all the people of his land,\n        because you knew that they were acting arrogantly against Israel.\n        You made a name for yourself, as it remains to this day.",
      "11": "You split the sea in front of them,\n        and they passed through the middle of it on dry ground.\n        You threw their pursuers into the depths like a stone into mighty waters.",
      "12": "With a pillar of cloud you led them by day\n        and with a pillar of fire by night,\n        which lit up for them the way they were to travel.",
      "13": "You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven.\n        You gave them upright judgments and true laws,\n        good statutes and commandments.",
      "14": "You made known to them your holy Sabbath.\n        You gave them commandments, statutes,\n        and the Law, by the hand of your servant Moses.",
      "15": "You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger,\n        and you made water come out of a rock for their thirst.\n        Then you told them to go and take possession of the land\n        that you swore to give them.",
      "16": "But they and our ancestors acted arrogantly.\n        They became stiff-necked and would not listen to your commands.",
      "17": "So they refused to listen,\n        and they did not remember your wonders that you did for them.\n        They became stiff-necked and appointed a leader\n        in order to return to their slavery in Egypt.\n        But you are a God who is forgiving, merciful, and compassionate,\n        slow to anger, abounding in mercy.\n        So you did not abandon them.",
      "18": "However, they made a cast metal calf for themselves and said,\n        “This is your god who brought you up from Egypt,”\n        and they committed great blasphemies.",
      "19": "But in your abundant compassion, you did not abandon them in the wilderness.\n        By day the pillar of cloud did not depart from above them\n        or stop leading them on their way.\n        By night the pillar of fire did not stop lighting the way that they should go.",
      "20": "You gave them your good Spirit to give them insight.\n        So you did not withhold your manna from their mouth,\n        and you gave them water for their thirst.",
      "21": "You sustained them for forty years in the wilderness.\n        They did not lack anything.\n        Their clothing did not wear out,\n        and their feet did not swell.",
      "22": "You gave them kingdoms and peoples,\nand you divided their whole territory among them.\nThey took possession of the land of Sihon, the land of the king of Heshbon,\nand also the land of Og, the king of Bashan.",
      "23": "You made their children as numerous as the stars of heaven.\nYou brought them to the land that you had told their ancestors to enter and possess.",
      "24": "Their children came and possessed the land,\nand you subdued the Canaanite inhabitants of the land before them.\nYou gave their kings and the peoples of the land into their hand\nto do with them as they pleased.",
      "25": "They captured fortified cities and fertile land.\nThey possessed houses full of all kinds of good things,\nhewn cisterns, vineyards, olive orchards,\nand fruit trees in abundance.\nThey ate and were satisfied.\nThey became fat and delighted in your great goodness.",
      "26": "But they rebelled and revolted against you and rejected your Law.\nThey killed your prophets, who had testified against them\nso that they would return to you.\nThey also committed great blasphemies.",
      "27": "So you delivered them into the hand of their oppressors,\nwho made them suffer.\nBut when they cried to you at the time of their distress,\nyou heard from heaven,\nand according to your great compassion, you gave them deliverers,\nwho saved them from the hand of their oppressors.",
      "28": "However, as soon as they had rest, they returned to doing evil before you.\nSo you abandoned them into the hand of their enemies,\nand they ruled over them.\nThen they turned and cried out to you.\nYou heard from heaven,\nand you rescued them many times, according to your great compassion.",
      "29": "You testified against them to lead them back to your law,\nbut they acted arrogantly and did not listen to your commands.\nThey sinned against your judgments\nby which a man will live when he obeys them.\nThey turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked, and would not listen.",
      "30": "You were patient with them for many years,\nand you testified against them by your Spirit through your prophets.\nBut they would not listen,\nso you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.",
      "31": "Nevertheless, in your great compassion you did not put an end to them.\nYou did not abandon them,\nbecause you are a gracious and compassionate God.",
      "32": "So now, you our God, the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God,\nwho keeps the covenant of mercy,\ndo not regard as trivial all the hardships that have found us,\nour kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets,\nour ancestors, and all your people,\nfrom the days of the kings of Assyria to this day.",
      "33": "You are righteous in regard to everything that has come upon us,\nbecause you have acted faithfully, but we have acted wickedly.",
      "34": "Our kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors did not follow your law.\nThey did not pay attention to your commands\nor to your testimony that you gave against them.",
      "35": "Although they were in their own kingdom,\nand they were enjoying your great goodness that you gave to them,\nand they were enjoying the spacious and fertile land\nthat you placed before them,\nthey still did not serve you,\nand they did not repent of their evil deeds.",
      "36": "As a result, we are slaves today.\nWe are slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors\nso that they could eat its fruit and its good things.",
      "37": "It is yielding abundant produce to kings\nwhom you placed over us because of our sins,\nand they are ruling our bodies and our livestock as they please,\nwhile we are in great distress."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "So in all this we are making a solemn agreement and putting it in writing and attaching the seals of our officials, Levites, and priests.\nThese were the men who placed their seals on it:\nNehemiah the governor, the son of Hakaliah,\nZedekiah,",
      "2": "Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah,",
      "3": "Pashhur, Amariah, Malkijah,",
      "4": "Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluk,",
      "5": "Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah,",
      "6": "Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch,",
      "7": "Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin,",
      "8": "Ma’aziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah.\nThese are the priests.",
      "9": "The Levites were:\nJeshua son of Azaniah, Binnui from the sons of Henadad, and Kadmiel.",
      "10": "Their relatives were Shebaniah, Hodiah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan,",
      "11": "Mica, Rehob, Hashabiah,",
      "12": "Zakkur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah,",
      "13": "Hodiah, Bani, and Beninu.",
      "14": "The heads of the people were:\nParosh, Pahath Moab, Elam, Zattu, Bani,",
      "15": "Bunni, Azgad, Bebai,",
      "16": "Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin,",
      "17": "Ater, Hezekiah, Azzur,",
      "18": "Hodiah, Hashum, Bezai,",
      "19": "Hariph, Anathoth, Nebai,",
      "20": "Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir,",
      "21": "Meshezabel, Zadok, Jaddua,",
      "22": "Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah,",
      "23": "Hoshea, Hananiah, Hasshub,",
      "24": "Hallohesh, Pilha, Shobek,",
      "25": "Rehum, Hashabnah, Ma’aseiah,",
      "26": "and Ahiah, Hanan, Anan,",
      "27": "Malluk, Harim, Ba’anah.",
      "28": "Now the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and every person who had separated himself from the peoples of the lands for the sake of the Law of God, with their wives, their sons, and their daughters—all the people who have knowledge and understanding—",
      "29": "are making a commitment with their brothers, that is, with the important people, and they are placing themselves under a curse and under an oath to walk in the Law of God that was given through Moses the servant of God, an oath to keep the law and to obey all the commands of the Lord our God and his judgments and his statutes.",
      "30": "We promise to keep these points:\nWe will not give our daughters in marriage to the peoples of the land, and we will not take their daughters for marriage to our sons.",
      "31": "We will not buy anything from the peoples of the land who are bringing goods and all kinds of grain to sell on the Sabbath day or on a holy day.\nWe will leave the land fallow during the seventh year, and we will forgive every loan.",
      "32": "We will each assume the responsibility to keep the commands to give a third of a shekel per year for the service of the house of our God,",
      "33": "for the Bread of the Presence, for the regular daily grain offerings, the continual burnt offerings, the Sabbath offerings, the New Moon offerings, for the appointed festivals and holy offerings, and for sin offerings to atone for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.",
      "34": "We—the priests, the Levites, and the people—have cast lots to determine our turns for each fathers’ house to bring the wood offering to the house of our God, at the appointed times each year, to be burned upon the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the Law.",
      "35": "We pledge to bring the firstfruits of our land and the firstfruits of every kind of fruit tree to the house of our God for ourselves.",
      "36": "We also will bring the firstborn of our sons and our animals, as is written in the Law, and we will bring the firstborn of our cattle and flocks to the house of our God for the priests who serve in the house of our God,",
      "37": "and we will bring the first of our dough and our contributions and the fruit of every tree. We will bring new wine and olive oil to the priests, to the storerooms of the house of our God, and we will bring the tithe from our land to the Levites. It is the Levites who collect the tithes in all the cities where we work.",
      "38": "A priest, a descendant of Aaron, will be with the Levites when the Levites collect the tithes. The Levites will bring a tenth of the tithes up to the house of our God, to the chambers of the treasury,",
      "39": "because the Israelites and the sons of Levi are to bring the contribution from the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil to the storerooms where the vessels of the sanctuary are kept, where the priests, the gatekeepers, and the singers serve.\nIn this way we will not abandon the house of our God."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "The people’s officials lived in Jerusalem, and the rest of the people cast lots to choose one out of every ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the other nine remained in their own cities.",
      "2": "The people blessed all those who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.",
      "3": "This is a listing of the heads of the province who lived in Jerusalem. (Meanwhile, in the cities of Judah, each man lived on his own property, including laymen from Israel, the priests, the Levites, the temple servants, and the descendants of Solomon’s servants.",
      "4": "But some of the descendants of Judah and some of the descendants of Benjamin also lived in Jerusalem.)\nFrom the descendants of Judah:\n        Athaiah the son of Uzziah, the son of Zechariah, the son of Amariah, the son of Shephatiah, the son of Mahalalel, from the descendants of Perez.",
      "5": "Ma’aseiah the son of Baruch, the son of Kol Kozeh, the son of Hazaiah, the son of Adaiah, the son of Joiarib, the son of Zechariah, the son of the Shilonite.",
      "6": "All the descendants of Perez who dwelt in Jerusalem were 468 able-bodied men.",
      "7": "These are the descendants of Benjamin:\n        Sallu the son of Meshullam, the son of Joed, the son of Pedaiah, the son of Kolaiah, the son of Ma’aseiah, the son of Ithiel, the son of Jeshaiah,",
      "8": "and after him Gabbai and Sallai: 928 in all.",
      "9": "Joel son of Zikri was their overseer, and Judah son of Hassenuah was second in command over the city.",
      "10": "From the priests:\n        Jedaiah the son of Joiarib, Jakin,",
      "11": "Seraiah the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, ruler of the house of God,",
      "12": "and their relatives who were doing the work of the house: 822.\n        Also Adaiah the son of Jeroham, the son of Pelaliah, the son of Amzi, the son of Zechariah, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malkijah,",
      "13": "and his relatives, heads of families: 242.\n        Also Amashsai the son of Azarel, the son of Ahzai, the son of Meshillemoth, the son of Immer,",
      "14": "and their relatives, very capable men: 128.\n        Their overseer was Zabdiel son of Haggedolim.",
      "15": "From the Levites:\n        Shemaiah, who was the son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Bunni.",
      "16": "Also Shabbethai and Jozabad, who were supervisors over the outside work of the house of God. They were from the heads of the Levites.",
      "17": "Also Mattaniah, who was the son of Mica, the son of Zabdi, the son of Asaph, leader of the praise and thanksgiving for the prayer.\n        Also Bakbukiah, second in rank among his relatives, and Abda the son of Shammua, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun.",
      "18": "All the Levites in the holy city numbered 284.",
      "19": "These are the gatekeepers:\n        Akkub, Talmon, and their relatives who guarded the gates numbered 172.",
      "20": "The rest of Israel, the priests, and the Levites were in all the cities of Judah, each man in his own inheritance.",
      "21": "The temple servants were dwelling in the Ophel, and Ziha and Gishpa were supervisors over the temple servants.",
      "22": "The overseer of the Levites in Jerusalem was Uzzi the son of Bani, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Mica, from the descendants of Asaph, who were the singers for the service of the house of God,",
      "23": "for they were under a royal command—an order concerning the singers’ daily duty.",
      "24": "Pethahiah son of Meshezabel, from the descendants of Zerah the son of Judah, served as the hand of the king for every matter concerning the people.",
      "25": "This is the information about the villages with their fields:\nSome of the descendants of Judah lived in Kiriath Arba and its settlements, in Dibon and its settlements, and in Jekabze’el and its settlements,",
      "26": "and in Jeshua, in Moladah, and in Beth Pelet,",
      "27": "and in Hazar Shual, and in Beersheba and its settlements,",
      "28": "and in Ziklag, and in Mekonah and in its settlements,",
      "29": "and in En Rimmon, and in Zorah, and in Jarmuth,",
      "30": "Zanoah and Adullam and their villages, Lachish and its fields, and Azekah and its settlements. So they settled from Beersheba to the Hinnom Valley.",
      "31": "Some of the descendants of Benjamin were from Geba, Mikmash, Aijah, and Bethel and its settlements,",
      "32": "Anathoth, Nob, Ananiah,",
      "33": "Hazor, Ramah, Gittaim,",
      "34": "Hadid, Zeboim, Neballat,",
      "35": "Lod, and Ono, and the Valley of the Craftsmen.",
      "36": "Some of the Levite divisions of Judah were assigned to Benjamin."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "These are the priests and the Levites who came up with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and with Jeshua:\n        Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra,",
      "2": "Amariah, Malluk, Hattush,",
      "3": "Shekaniah, Rehum, Meremoth,",
      "4": "Iddo, Ginnethoi, Abijah,",
      "5": "Mijamin, Ma’adiah, Bilgah,",
      "6": "Shemaiah, and Joiarib, Jedaiah,",
      "7": "Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah, and Jedaiah.\n        These were the heads of the priests and their relatives in the days of Jeshua.",
      "8": "These are the Levites:\n        Jeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah,\n        Mattaniah (he and his relatives were in charge of songs of thanksgiving),",
      "9": "and Bakbukiah and Unni (their relatives were stationed opposite them for the services).",
      "10": "Now Jeshua was the father of Joiakim,\n        and Joiakim was the father of Eliashib,\n        and Eliashib was the father of Joiada,",
      "11": "and Joiada was the father of Jonathan,\n        and Jonathan was the father of Jaddua.",
      "12": "Now in the days of Joiakim, the priests who were the heads of the families were as follows:\n        the head of Seraiah’s family was Meraiah\n        of Jeremiah’s: Hananiah",
      "13": "of Ezra’s: Meshullam\n        of Amariah’s: Jehohanan",
      "14": "of Malluk’s: Jonathan\n        of Shebaniah’s: Joseph",
      "15": "of Harim’s: Adna\n        of Meraioth’s: Helkai",
      "16": "of Iddo’s: Zechariah\n        of Ginnethon’s: Meshullam",
      "17": "of Abijah’s: Zikri\n        of Miniamin’s, of Moadiah’s: Piltai",
      "18": "of Bilgah’s: Shammua\n        of Shemaiah’s: Jehonathan",
      "19": "and of Joiarib’s: Mattenai\n        of Jedaiah’s: Uzzi",
      "20": "of Sallai’s: Kallai\n        of Amok’s: Eber",
      "21": "of Hilkiah’s: Hashabiah\n        of Jedaiah’s: Nethanel.",
      "22": "In the days of Eliashib, Joiada, and Johanan, and Jaddua, the Levites were recorded by the heads of families, as were the priests, until the reign of Darius the Persian.",
      "23": "The descendants of Levi who were heads of families were recorded in the book of the chronicles, down to the days of Johanan son of Eliashib.",
      "24": "The heads of the Levites were as follows:\nHashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua son of Kadmiel and his relatives, who stood opposite them to praise and to give thanks according to the command of David the man of God, one division corresponding to another.",
      "25": "Mattaniah and Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon, and Akkub were gatekeepers standing guard at the storerooms at the gates.",
      "26": "These men served in the days of Joiakim the son of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and in the days of Nehemiah the governor, and Ezra the priest, the scribe.",
      "27": "Now for the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites had been invited from all their places, in order to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the joyful dedication with both thanksgiving hymns and with songs using cymbals, harps, and lyres.",
      "28": "The singers had been gathered both from the district around Jerusalem and from the villages of the Netophathites,",
      "29": "from Beth Gilgal, and from the countryside of Geba and Azmaveth, because the singers had built villages for themselves around Jerusalem.",
      "30": "The priests and the Levites purified themselves, and they purified the people, the gates, and the wall.",
      "31": "I brought the officers of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two large thanksgiving choirs and two groups for the procession.\nOne group proceeded south on top of the west wall toward the Dung Gate.",
      "32": "Behind them went Hoshaiah and half of the officers of Judah,",
      "33": "also Azariah, Ezra, and Meshullam,",
      "34": "Judah and Benjamin, and Shemaiah and Jeremiah,",
      "35": "as well as some of the priests with trumpets, namely, Zechariah the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zakkur, the son of Asaph,",
      "36": "and his relatives Shemaiah, Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Ma’ai, Nethanel, and Judah, and Hanani with the musical instruments of David the man of God. Ezra the scribe led them.",
      "37": "From the Fountain Gate they went directly up the steps to the City of David, by the ascent to the wall which was above David’s house and over the Water Gate on the east.",
      "38": "The second thanksgiving choir was assigned to go in the opposite direction. Both I and half of the people were behind it on top of the wall. They went over the Tower of the Ovens to the Broad Wall,",
      "39": "and over the Ephraim Gate (that is, over the Old Gate), and over the Fish Gate and the Tower of Hananel and the Tower of the Hundred, and up to the Sheep Gate, and they stood at the Guard’s Gate.",
      "40": "The two thanksgiving choirs stood in the house of God, as did I and half of the officials with me,",
      "41": "as well as the priests: Eliakim, Ma’aseiah, Miniamin, Mikaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah with trumpets,",
      "42": "and Ma’aseiah, Shemaiah, Eleazar, Uzzi, Jehohanan, and Malkijah, and Elam, and Ezer. Then the singers sang with Jezrahiah as their leader.",
      "43": "That day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The joy of Jerusalem was heard a long way away.",
      "44": "That day men were appointed as supervisors over the storerooms, the contributions, the firstfruits, and the tithes, in order to gather the portions required by the Law for the priests and the Levites from the fields of the towns, because Judah rejoiced over the priests and Levites who carried out their duties.",
      "45": "They and the singers and the gatekeepers continued the service of their God and the service of purification, according to the command of David and his son Solomon,",
      "46": "because formerly in the days of David and Asaph, Asaph was the head of the singers and of songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.",
      "47": "In the days of Zerubbabel and in the days of Nehemiah, all Israel continued to give the required portions for the singers and the gatekeepers daily. They would set apart that portion which was for the Levites, and the Levites would set apart that portion which was for the descendants of Aaron."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "On that day, when the Book of Moses was being read in the hearing of the people, it was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite may ever come into the assembled congregation of God,",
      "2": "because they had not met the Israelites with food and water but had hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God had turned the curse into a blessing.",
      "3": "As the people heard the Law, they separated everyone of mixed foreign descent from Israel.",
      "4": "But before this, the priest Eliashib, who had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah,",
      "5": "had provided a large storeroom for him.\nPreviously they had been putting the offerings, the incense, and the vessels, as well as the tithes of grain, new wine, and olive oil there. This had been done according to the command concerning the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests.",
      "6": "But when all this was happening, I was not in Jerusalem, because in the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes of Babylon, I had gone to the king. Then sometime later, I asked the king for permission to return,",
      "7": "and I came back to Jerusalem. Then I found out about the evil thing that Eliashib had done for Tobiah by providing a room for him in the courtyards of the house of God.",
      "8": "This was very offensive to me, so I threw all of Tobiah’s household property out of the storeroom.",
      "9": "I gave orders to purify the storerooms, and I restored the articles of the house of God, the offerings, and the incense.",
      "10": "Then I learned that the portions for the Levites had not been distributed and that the Levites and singers who performed the work of God’s house all had gone back to their own fields.",
      "11": "I accused the officials and said, “Why has the house of God been abandoned?” So I gathered them and stationed them at their places.",
      "12": "Then all Judah brought the tithes of grain and new wine and olive oil to the storerooms.",
      "13": "I appointed treasurers in charge of the storerooms: the priest Shelemiah, the scribe Zadok, Pedaiah from the Levites, and as their assistant, Hanan the son of Zakkur, the son of Mattaniah, because they were considered to be trustworthy. It was their responsibility to distribute the portions to their relatives.",
      "14": "Remember me, my God, because of this, and do not wipe away my faithful deeds, which I have done for the sake of the house of my God and for the sake of its services.",
      "15": "In those days I saw in Judah some people who were treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, and figs and all kinds of loads, and then bringing them to Jerusalem on the Sabbath. So I warned them on the day when they were selling food.",
      "16": "Moreover, some people from Tyre lived in the city. They were bringing fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling it on the Sabbath to the Jews—even in Jerusalem!",
      "17": "So I accused the Judean nobles and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, by which you are profaning the Sabbath day?",
      "18": "Didn’t your ancestors do this, and as a result our God brought all this calamity upon us and upon this city? You are adding more to his wrath by profaning the Sabbath.”",
      "19": "As it began to grow dark within the gates of Jerusalem before the beginning of the Sabbath, I gave orders to close the doors and not to open them until after the Sabbath. I also stationed some of my servants at the gates to ensure that no load would come in on the Sabbath day.",
      "20": "Once or twice the merchants and those who sell all kinds of merchandise spent the night outside of Jerusalem.",
      "21": "However, I warned them and said to them, “Why are you spending the night next to the wall? If you do this again, I will use force against you.” From that time onward they did not come on the Sabbath.",
      "22": "Then I told the Levites that they should purify themselves and come to guard the gates in order to sanctify the Sabbath day.\nRemember this also in my favor, my God, and spare me according to your great faithfulness.",
      "23": "Also in those days I saw the Judeans who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.",
      "24": "Half of their children spoke the dialect of Ashdod or the language of other peoples and were not able to understand how to speak Judean.",
      "25": "So I accused them and cursed them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. Then I made them take an oath by God: “May God punish us if we give our daughters to their sons or if we take some of their daughters for our sons or for ourselves.”",
      "26": "I said, “Wasn’t it because of these foreign wives that King Solomon of Israel sinned, although there was no king like him among the many nations? He was loved by his God, and God placed him as king over all Israel. Yet foreign wives made even him sin.",
      "27": "Should we listen to you and be led to do all this great evil, so that we end up being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women?”",
      "28": "One of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib, the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. So I chased him away from me.",
      "29": "Remember them, my God, because of their defiling of the priesthood and because of the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.",
      "30": "So I purified them of everything foreign, and I established duties for the priests and the Levites—each man had his own work.",
      "31": "I also provided wood for the offerings at the appropriate times and for the offerings of the firstfruits.\nRemember me, my God, for good."
    }
  },
  "Esther": {
    "1": {
      "1": "These events happened during the time of Xerxes, when Xerxes was ruling over one hundred twenty-seven provinces from India to Cush.",
      "2": "King Xerxes was ruling on his royal throne in Susa, the citadel.",
      "3": "In the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his officials and administrators, for the leaders of the army of Persia and Media, and for the nobles and officials of the provinces.",
      "4": "He displayed the glory and splendor of the riches of his kingdom, the grandeur of his majesty, for many days (one hundred eighty days in all).",
      "5": "When this was completed, the king gave a banquet for all the people who were present at the citadel in Susa, from the most important to the least significant. It lasted for seven days in the courtyard of the garden in the king’s palace.",
      "6": "There were white and blue linen hangings, attached to marble pillars with white and purple cords and silver rings. There were couches made of gold and silver, standing on a mosaic floor made of purple porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and other precious stones.",
      "7": "Drinks were served in gold goblets. Each goblet was unique. The royal wine was plentiful, in keeping with the king’s extravagance.",
      "8": "No directions were given about the amount each person was to drink because the king had ordered all the waiters to serve the amount each man desired.",
      "9": "Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the palace of King Xerxes.",
      "10": "On the seventh day, when the king was feeling good from the wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Karkas, seven of the eunuchs who served him,",
      "11": "to bring before him Queen Vashti wearing the crown of the kingdom, in order to show the people and the officials her beauty. She was very good-looking.",
      "12": "Queen Vashti refused to come in response to the king’s command delivered by the eunuchs. The king was infuriated and his anger burned within him.",
      "13": "So the king spoke to his advisors who understood the times. (It was the king’s custom to consult with those who were acquainted with law and legal principles.)",
      "14": "His close advisors were Karshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, seven officials of Persia and Media who were allowed to see the king’s face and were ranked first in the kingdom.",
      "15": "He asked, “According to the law, what should be done with Queen Vashti since she did not obey the command of the king delivered by the eunuchs?”",
      "16": "In the presence of the king and the officials, Memucan said, “Queen Vashti has not only committed an offense against the king, but she has also committed an offense against all the officials and all the people in the provinces of King Xerxes,",
      "17": "because the action of the queen, when it is reported to all the women, will cause them to look upon their husbands with contempt. They will say, ‘King Xerxes said to bring Queen Vashti before him, but she did not come.’",
      "18": "Today the noble ladies of Persia and Media, who have heard about the action of the queen, will be talking about it to their husbands, who are the officials of the king. There will be more than enough contempt and anger.",
      "19": "If the king agrees, he should issue a royal decree. It should be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it cannot be changed. Vashti shall not come into the presence of King Xerxes. The king will give her status as queen to a different person, one better than she is.",
      "20": "The decree of the king will be heard throughout all of his vast kingdom. Then all the women will give honor to their husbands, both the most important and the least significant.”",
      "21": "The advice seemed good to the king and the officials, so the king did as Memucan had said.",
      "22": "He sent letters to all the provinces of the kingdom—to each province in its own writing system and to each people in its own language. The letters stated that each man should be lord in his own house. The letters were addressed to every man in his own language."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "When King Xerxes was no longer so angry, he remembered what Vashti had done and what had been decreed about her.",
      "2": "The young men who served as attendants to the king said, “Search for good-looking, young virgins for the king.",
      "3": "Let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of the kingdom to do this. Gather all the good-looking, young virgins into the citadel at Susa, to the harem under the supervision of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, the overseer of the women. Give them beauty treatments.",
      "4": "The young woman who pleases the king should be queen instead of Vashti.” The king agreed and implemented the plan.",
      "5": "In the citadel at Susa there was a Jew named Mordecai, who was the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish the Benjaminite.",
      "6": "Kish had been taken from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon with the other captives who were exiled with Jeconiah king of Judah.",
      "7": "Mordecai had raised his cousin Hadassah (also called Esther) because she had no father or mother. She was shapely and good-looking. When her father and mother died, Mordecai adopted her as his daughter.",
      "8": "When the king’s order and edict had been proclaimed, and many young women had been gathered into the citadel of Susa under the supervision of Hegai, Esther was taken to the king’s palace, to Hegai, who was in charge of the harem.",
      "9": "She pleased Hegai and gained his favor. He quickly provided her with beauty treatments and food. He assigned a good position in the harem to her and to the seven female attendants picked out for her from the king’s palace.",
      "10": "Esther had not revealed her nationality or her family background because Mordecai had told her not to do so.",
      "11": "Every day Mordecai walked back and forth in front of the harem, to learn about Esther’s well-being and about what was going to be done with her.",
      "12": "Every young woman received a turn to go to King Xerxes after she had received the prescribed twelve months of beauty treatments. For six months they used oil of myrrh; for six months perfumes and other beauty treatments for women.",
      "13": "Then the young woman went to the king. Everything she desired was given to her when she went from the harem to the king’s palace.",
      "14": "She went to the king in the evening. In the morning she returned to the second harem, under the supervision of Sha’ashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She did not return to the king unless he was delighted with her and she was summoned by name.",
      "15": "Esther was the daughter of Abihail, Mordecai’s uncle. Mordecai had adopted her.\nWhen her turn came to go to the king, she did not ask for anything except what Hegai, the king’s eunuch in charge of the harem, had advised. Esther won the approval of everyone watching her.",
      "16": "Esther was taken to King Xerxes at the royal palace in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, during the seventh year of his reign.",
      "17": "The king loved Esther more than he loved all the other women. She won his favor and approval more than all the other virgins did. He placed the crown of the kingdom on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.",
      "18": "The king gave a great banquet in honor of Esther for all his officials and administrators. He declared a tax holiday for the provinces and gave gifts as only the king could give.",
      "19": "When the virgins were gathered together for a second time, Mordecai was sitting in the gatehouse to the king’s palace.",
      "20": "(Esther had not revealed her family or her nationality because when Mordecai had been taking care of her, Mordecai had told her not to do so.)",
      "21": "When Mordecai was sitting in the king’s gatehouse, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who controlled access to the entrance to the palace, became very angry and plotted to kill King Xerxes.",
      "22": "When Mordecai learned about this, he told Queen Esther. She passed the report along to the king, crediting Mordecai by name.",
      "23": "The matter was investigated, and the charges were found to be true, and both of them were hanged. This incident was recorded in the daily record book, in the presence of the king."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "After these events King Xerxes honored Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite. He promoted him and placed him over all the officials who served with him.",
      "2": "All the servants of the king who were at the king’s gate were bowing down and kneeling in Haman’s presence, because the king had commanded that this be done for him, but Mordecai did not bow down and did not kneel.",
      "3": "So the servants of the king who were at the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why are you going against the king’s command?”",
      "4": "Even though they spoke to him every day, he did not listen to them. They reported this to Haman, to see whether Mordecai’s actions would be tolerated. Mordecai had informed them that he was a Jew.",
      "5": "When Haman saw that Mordecai was not bowing down and kneeling in his presence, Haman was enraged.",
      "6": "Because the king’s servants had made Haman aware of Mordecai’s nationality, Haman was not satisfied with laying hands only on Mordecai. Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.",
      "7": "During the twelfth year of King Xerxes’ reign, during the first month, the month of Nisan, a pur (which means “a lot”) was cast before Haman for every day and every month of the year, until Adar, the twelfth month, was chosen.",
      "8": "Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a group of people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of all the other people. They do not keep the laws of the king. It is not good for the king to allow them to get away with this.",
      "9": "If the king agrees, a directive should be written to destroy them. I will weigh out ten thousand talents of silver to the treasury of the king for those who carry out this work.”",
      "10": "The king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the man opposing the Jews.",
      "11": "The king said to Haman, “The silver will be given to you, as well as the people. Do with them whatever seems good to you.”",
      "12": "In the first month, on the thirteenth day, the king’s scribes were summoned. A decree based on everything Haman commanded was written to the king’s satraps, to the governors over each province, and to the officials of every people. The decree was sent to each province in its own writing system and to each people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the king’s signet ring.",
      "13": "The letters were sent by courier to all the provinces of the king to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, including children and women, and to plunder their goods in one day, on the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.",
      "14": "A copy of the decree was to be proclaimed as a law to all the peoples in every province, so that they could be ready for that day.",
      "15": "The couriers went out, spurred on by the word of the king. The law was issued in Susa, the citadel. The king and Haman sat down to drink. The city of Susa was perplexed and confused."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "When Mordecai became aware of everything that had happened, he ripped his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, went out into the middle of the city, and let out a loud, bitter cry.",
      "2": "He went right up to the king’s gate, even though no one clothed with sackcloth was allowed to enter it.",
      "3": "In every single province that was reached by the proclamation of the king and where his decree was posted, there was great mourning, fasting, weeping, and lamenting among the Jews. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.",
      "4": "When Esther’s female attendants and her eunuchs came and told her what had happened, the queen agonized over it. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai so that he could take off his sackcloth, but he did not accept them.",
      "5": "Esther summoned Hathak, who had been assigned from among the king’s eunuchs to attend to her. She ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what was happening and why.",
      "6": "Hathak went out to Mordecai in the public square in front of the king’s gate.",
      "7": "Mordecai told him everything that had happened and the exact amount of silver that Haman had said he would put into the treasuries of the king to destroy the Jews.",
      "8": "Mordecai also gave Hathak a copy of the written decree which had been issued in Susa to destroy the Jews, so that he could show it to Esther. Hathak was to place the responsibility upon her to go to the king to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.",
      "9": "So Hathak went and told Esther what Mordecai had said.",
      "10": "Esther spoke to Hathak and gave him directions to pass on to Mordecai:",
      "11": "“All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that it is the law that any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned will be put to death, unless the king holds out the golden scepter to him. Then he will live. But I have not been called to go to the king for thirty days.”",
      "12": "They told Mordecai what Esther had said.",
      "13": "Mordecai responded, “Take this message to Esther: Do not imagine that of all the Jews, you alone will escape because you are part of the king’s household.",
      "14": "If at this time you keep totally silent, relief and deliverance for the Jews will spring up from somewhere, but you and the house of your father will perish. Who knows whether you have become queen for a time like this!”",
      "15": "Esther responded to Mordecai,",
      "16": "“Go. Gather all the Jews who are found in Susa. Fast on my behalf. Do not eat and drink for three days and nights. I and my young women also will fast in the same way. After that I will go to the king, contrary to the law. And then, if I perish, I perish!”",
      "17": "Mordecai went away and did everything Esther had ordered him to do."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "On the third day Esther dressed in the queen’s royal clothing and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, opposite the quarters of the king. The king was sitting on the throne in the reception hall, opposite the entrance.",
      "2": "When the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she pleased him. The king held out to Esther the golden scepter, which was in his hand. Esther approached and touched the head of the scepter.",
      "3": "The king said to her, “What concerns you, Queen Esther? Whatever you are seeking (up to half of the kingdom) will be given to you.”",
      "4": "Esther said, “If it is agreeable to the king, the king and Haman should come today to a banquet that I have made for him.”",
      "5": "The king said, “Hurry! Get Haman so that we can do what Esther has said.” So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared.",
      "6": "While the king was drinking wine, he said to Esther, “What is your request? It will be given to you. What are you seeking? Up to half of the kingdom—it’s yours.”",
      "7": "Esther answered, “This is my request. This is what I seek.",
      "8": "If I have found favor in the eyes of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my request, let the king and Haman come to a banquet, which I will make for them tomorrow. Then I will give the answers requested by the king.”",
      "9": "Haman went out that day full of joy, with a happy heart. But when Haman saw Mordecai at the king’s gate, and Mordecai did not stand and tremble before him, Haman was filled with rage against Mordecai.",
      "10": "But Haman restrained himself from any action.\nHe went to his house and called together his friends and his wife Zeresh.",
      "11": "Haman reviewed for them the glory of his wealth, the number of his sons, all the details about how the king had made him great, and how the king had elevated him over all the officials and the king’s administrators.",
      "12": "Haman said, “What’s more, Queen Esther did not invite anyone except me to come with the king to the banquet that she prepared. I have been invited again for her banquet with the king tomorrow.",
      "13": "But none of this means anything to me whenever I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”",
      "14": "Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, “Make a gallows seventy-five feet high. In the morning tell the king that Mordecai should be hanged on it. Then go happily with the king to the banquet.” In Haman’s opinion this was good advice, so he had the gallows made."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "That night the king could not sleep, so he ordered that the chronicles, the record of the memorable events of his reign, be brought to him. These accounts were read to the king.",
      "2": "They found the account about the incident when Mordecai had reported Bigthan and Teresh, the king’s two eunuchs who had controlled access to the entrance to the palace, who had tried to assassinate King Xerxes.",
      "3": "The king said, “What honor and recognition has been given to Mordecai for this?”\nThen the servants of the king who were attending him said, “Nothing has been done for him.”",
      "4": "The king said, “Who is in the court?” Just then Haman had come to the outer court of the king’s palace to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.",
      "5": "The king’s servants said to him, “Look, Haman is standing in the court.” The king said, “Have him come in.”",
      "6": "When Haman came in, the king said to him, “What should be done to honor the man with whom the king is pleased?”\nHaman said in his heart, “Who could there be that the king would be more pleased to honor than me?”",
      "7": "Haman said to the king, “The man whom the king is pleased to honor",
      "8": "should be clothed with garments that the king has worn. He should be given a horse on which the king has ridden, and crowned with a crown that has been on the king’s head.",
      "9": "These clothes and this horse should be delivered by one of the highest ranking noblemen of the king. They should dress up the man whom the king is pleased to honor and let him ride on the horse in the public square of the city. Walking in front of him, they will proclaim, “This is what is done for the man whom the king is pleased to honor.”",
      "10": "The king said to Haman, “Hurry! Take the clothing and the horse just as you have said, and do this for Mordecai the Jew, who sits in the gatehouse of the king. Do not leave out a thing from whatever you have said.”",
      "11": "Haman took the clothing and the horse, clothed Mordecai, had him ride through the public square of the city, and proclaimed before him, “This is what is done for the man whom the king is pleased to honor.”",
      "12": "Mordecai returned to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his home, mourning, with his head covered.",
      "13": "Haman reported all this to Zeresh his wife and to all his friends.\nHis advisors and Zeresh his wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not overcome him. Instead, you will surely fall before him.”",
      "14": "While they were still talking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and rushed Haman to the banquet that Esther had prepared."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "So the king and Haman went to the feast with Queen Esther.",
      "2": "On the second day, when they were again drinking wine, the king said to Esther, “What is your request, Queen Esther? It will be given to you. What are you seeking? Up to half of the kingdom—it’s yours.”",
      "3": "Queen Esther responded, “My King, if I have found favor in your eyes, and if it pleases the king, I am asking that my life be spared, and I am seeking the lives of my people,",
      "4": "because I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we were merely being sold to be male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, because that would not have been bad enough to be a reason to bother the king.”",
      "5": "King Xerxes spoke up. He said to Queen Esther, “Who is this, and where is this person who has the audacity to do this?”",
      "6": "Esther said, “This hateful enemy is this evil Haman!” Haman was terrified in the presence of the king and the queen.",
      "7": "The king rose angrily from the place where they were drinking wine and went to the palace garden. But Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, because he saw the king had evil plans for him.",
      "8": "Just as the king was returning from the palace garden to the hall where they had been drinking wine, Haman was falling onto the couch on which Esther was lying. The king said, “Will he even assault the queen when I am in the building?” As soon as the words left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.",
      "9": "In addition, Harbona, one of the eunuchs present with the king, said, “You know, there is a gallows seventy-five feet high standing by the house of Haman, which he made for Mordecai, the person who spoke up for the benefit of the king.” The king said, “Hang him on it.”",
      "10": "So they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "That day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. Mordecai came and appeared before the king, because Esther had told him what Mordecai’s relationship to her was.",
      "2": "The king took off his signet ring that he had taken from Haman and gave it to Mordecai. Esther put Mordecai in charge of the house of Haman.",
      "3": "In addition, Esther spoke to the king. She fell at his feet, wept, and requested that he put an end to the evil plan that Haman the Agagite had devised against the Jews.",
      "4": "The king held out the golden scepter to Esther. Esther rose and stood in the presence of the king.",
      "5": "She said, “If it is acceptable to the king, if I have found favor before him, if this idea seems right to the king, and if I am acceptable to him, a decree should be written to nullify the letters for the plot of Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews in all of the provinces of the king.",
      "6": "For how can I watch the disaster that is about to come on my people! How can I watch the destruction of my relatives!”",
      "7": "King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, “Look. I have given Haman’s house to Esther. They have hanged him on the gallows because he raised his hand against the Jews.",
      "8": "You can write concerning the Jews whatever seems good to you and seal it with the king’s signet ring, because a document written in the name of the king and sealed with the king’s signet ring cannot be changed.”",
      "9": "The king’s scribes were summoned at once, on the twenty-third day of Sivan, the third month. Whatever Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews was written to the satraps, governors, and the officials of the provinces from India to Cush, one hundred twenty-seven provinces in all. They wrote to each province in its own writing system and to each people in its own language (including to the Jews in their writing system and in their language).",
      "10": "He wrote in the name of King Xerxes and sealed it with the king’s signet ring. He sent letters by messengers mounted on the king’s fastest thoroughbreds.",
      "11": "The king gave the Jews in every city the right to gather together to defend their own lives and to destroy, kill, and annihilate any military force of any people or province that might attack them, along with their children and their wives, and to plunder their goods.",
      "12": "In all the provinces of King Xerxes,",
      "13": "a copy of the writing, which was issued as a law for every province, proclaimed to all the peoples that on one day (the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, Adar), the Jews would be ready to avenge themselves on their enemies.",
      "14": "The couriers riding their swift horses went out quickly, spurred on by the word of the king. The decree originated in Susa, the citadel.",
      "15": "Mordecai went out from the king’s presence, dressed in blue and white royal clothing, with a large gold crown and a purple linen cape. The city of Susa shouted and rejoiced.",
      "16": "It was a time of light, gladness, joy, and honor for the Jews.",
      "17": "In every province and in every city which the message of the king reached, his edict brought gladness and joy to the Jews. There was a feast and a holiday. Many of the peoples of the land declared themselves Jews because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (Adar), the day which the king’s proclamation had specified for his decree to be carried out, the day on which the enemies of the Jews hoped to obtain power over them, the situation was reversed so that the Jews would gain power over those who hated them.",
      "2": "The Jews gathered in their cities in all the provinces of King Xerxes, to strike against those seeking to hurt them. No one opposed them because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon all the people.",
      "3": "All the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and the people who did the work of the king were helping the Jews because the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them,",
      "4": "because he was important in the king’s house. His reputation was spreading in all the provinces because this man Mordecai was becoming more and more influential.",
      "5": "The Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering and destroying them. They did whatever they pleased against their enemies.",
      "6": "In Susa, the citadel, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men,",
      "7": "including Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha,",
      "8": "Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha,",
      "9": "Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vaizatha.",
      "10": "They killed the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, who had been persecuting the Jews, but they did not seize any plunder.",
      "11": "On that day the number of those killed in Susa, the citadel, was reported to the king.",
      "12": "The king said to Queen Esther, “In Susa, the citadel, the Jews have killed five hundred men, including the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the provinces of the king? What is your request? It will be granted. What you are still seeking will be done.”",
      "13": "Esther said, “If it seems good to the king, let permission be given to the Jews who are in Susa to carry out today’s order also tomorrow and that the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.”",
      "14": "The king said that this would be done. The command was given in Susa. The ten sons of Haman were hanged.",
      "15": "The Jews in Susa gathered again on the fourteenth day of Adar. In Susa they killed three hundred men, but they did not seize any plunder.",
      "16": "The rest of the Jews who were in the provinces of the king also gathered and defended themselves, getting relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them, but they did not seize any plunder.",
      "17": "This happened on the thirteenth day of Adar. They rested on the fourteenth and had a day of feasting and joyful celebration.",
      "18": "But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth and on the fourteenth. They rested on the fifteenth and made it a day of feasting and joyful celebration.",
      "19": "Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the unwalled towns of the open countryside, have their day of joyful celebration and feasting on the fourteenth of Adar. It is a holiday, and they send portions of food to their neighbors.",
      "20": "Mordecai wrote these things down. Then he sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Xerxes, both near and far,",
      "21": "to call upon them to celebrate the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar every year,",
      "22": "because those were the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies. This was the month which was changed from sorrow to gladness for them and from a day of mourning to a holiday. They were to make those days into days of feasting and joyful celebration, sending portions of food to their neighbors and gifts to the poor.",
      "23": "So the Jews completed what they had begun to do and what Mordecai had written to them,",
      "24": "because Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the one opposed to all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast pur (that is, they had cast lots) to crush them and to destroy them.",
      "25": "However, because Esther came into the presence of the king, he said in writing that Haman’s wicked plot, which he had devised against the Jews, was to return on his own head, and they should hang him and his sons on the gallows.",
      "26": "That is why they called these days Purim (lots) because of the word pur. Therefore, because of all the words of this letter, because of what they had observed, and because of what had happened to them,",
      "27": "the Jews established this festival and made a commitment that they, their descendants, and all those associated with them would never fail to observe these two days according to these directions and at their proper time every year.",
      "28": "These days are to be remembered and preserved in every generation, in every family, province, and city. The Jews should never stop celebrating the days of Purim. Their commemoration should never be set aside by their descendants.",
      "29": "Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew used their authority to publish this second communication about Purim.",
      "30": "He sent letters to all the Jews in one hundred twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Xerxes containing words of true peace,",
      "31": "telling them to observe the days of Purim at their appointed times, just as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had given them the responsibility to do, and telling them to carry out the directions about their fasts and their lamentation just as they and their descendants had agreed to do.",
      "32": "The command of Esther established the directions about Purim, and they were written in a book."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "King Xerxes imposed taxes on the land and on the islands and coasts of the sea.",
      "2": "All his powerful and mighty acts and the account of the greatness of Mordecai, whom the king promoted, are they not written in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?",
      "3": "This was written there because Mordecai the Jew, second in command to King Xerxes, was important for the Jews and popular with large numbers of his brother Israelites, because he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all their descendants."
    }
  },
  "Job": {
    "1": {
      "1": "There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright, a man who feared God and turned away from evil.",
      "2": "Seven sons and three daughters were born to him.",
      "3": "His possessions included seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred female donkeys. He also had a very large retinue of servants. This man was the greatest of all the men of the East.",
      "4": "His sons would regularly arrange feasts, each one in his own house on his assigned day, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.",
      "5": "When the days of the feast were complete, Job would send for them and consecrate them. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them. Job would say, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Job did this regularly.",
      "6": "There came a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came into their midst.",
      "7": "The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”\nSatan answered the Lord, “From roaming the earth and walking around on it.”",
      "8": "Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and turns away from evil.”",
      "9": "Satan answered the Lord, “Is it without cause that Job fears God?",
      "10": "You have put a protective hedge around him and his household and everything that belongs to him, haven’t you? You have blessed the work of his hands. His livestock has spread throughout the land.",
      "11": "But just stretch out your hand and strike everything that is his, and he will certainly curse you to your face!”",
      "12": "So the Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then. Everything that he has is in your hand. But you may not stretch out your hand against the man himself.” So Satan left the presence of the Lord.",
      "13": "One day when Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their oldest brother,",
      "14": "a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the female donkeys were grazing nearby,",
      "15": "when the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They put the servants to death with the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”",
      "16": "While he was still speaking, another servant came and said, “The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the flocks and the servants and consumed them, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”",
      "17": "While he was still speaking, another servant came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and plundered the camels and took them away. They put the servants to death with the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”",
      "18": "While he was still speaking, another servant came and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and were drinking wine in the house of their oldest brother.",
      "19": "Suddenly a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it collapsed on the young people, and they died, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”",
      "20": "Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshipped.",
      "21": "Then he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be blessed.”",
      "22": "In all this, Job did not sin or blame God."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Another day arrived when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came into their midst.",
      "2": "The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”\nSatan answered the Lord, “From roaming the earth and walking around on it.”",
      "3": "Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and turns away from evil. And he still maintains his integrity, even though you incited me against him to destroy him for no reason.”",
      "4": "Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! A man will give all he has for his life.",
      "5": "But stretch out your hand and strike his bones and flesh, and he will certainly curse you to your face!”",
      "6": "The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hand, but preserve his life.”",
      "7": "Satan then went out from the presence of the Lord. He struck Job with very painful sores from the sole of his foot to the top of his head.",
      "8": "So Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself as he was sitting among the ashes.",
      "9": "Then his wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”",
      "10": "But he said to her, “You are talking like a woman who lacks moral judgment. If we accept the good that comes from God, shouldn’t we also accept the bad?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.",
      "11": "Three friends of Job heard about all this adversity that had come upon him, and each of them came from his own homeland: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Na’amathite. They met together and went to sympathize with Job and to comfort him.",
      "12": "When they caught sight of Job from a distance, they did not recognize him. They raised their voices and wept. Each man tore his robe and tossed dust into the air and onto his head.",
      "13": "They sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very great."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Finally, Job opened his lips and cursed the day of his birth.",
      "2": "Job spoke up and said:",
      "3": "May the day of my birth perish,\nand the night when it was said, “A child has been conceived!”",
      "4": "As for that day, let it be darkness!\nMay God above have no concern for it.\nMay light not shine on it.",
      "5": "May darkness and the shadow of death reclaim it.\nMay a dark cloud settle over it.\nMay whatever blackens the day terrify it.",
      "6": "As for that night, may deep darkness take it away!\nMay it not be included among the days of the year\nor show up in the list of months.",
      "7": "Oh let that night be barren!\nMay no joyful shout be heard in it.",
      "8": "May those who curse days cast a spell on it,\nthose who are able to awaken Leviathan.",
      "9": "May its twilight stars be darkened.\nMay it wait hopefully for light but receive none.\nMay it never see the eyelids of dawn,",
      "10": "because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,\nand it did not hide trouble from my eyes.",
      "11": "Why did I not die at birth\nor pass away as I came from the womb?",
      "12": "Why did my mother’s knees receive me?\nWhy were her breasts there to nurse me?",
      "13": "For then I would be lying down peacefully.\nI would be sleeping and resting quietly",
      "14": "with the kings and counselors of the earth,\n        with those who rebuilt ruined cities for themselves,",
      "15": "with high officials who accumulated gold,\n        with those who filled their houses with silver.",
      "16": "Why was I not hidden like a stillborn child,\nlike the infants who never see the light of day?",
      "17": "There the wicked cease from turmoil.\nThere the weary are at rest.",
      "18": "There the prisoners are at ease together.\nThey no longer hear the voice of the slave driver.",
      "19": "There the small and great are alike,\nand the slave is free from his master.",
      "20": "Why is light given to those weighed down with grief?\nWhy is life given to those whose spirit is bitter,",
      "21": "to those who yearn for death but it does not come,\n    though they dig for it more than for buried treasure,",
      "22": "to those who will be thrilled with happiness,\nthose who will celebrate when they reach the grave?",
      "23": "Why is light given to a man whose path is hidden,\nto one whom God has hedged in?",
      "24": "Now my sighing takes the place of my daily bread.\nMy groans gush forth like water,",
      "25": "because what I feared has overwhelmed me,\nand that which I dreaded has come upon me.",
      "26": "I have no ease, no quiet, no rest.\nInstead, turmoil has come."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded:",
      "2": "If someone ventures to have a word with you, will you grow impatient?\nBut who can refrain from speaking up?",
      "3": "You yourself have instructed many,\nand you have strengthened weak hands.",
      "4": "Your words have raised up people who were stumbling,\nand you have given support to buckling knees.",
      "5": "But now that this has happened to you, you grow impatient.\nThis strikes you and you are disturbed.",
      "6": "Shouldn’t your piety give you confidence?\nDon’t your blameless ways give you reason to hope?",
      "7": "Now remember this:\nWho has ever perished if he was innocent?\nWhere were the upright ever erased?",
      "8": "This is what I have observed:\nThose who plow evil and sow trouble will reap the same.",
      "9": "By the breath of God they perish.\nBy the blast from his nostrils they come to an end.",
      "10": "The lion roars, and the fierce lion growls,\nbut the teeth of the young lion are broken.",
      "11": "The strong lion perishes from a lack of prey,\nand the cubs of the lioness are scattered.",
      "12": "A word was delivered to me secretly.\nMy ears caught a whisper of it.",
      "13": "In the middle of anxious thoughts arising from visions in the night,\nat the time when deep sleep falls upon people,",
      "14": "terror and trembling came over me\nand made all my bones tremble.",
      "15": "A spirit passed in front of my face.\nThe hair on my body stood on end.",
      "16": "A figure stood in front of me,\nbut I could not tell what it was.\nA form stood before my eyes,\nand I heard a quiet voice say,",
      "17": "“Can a person be righteous before God?\nCan a man be pure before his Maker?”",
      "18": "If God does not trust his own servants,\nif he charges his messengers with error,",
      "19": "how much more those who dwell in clay houses,\n    whose foundations are in the dust,\n    who are crushed more quickly than a moth!",
      "20": "From dawn to dusk they are smashed to pieces.\nThey perish forever, and no one even notices.",
      "21": "Won’t the ropes that hold up their tents be pulled up,\nso that they die without gaining wisdom?"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Call out! Is there anyone there to answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?",
      "2": "It’s true, the fool is killed by resentment,\nand the gullible are put to death by jealousy.",
      "3": "I myself have seen a fool putting down roots,\nbut immediately I pronounced a curse on his home.",
      "4": "His children are far from safety.\nThey are crushed at the city gate without a defender.",
      "5": "His harvest is eaten by the hungry,\n    who snatch it away, even from among the thorns,\n    and the thirsty swallow his children’s wealth.",
      "6": "Disaster does not just spring up from the dust,\nnor does trouble sprout from the soil.",
      "7": "No, mankind is born for trouble as surely as flames fly upward.",
      "8": "But I want to appeal to God.\nI want to present my case to him.",
      "9": "He does great things that are beyond investigation,\nand miracles that are too many to be counted.",
      "10": "He provides rain for the earth.\nHe waters the fields in the countryside.",
      "11": "He raises the lowly to the heights,\nand he lifts those who mourn to safety.",
      "12": "He foils the plots of clever schemers,\n    so that their hands achieve no success.",
      "13": "He traps the wise in their schemes,\nand the plans of the devious come to a swift end.",
      "14": "By day they encounter darkness,\nand at noon they grope around as if it were night.",
      "15": "He saves the poor from mouths that cut like a sword\nand from the hand of the strong.",
      "16": "He does this so that the helpless will have hope,\nand injustice will shut its mouth.",
      "17": "Consider this:\nHow blessed is the man whom God corrects!\nDo not reject the discipline of the Almighty!",
      "18": "For though he may inflict wounds, he also bandages them.\nThough he may strike, his hands also heal.",
      "19": "From six calamities he will rescue you.\nIn seven no harm will touch you.",
      "20": "In famine he will redeem you from death,\nand in battle he will redeem you from the power of the sword.",
      "21": "You will be hidden from the lash of the tongue,\nand you will not be afraid of devastation when it comes.",
      "22": "You will laugh at devastation and hunger.\nYou will not be afraid of the wild animals of the countryside,",
      "23": "because there will be a covenant between you and the stones in the field,\nand the wild animals will be at peace with you.",
      "24": "You will know that your tent is secure,\nand when you inspect your property, you will find nothing missing.",
      "25": "You will know that your offspring will be many,\nand your descendants will be like grass from the earth.",
      "26": "You will come to the grave at a ripe old age,\n    like a stack of sheaves that is gathered in season.",
      "27": "Consider this:\nWe have investigated this carefully, and it is true!\nPay close attention and apply it to yourself!"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Then Job responded:",
      "2": "If only my grief could be weighed,\nand my devastation placed on the scales with it!",
      "3": "They would certainly weigh more than the sand of the sea!\nNo wonder my words have been rash.",
      "4": "The arrows of the Almighty stick in me.\nMy spirit drinks in their poison.\nThe terrors of God are lined up against me.",
      "5": "Does the wild donkey bray when it has green grass?\nDoes the ox bellow when it is near its fodder?",
      "6": "Is tasteless food eaten without salt?\nIs there flavor in the white of an egg?",
      "7": "I absolutely refuse to touch it.\nIt is no better than sickening food.",
      "8": "If only my request would be granted.\nIf only God would grant me what I hope for:",
      "9": "that God would decide to crush me,\n    that he would unleash his hand and cut me off.",
      "10": "For then I would still have this comfort:\n    Even as I writhe in relentless pain,\n    I have not denied the words of the Holy One.",
      "11": "What strength do I have to wait hopefully?\nWhat end awaits me that would make me want to prolong my life?",
      "12": "Is my strength like stone,\nor is my flesh bronze?",
      "13": "Certainly I have no power to help myself,\n    since the hope that I can recover has been driven far away from me.",
      "14": "A despairing person should receive loyalty from his friends,\n    even if he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.",
      "15": "But my brothers are as undependable as gullies that dry up,\nundependable as seasonal streams which overflow",
      "16": "when they are darkened by ice and swollen with melting snow,",
      "17": "but as quickly as they flood, they dry up in the scorching winds.\nWhen it gets hot, they vanish from their channels.",
      "18": "Caravans turn aside from their routes.\nThey go off into the empty wasteland and perish.",
      "19": "The caravans of Tema search for these streams.\nThe travelers of Sheba hope to find them,",
      "20": "but despite being confident, they are disappointed.\nThey arrive there only to be frustrated.",
      "21": "Now that is what you are like!\nYou have seen something dreadful and you panic.",
      "22": "Have I said, “Give me something,\nor offer a payment on my behalf from your wealth”?",
      "23": "Have I said, “Save me from the hand of my enemy,\nor redeem me from the hand of the ruthless”?",
      "24": "Teach me and I will be silent.\nHelp me understand what I have done wrong.",
      "25": "How painful honest words are!\nBut what does your rebuke prove?",
      "26": "Do you intend to attack me for mere words\n    by treating things said by a despairing man like wind?",
      "27": "No doubt you would even cast lots for a fatherless child\nand barter away your friend!",
      "28": "But now, please look at me.\nI would not lie to your face!",
      "29": "Turn to me, and get rid of injustice.\nTurn to me. My righteousness is still intact.",
      "30": "Is there any injustice on my tongue?\nWouldn’t my mouth detect it if I were speaking destructive words?"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "Isn’t man’s time on earth like being compelled to serve in the army? Aren’t his days like those of a hired man?",
      "2": "Like a slave, he longs for shade,\nor like a day laborer, he waits for his pay.",
      "3": "In the same way, I have been allotted months of futility,\nand nights of agony have been assigned to me.",
      "4": "When I lie down, I think, “How long before I get up?”\nBut the night drags on,\nand I am filled with restlessness until dawn.",
      "5": "My flesh is clothed with maggots and caked with dirt.\nMy skin scabs over and then oozes again.",
      "6": "My days pass by more swiftly than the shuttle of a weaver’s loom.\nThey come to an end without hope.",
      "7": "Remember that my life is just a breath.\nMy eyes will never again see good fortune.",
      "8": "The eyes that see me now will no longer watch me.\nYour eyes will look for me, but I will not be there.",
      "9": "As a cloud vanishes and is gone,\nso does the one who goes down to the grave.\nHe does not come back up again.",
      "10": "He never again returns to his home,\nand his place will no longer know him.",
      "11": "That is why I will not restrain my mouth.\nI will speak out in the anguish of my spirit.\nI will lament in the bitterness of my soul.",
      "12": "Am I the sea or a great creature of the deep\n    that you need to put me under guard?",
      "13": "When I say that my bed will comfort me,\nand my couch will help me with my lament,",
      "14": "then you frighten me with dreams\nand terrify me with visions,",
      "15": "so I would prefer to be strangled,\nand I prefer death more than my current existence.",
      "16": "I reject my life. I do not want to live forever.\nLeave me alone, for my days are just a vanishing vapor.",
      "17": "What is man that you make so much of him,\nthat you pay so much attention to him,",
      "18": "that you inspect him every morning\nand test him every minute?",
      "19": "Why do you never stop watching me?\nWhy don’t you leave me alone long enough for me to swallow my spit?",
      "20": "If I have sinned, what harm has it done to you,\n    you who keep watch on mankind?\nWhy have you set me up as your target?\nHow have I become a burden to you?",
      "21": "Why do you not forgive my rebellion?\nWhy do you not take away my guilt?\nSoon I will lie down in the dust.\nYou will search for me, but I will not be there."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Then Bildad the Shuhite responded:",
      "2": "How long will you say such things?\nHow long will the words of your mouth be like a blustery wind?",
      "3": "Does God pervert justice?\nDoes the Almighty pervert what is right?",
      "4": "When your children sinned against him,\nhe handed them over to the consequences of their rebellion.",
      "5": "But if you will eagerly seek God\nand plead for compassion from the Almighty,",
      "6": "if you are pure and upright,\nthen even now he will rouse himself on your behalf,\nand he will restore your rightful dwelling place.",
      "7": "Then, though your beginnings were small,\nyour final days will be very great!",
      "8": "Yes, ask the previous generations,\nand consider the discoveries of their fathers,",
      "9": "because we were born only yesterday and know nothing.\nOur days on earth are nothing but a shadow.",
      "10": "Aren’t our ancestors the ones who should teach you and inform you,\nthe ones who brought forth words from their hearts?",
      "11": "Does papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh?\nDo reeds thrive where there is no water?",
      "12": "While they are still growing and uncut,\nthey can wither faster than any other plant.",
      "13": "This is the way it will be for all those who forget God.\nThe hope of the godless man perishes.",
      "14": "His source of confidence is fragile.\nHe trusts in something as fragile as a spider’s web.",
      "15": "He leans on his web, but it does not support him.\nHe grasps it, but it does not hold him up.",
      "16": "He is a thriving plant flourishing in the sunshine,\n    spreading its shoots over the garden.",
      "17": "It wraps its roots around a heap of rocks.\nIt finds a home among the stones.",
      "18": "But if it is uprooted from its place,\nthat place disowns it, saying, “I have never seen you!”",
      "19": "Yes, the only good thing that comes from this situation is that\n    from the dust another plant sprouts.",
      "20": "Certainly God does not reject a blameless man\nor strengthen the hand of evildoers.",
      "21": "He will again fill your mouth with laughter\nand your lips with a joyful shout.",
      "22": "Your enemies will be clothed with shame,\nand the tents of the wicked will be no more."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Then Job responded:",
      "2": "Of course I know that this is true.\nBut how can a man be justified before God?",
      "3": "If someone wants to argue with God,\nhe could not refute one charge out of a thousand.",
      "4": "God has a wise heart and great power,\nso who can resist God and come out of it unharmed?",
      "5": "God removes mountains from their position,\nand they don’t even realize it.\nHe overturns mountains in his anger.",
      "6": "He shakes the earth off its foundation.\nHe causes its pillars to quake.",
      "7": "He speaks to the sun, and it does not rise,\nand he seals up the stars.",
      "8": "He alone stretches out the heavens.\nHe treads on the crests of the sea.",
      "9": "He made the Bear, Orion, the Pleiades,\nand the constellations in the southern sky.",
      "10": "He does great things that are beyond investigation.\nHe does miracles that are too many to be counted.",
      "11": "Though he passes by me, I do not see him.\nHe moves past me, but I do not detect him.",
      "12": "If he snatches something away, who can make him bring it back?\nWho can say to him, “What are you doing?”",
      "13": "God does not hold back his anger.\nEven Rahab’s helpers bow down beneath him.",
      "14": "How much less, then, will I be able to answer him?\nI want to match words with him,",
      "15": "but even if I am in the right, I cannot answer him.\nI can only plead to my judge for grace.",
      "16": "If I called and he responded to me,\nI do not believe that he would listen to my voice.",
      "17": "With a violent storm he would crush me,\nand he would inflict many wounds on me for no reason.",
      "18": "He would not allow me to catch my breath.\nInstead, he would fill me with bitter experiences.",
      "19": "If it is a question of strength, he definitely is the strong one.\nIf it is a question of jurisdiction, who can summon him?",
      "20": "Even if I am righteous, my mouth would still condemn me.\nIf I am blameless, it would pronounce me crooked.",
      "21": "Although I am blameless, I cannot evaluate myself.\nI reject my own life.",
      "22": "Here is why I say, “It makes no difference.”\nBlameless or wicked, he brings them all to the same end.",
      "23": "If a whip suddenly kills people,\nhe makes fun of the despair of the innocent.",
      "24": "When a land is handed over to a wicked man,\nGod blinds the eyes of its judges.\nIf he is not the one, then who does it?",
      "25": "My days are swifter than a runner.\nThey fly away without bringing any happiness.",
      "26": "They glide by like reed boats,\nlike an eagle that swoops down on its prey.",
      "27": "If I say, “I will forget my complaint.\nI will put on a happy face and smile,”",
      "28": "even then I dread all my pain,\nbecause I know that you will not acquit me.",
      "29": "I have already been declared guilty,\nso why should I struggle for nothing.",
      "30": "If I wash myself with snow,\nif I cleanse my hands with strong soap,",
      "31": "then you will plunge me into a cesspool,\nand my clothes will detest me.",
      "32": "For he is not a man as I am,\nso that I am able to answer him,\nso that we may meet in court.",
      "33": "There is no one to mediate between us,\nno one who can lay his hand on both of us.",
      "34": "No one can make him take his rod away from me,\nso that the dread of him would not fill me with terror!",
      "35": "If that happened, I would speak up and not be afraid.\nBut I have no such mediator. I am left on my own."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "With all my heart I am weary of my life,\nso I will express my complaint freely.\nI will speak from the bitterness of my heart.",
      "2": "I will say this to God: Do not condemn me.\nTell me why you are pressing charges against me.",
      "3": "Is it good that you are oppressing me,\nthat you are rejecting what your hands have made,\nat the same time that you favor the plans of the wicked?",
      "4": "Do you have eyes made of flesh?\nDo you see things the way a man does?",
      "5": "Are your days like a man’s days?\nAre your years like the life span of a human?",
      "6": "You do, in fact, investigate guilt,\nand you do search carefully for sin.",
      "7": "Although you know that I am not guilty,\nthere is no one who can rescue me from your hand.",
      "8": "Your hands shaped me and made me,\nbut now you swallow me up completely.",
      "9": "Please remember that it was you who shaped me like a clay pot.\nWill you now return me to the dust?",
      "10": "Aren’t you the one who poured me out like milk,\nwho thickened me like a curd of cheese?",
      "11": "You clothed me with skin and flesh.\nYou wove me together with bones and tendons.",
      "12": "You provided me with life and mercy,\nand your watchful care has guarded my spirit.",
      "13": "You hid these things in your heart,\nbut I know that this is what you had in mind:",
      "14": "If I sinned and you were watching me,\nyou would not acquit me of my guilt.",
      "15": "If I was wicked, I would be cursed!\nBut even if I was righteous, I could not lift up my head,\nbecause I am filled with shame and aware of my misery.",
      "16": "If I lift myself up, you hunt me down like a lion.\nYou turn and display amazing power against me.",
      "17": "You produce new witnesses to oppose me,\nand you become more irritated with me.\nYou attack me with reinforcements.",
      "18": "Why, then, did you bring me out from the womb?\nI wish I had died. Then no eye would have seen me.",
      "19": "I wish I had been like someone who never lived.\nThen I would have been carried from the womb to the tomb.",
      "20": "Don’t I have only a few days?\nStop! Leave me alone, so that I can be happy for a short time,",
      "21": "before I walk into the land of darkness\nand into the shadow of death, never to return,",
      "22": "into the land of gloom, as dark as the shadow of death,\ninto the land of chaos, where even light is darkness."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Then Zophar the Na’amathite spoke up and responded:",
      "2": "Doesn’t this gush of words call for an answer?\nCan this man’s bold talk be justified?",
      "3": "Should your empty words reduce men to silence?\nCan you be allowed to scoff without anyone putting you in your place?",
      "4": "You say, “What I teach is untainted,\nand I am pure in your eyes.”",
      "5": "Oh how I wish that God would speak up,\nopen his lips against you,",
      "6": "and show you the secret of wisdom,\nbecause sound judgment must look at both sides.\nThen you would know that God has even forgotten some of your guilt!",
      "7": "Can you explore the essence of God?\nCan you find a limit to the perfections of the Almighty?",
      "8": "They are as high as the heavens. What can you do?\nThey are deeper than hell. What can you know?",
      "9": "His dimensions are greater than the earth\nand wider than the sea.",
      "10": "If God comes and arrests someone and puts him on trial,\nwho can overrule him?",
      "11": "Certainly he recognizes deceitful men for what they are.\nHe sees evil, and he recognizes it for what it is.",
      "12": "Before an empty-headed man gets understanding,\na wild donkey colt will be born as a man.",
      "13": "But you, if you make your heart steadfast,\nand you spread out your hands to him,",
      "14": "if you put away the sin you are holding in your hand,\nand you do not allow injustice to dwell in your tents,",
      "15": "then you will lift up your face and be blameless.\nYou will be solid and fearless.",
      "16": "You will certainly forget your trouble.\nYour memory of it will be like water that has flowed away.",
      "17": "The rest of your life will be brighter than noon.\nDarkness will become like morning.",
      "18": "You will be confident that there is hope.\nWhen you look around, you will go to bed confidently.",
      "19": "You will lie down, and no one will make you tremble.\nMany will seek your favor.",
      "20": "The eyes of the wicked will fail,\nand their place of refuge will disappear.\nTheir hope will vanish with their dying breath."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Then Job responded:",
      "2": "Yes, indeed. You are the people,\nand wisdom will die with you!",
      "3": "But I understand things as well as you.\nI do not fall short of you.\nWho doesn’t know all these things?",
      "4": "But I am a laughingstock to my neighbor—\nI, who call on God, and he answers me—\nI, a righteous and complete man, am a laughingstock!",
      "5": "Those who are carefree do not worry about disaster.\nThey think it is reserved for those whose feet are slipping.",
      "6": "The tents of raiders are undisturbed,\nand those who provoke God are secure—\nthose who carry their god in their hand.",
      "7": "Please ask the animals, and they will teach you.\nAsk the birds of the sky, and they will inform you.",
      "8": "Complain to the earth, and it will teach you,\nand the fish of the sea will tell you about it.",
      "9": "Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord did this?",
      "10": "The life of every living thing is in his hand,\nas well as the breath in all human flesh.",
      "11": "Isn’t it true that the ear tests words\nand the palate tastes food?",
      "12": "Isn’t it true that wisdom is found among the aged\nand understanding among those who have had a long life?",
      "13": "But wisdom and power are with God.\nHe gives guidance and understanding.",
      "14": "If he tears something down, it cannot be rebuilt.\nIf he shuts a door on a man, it cannot be opened.",
      "15": "Look! He holds back the waters, and the land dries up.\nHe turns them loose, and the earth is overwhelmed.",
      "16": "He has strength and sound judgment.\nThe deceiver and the deceived both belong to him.",
      "17": "He causes royal advisors to be led away naked.\nHe makes fools of judges.",
      "18": "He takes away the ruling power of kings,\nand he wraps a loincloth around their waist.",
      "19": "He causes priests to be led away naked,\nand he brings the pillars of society down to ruin.",
      "20": "He closes the lips of trusted advisors,\nand he takes away good judgment from elders.",
      "21": "He pours contempt on nobles.\nHe loosens the belt of the strong.",
      "22": "He uncovers deep mysteries that were hidden in darkness.\nHe brings the shadow of death into the light.",
      "23": "He raises nations to power, and then he destroys them.\nHe enlarges nations, and then he leads them away captive.",
      "24": "He deprives the heads of the peoples of the earth of their reason.\nHe makes them wander in a wild land where there are no roads.",
      "25": "They grope around in darkness, where there is no light.\nHe causes them to wander aimlessly like drunks."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "My eyes have certainly seen all this.\nMy ears have heard it and understood it.",
      "2": "Whatever you know, I know every bit as well.\nI do not fall short of you in any way.",
      "3": "But I want to speak to the Almighty.\nI am eager to argue my case with God.",
      "4": "All you do is plaster over problems with lies.\nSuch useless healers, all of you!",
      "5": "I wish you would shut up completely.\nFor you, that would be wisdom!",
      "6": "But now, listen to my rebuttal.\nPay attention to the arguments from my lips.",
      "7": "Will you misrepresent God?\nWill you speak deceitfully about him?",
      "8": "Will you show favoritism on behalf of God\nand argue his case for him?",
      "9": "Will it turn out well when he cross-examines you?\nCan you fool God as you can fool a man?",
      "10": "He will certainly rule against you if you hide your favoritism.",
      "11": "Won’t God’s majesty frighten you?\nWon’t the dread he inspires overwhelm you?",
      "12": "Your axioms are proverbs made of ashes.\nYour strong points are made of clay.",
      "13": "Silence! Let me speak.\nI intend to speak up, no matter what happens.",
      "14": "Why do I bite my flesh with my teeth?\nWhy do I take my life in my hands?",
      "15": "Even if he slays me, I will wait for him with hope.\nNo matter what, I will defend my ways to his face.",
      "16": "Even this may turn out for my salvation,\nfor no godless person would dare to face him.",
      "17": "Listen carefully to my words!\nGive my testimony a hearing.",
      "18": "Please, listen. I have laid out my case.\nI know that I am innocent.",
      "19": "Who can make a case against me?\nIf anyone can, I will be quiet and die.",
      "20": "Just do two things for me, God.\nIf you do, I will not hide from your face.",
      "21": "Take your hands off me,\nand do not terrify me with your grandeur.",
      "22": "Summon me, and I will answer.\nOr, I will speak, and you can respond to me.",
      "23": "How much guilt and how many sins do I have?\nReveal my rebellion and my sin to me.",
      "24": "Why do you hide your face?\nWhy do you treat me like your enemy?",
      "25": "Will you toss me around like a wind-blown leaf?\nWill you chase me away like dry chaff?",
      "26": "You write bitter accusations against me,\nand you hold me accountable for the guilt of my youth.",
      "27": "You lock my feet in stocks\nand station guards along all my paths.\nYou put your brand on the soles of my feet.",
      "28": "So a man rots away like a garment eaten by moths."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Man born of woman has a few short days,\nand they are full of anxiety.",
      "2": "He blossoms like a flower, but soon withers.\nHe recedes like a shadow and does not remain.",
      "3": "You keep your eye on such a man.\nYou bring me into judgment in your presence.",
      "4": "Who can produce something pure from something that is impure?\nNo one.",
      "5": "Certainly his days are determined.\nThe number of his months has been set by you.\nA limit is set, which he cannot exceed.",
      "6": "Turn your gaze away from him, and let him be,\nuntil he finishes his day’s work as a hired man.",
      "7": "There is still hope for a tree if it is cut down.\nIt may grow up again and produce new shoots.",
      "8": "Though its roots lie dormant in the earth,\nand its stump is dying in the dust,",
      "9": "with just a whiff of water, it shoots up again.\nAs a growing plant, it again sends out branches.",
      "10": "But if a man dies, he shrivels away.\nWhen a person breathes his last, where is he?",
      "11": "Waters evaporate from the sea.\nA river dries up and becomes dust.",
      "12": "In the same way, a man lies down and does not rise again.\nUntil the heavens pass away, he does not awaken,\nand he is not aroused from his sleep.",
      "13": "Oh how I wish you would hide me in the grave,\nthat you would conceal me until your wrath has passed by,\nthat you would set an appointed time for me,\nand then you would remember me.",
      "14": "If a man dies, will he live again?\nThrough all the days of my warfare,\nI will wait, until change comes about for me.",
      "15": "You will call, and I myself will answer.\nThen you will long for the work of your hands.",
      "16": "Now you count my steps,\nbut then you will no longer keep track of my sin.",
      "17": "My rebellious deeds will be sealed up in a bag,\nand you will plaster over my guilt.",
      "18": "But as a mountain crumbles and falls,\nand as a rock is moved from its place,",
      "19": "as water wears away stones,\nand floodwaters wash away soil from the land,\nso you destroy a man’s hope.",
      "20": "You overpower him once and for all, and he passes away.\nYou change his appearance and send him away.",
      "21": "His sons are honored, but he is not aware of it.\nThey are brought low, but he does not realize it.",
      "22": "He feels the pain only of his own flesh,\nand in his soul grieves only for himself."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "Eliphaz the Temanite responded:",
      "2": "Does a wise man answer with windy bluster?\nDoes he fill his belly with the hot east wind?",
      "3": "Does he support his arguments with useless talk,\nwith words that provide no benefit?",
      "4": "But you even tear down reverence.\nYou hinder thoughtful reflection in the presence of God.",
      "5": "Your guilt instructs your mouth.\nYou choose deceptive language.",
      "6": "Your own mouth condemns you, not mine.\nYour own lips testify against you.",
      "7": "Were you the first man to be born?\nWere you brought forth before the hills?",
      "8": "Do you listen in on the council meetings of God?\nDo you lay claim to all wisdom for yourself?",
      "9": "What do you know that we do not know as well?\nWhat do you understand that we do not?",
      "10": "The gray-haired and the aged are on our side,\nmen older than your father.",
      "11": "Are the consolations of God too small for you?\nDo you think nothing of the gentle words spoken to you?",
      "12": "Why does your heart carry you away?\nWhy do your eyes flash with such anger?",
      "13": "Why do you turn your spirit against God?\nWhy do you allow such words to pour out of your mouth?",
      "14": "What is man, that he could be pure,\nor one born of woman, that he could be declared righteous?",
      "15": "If God does not trust in his holy ones,\nand even the heavens are not pure in his eyes,",
      "16": "how much less man who is repulsive and corrupt,\nwho drinks down injustice like water!",
      "17": "Let me instruct you! Listen to me!\nThis is what I have seen. Let me tell you about it.",
      "18": "This is what wise men have declared,\nwise men who hid nothing of what they had received from their fathers,",
      "19": "to whom alone the land was given,\n        at a time when no foreigners were present in their midst.",
      "20": "Through all his days, a wicked man writhes in pain,\nthroughout the whole number of years stored up for a tyrant.",
      "21": "Terrifying sounds echo in his ears.\nIn peacetime the plunderer arrives.",
      "22": "The wicked man does not believe that he will return from darkness.\nHe is sentenced to the sword.",
      "23": "He wanders around looking for food and asks, “Where is it?”\nHe knows that a day of darkness is at hand.",
      "24": "Pressure and distress terrify him.\nThey overpower him, like a king ready to attack,",
      "25": "because he has stretched out his hand against God,\nand he has been arrogant toward the Almighty.",
      "26": "He charges at him defiantly with a thick shield.",
      "27": "Though now his face is covered with its fat,\nand his hips bulge with lard,",
      "28": "he will live in ruined cities,\nin abandoned houses, reduced to rubble.",
      "29": "He will no longer be rich.\nHis wealth will not last.\nHis possessions will no longer cover the ground.",
      "30": "He will not escape from darkness.\nFlames will dry up his shoots.\nWith a breath from God’s mouth, he will depart.",
      "31": "He should not trust in useless things.\nHe should not fool himself.\nHis only reward will be useless things.",
      "32": "Before his time, he will be paid in full.\nHis palm branches will not be green.",
      "33": "His grapes will be shaken from the vine before they are ripe.\nHe will be like an olive tree that loses its blossoms.",
      "34": "In the end, the community of the godless produces nothing,\nand fire consumes the tents of those who take bribes.",
      "35": "They conceive trouble and give birth to disaster.\nTheir womb produces treachery."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "Job responded:",
      "2": "I have heard many things just like these.\nYou are miserable comforters, all of you!",
      "3": "Is there any end to your windy words?\nWhat provokes you to respond like this?",
      "4": "I also could speak just like you,\nif your lives were in the same condition that my life is.\nI could weave fancy words against you\nand shake my head at you.",
      "5": "But instead, I would build you up with the words from my mouth,\nand comforting words from my lips would ease your pain.",
      "6": "Now if I speak up, it does not lessen my pain,\nand if I hold back, how much of my pain goes away?",
      "7": "Surely, he has worn me out!\nYou have devastated everyone close to me.",
      "8": "You have made me shrivel up,\nand this testifies against me.\nMy emaciated body stands up\nand is a witness against me.",
      "9": "His anger has torn me.\nHe has been hostile to me.\nHe has gnashed his teeth at me.\nMy opponent glares at me with piercing eyes.",
      "10": "People have opened their mouths wide against me.\nThey have slapped my face with contempt.\nThey have ganged up on me.",
      "11": "God hands me over to evil people.\nHe throws me into the hands of the wicked.",
      "12": "When I was at ease, he shattered me.\nHe seized me by the neck and has ripped me to pieces.\nHe has set me up as his target.",
      "13": "His archers surround me.\nHe pierces my kidneys and has no pity.\nHe pours out my bile on the earth.",
      "14": "He breaks down my walls in many places.\nHe runs against me like a warrior.",
      "15": "I have stitched sackcloth to my skin.\nMy horn is stuck in the dust.",
      "16": "My face is red from my weeping.\nThere are dark circles under my eyes,",
      "17": "even though there is no violence in my hands,\nand my prayer is pure.",
      "18": "O earth, do not cover my blood.\nLet my cry never find a place to rest.",
      "19": "Even now, my witness is in heaven.\nMy advocate is on high.",
      "20": "My intercessor is my friend.\nMy eyes never stop weeping to God.",
      "21": "My intercessor pleads with God for a man,\nas another human pleads for his friend.",
      "22": "A few more years will come.\nThen I will go the way of no return."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "My spirit is broken.\nMy days are snuffed out.\nThe tomb is waiting for me.",
      "2": "Surely mockery closes in on me.\nMy eyes must live with my enemies’ bitter contempt.",
      "3": "Please pay for me the deposit that you require from me.\nIndeed, who else could guarantee this payment for me?",
      "4": "You have hidden understanding from their hearts.\nTherefore, you will not let them win.",
      "5": "If someone denounces friends for a payoff,\nhis children’s eyes will fail.",
      "6": "He has made me a laughingstock among the people.\nThey spit in my face.",
      "7": "My vision is blurry from grief.\nI am just a shadow of myself.",
      "8": "The upright are appalled at this,\nand the innocent are aroused against the godless.",
      "9": "In spite of it all, the righteous hold tight to their ways,\nand everyone with clean hands grows stronger.",
      "10": "All right then—all of you, please come and try again,\nbut I will not find a wise man among you.",
      "11": "My days have passed.\nAll the things I planned to do are ripped apart,\nincluding the deepest desires of my heart.",
      "12": "They turn night into day.\nIn the face of darkness, they claim light is near.",
      "13": "If I wait hopefully for the grave to become my house,\nif I spread out my bed in the darkness,",
      "14": "if I cry out to the pit, “You are my father,”\nand to the worm, “My mother” or “My sister,”",
      "15": "where then is my hope?\nWho can find any hope for me?",
      "16": "Will it go down with me to the barred gates of the grave?\nWill we rest in the dust together?"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "Bildad the Shuhite responded:",
      "2": "How much longer are all of you going to keep hunting for words?\nCome to your senses! Then we can talk.",
      "3": "Why are we considered to be like cattle?\nWhy are we regarded as unreasoning animals in your eyes?",
      "4": "You, who tear yourself to pieces with your anger,\ndo you expect the earth to be made desolate for your sake?\nShould rocks be moved from their place for you?",
      "5": "The light of the wicked has been extinguished,\nand not a spark of his flame still shines.",
      "6": "In his tent, light becomes darkness\nwhen the lamp beside him goes out.",
      "7": "His powerful strides are tangled up,\nand his own plans bring him down.",
      "8": "Yes, his feet are caught in a net,\nand he stumbles into its webbing.",
      "9": "A trap snaps at his heel,\nand a snare catches him firmly.",
      "10": "A noose lies hidden on the ground for him.\nA trap is set on his path.",
      "11": "Terrors frighten him on every side.\nThey harass him at every step.",
      "12": "His strength is eaten away by hunger,\nand disaster is waiting for him to stumble.",
      "13": "It eats away pieces of his skin.\nDeath’s firstborn child eats away pieces of him.",
      "14": "He is torn away from the safety of his tent.\nHe is marched off to the king of terrors.",
      "15": "Nothing that belonged to him remains in his tent.\nSulfur is scattered over his dwelling.",
      "16": "His roots dry up below,\nand his branches wither above.",
      "17": "All memory of him perishes from the earth.\nNo one on the street remembers his name.",
      "18": "He is pushed away from the light into the darkness.\nHe is chased out of the world.",
      "19": "He has no posterity or descendants among his people.\nHe leaves no survivor in his place, where he lived as an alien.",
      "20": "People in the west shudder at his fate.\nPeople in the east are overcome with horror.",
      "21": "Certainly this is the dwelling place for an evil man.\nThis is the place for one who does not acknowledge God."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Then Job responded:",
      "2": "How long will you torment my soul?\nHow long will you crush me with words?",
      "3": "Ten times now you have insulted me,\nbut you are not ashamed that you are treating me so badly.",
      "4": "But even if I actually were in the wrong,\nmy error would remain my own concern.",
      "5": "To be sure, when you lord it over me,\nand you hurl my disgrace against me,",
      "6": "you should know that God has denied me justice,\nand he has trapped me in his net.",
      "7": "Listen to me!\nI cry out, “Injustice,” but I get no answer.\nI call for help, but there is no justice.",
      "8": "He has blocked my way, so I cannot get by.\nHe has brought darkness on my paths.",
      "9": "He has stripped me of my honor,\nand he has taken the crown off my head.",
      "10": "He tears me down on every side, until I am gone.\nHe uproots my hope like a tree.",
      "11": "His anger burns against me,\nand he regards me as his enemy.",
      "12": "Together his troops advance against me.\nThey build a siege ramp against me.\nThey camp all around my tent.",
      "13": "He has distanced my brothers far from me,\nand those who know me treat me like a stranger.",
      "14": "My relatives stay away.\nEven my close friends have forgotten me.",
      "15": "Even my houseguests and my female servants treat me like a stranger.\nThey look upon me as a foreigner.",
      "16": "I summon my servant, but he does not answer,\neven though I beg him to be gracious to me.",
      "17": "My breath keeps my wife away from me,\nand I am repulsive to my mother’s children.",
      "18": "Even young boys reject me.\nWhen I get up, they speak against me.",
      "19": "My closest confidants shun me,\nand those I love have turned against me.",
      "20": "I am nothing but skin and bones.\nI have escaped with the skin of my teeth.",
      "21": "Have mercy on me.\nHave mercy on me, you friends of mine,\nbecause the hand of God has struck me.",
      "22": "Why do you pursue me the way God does?\nWill you never get enough of my flesh?",
      "23": "Oh how I wish that my words were written down.\nOh how I wish that they were inscribed in bronze,",
      "24": "that they would be engraved in rock forever\nwith an iron tool and letters filled with lead.",
      "25": "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,\nand that at the end of time he will stand over the dust.",
      "26": "Then, even after my skin has been destroyed,\nnevertheless, in my own flesh I will see God.",
      "27": "I myself will see him.\nMy own eyes will see him, and not as a stranger.\nMy emotions are in turmoil within me.",
      "28": "If you say, “What can we do to pursue him?”\nand “He is the root of his own problems,”",
      "29": "then you should fear the edge of the sword for yourselves!\nFor wrath brings the punishment of the sword,\nso that you will know that there is judgment."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Then Zophar the Na’amathite responded:",
      "2": "This is why my troubled thoughts make me respond again,\nand why my thoughts are racing through my mind:",
      "3": "I heard a rebuke that insults me,\nso my spirit prompts me to respond with understanding.",
      "4": "Don’t you know this?\nFrom ancient times,\nfrom the time when Adam was placed on the earth,",
      "5": "the triumphant cry of the wicked has been short-lived,\nand the joy of the godless lasts only a moment.",
      "6": "Although his arrogance reaches up to the skies,\nand his head touches the clouds,",
      "7": "he will perish forever like his own filth.\nThose who saw him will say, “Where is he?”",
      "8": "Like a dream, he flies away, and he cannot be found.\nLike a vision during the night, he flutters away.",
      "9": "An eye catches sight of him, but it does not see him again.\nHis place will no longer look at him.",
      "10": "His children must make restitution to the poor.\nHis hands must give back his wealth.",
      "11": "His bones were once filled with youthful vigor,\nbut that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.",
      "12": "If evil tastes sweet in his mouth,\nand he tucks it under his tongue,",
      "13": "if he hoards it for himself,\nand he does not let it go,\nbut savors it on his palate,",
      "14": "his food will turn into cobra venom in his stomach.",
      "15": "He swallowed wealth, but he vomits it up.\nGod makes him expel it from his belly.",
      "16": "He sucks the poison of cobras.\nThe fangs of a viper kill him.",
      "17": "He will not see the streams,\nthe rivers that flow with honey and cream.",
      "18": "Without digesting it, he gives up the produce for which he labored.\nHe does not enjoy the wealth for which he traded,",
      "19": "because he has crushed and abandoned the poor,\nand he has stolen a house he did not build.",
      "20": "His stomach is never filled.\nHe cannot satisfy his desires,",
      "21": "because now there is nothing left for him to eat,\nso his prosperity will not endure.",
      "22": "Even when he has plenty,\ndistress catches up with him,\nand misery grabs hold of him.",
      "23": "While he is filling his belly,\nGod will send burning anger upon him,\nand it will rain down on his body.",
      "24": "He flees from iron weapons,\nbut he is pierced by a bronze arrow.",
      "25": "He pulls the arrow out of his back,\nand the shiny point comes out of his liver.\nTerrors come over him.",
      "26": "Complete darkness is lying in wait for his hidden treasures.\nA fire that needs no fanning will consume him.\nIt will destroy anything that survives in his tent.",
      "27": "The heavens will uncover his guilt,\nand the earth will rise up against him.",
      "28": "A flood will carry away his house,\nsweeping away his possessions on the day of God’s wrath.",
      "29": "This is God’s sentence on the evil man.\nThis is his heritage decreed by God."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Then Job responded:",
      "2": "Listen carefully to my words—\nthat is the kind of encouragement you should give me.",
      "3": "Put up with me while I speak.\nThen, after I have spoken, you may resume your mocking.",
      "4": "Is my complaint against a man?\nWhy shouldn’t I be impatient?",
      "5": "Look at me and be shocked,\nand then put your hand over your mouth.",
      "6": "When I remember all this, I am terrified,\nand horror makes my flesh tremble.",
      "7": "Why do the wicked keep living,\nreach old age,\nand even become stronger?",
      "8": "Their descendants are firmly established in their presence,\nand they live long enough to see their offspring.",
      "9": "Their houses are safe from fear,\nand God’s rod does not strike them.",
      "10": "The wicked man’s bulls breed without failing.\nHis cows deliver calves without miscarrying.",
      "11": "Their toddlers frolic like flocks,\nand their children dance around.",
      "12": "They sing to the accompaniment of hand drums and lyres.\nThey celebrate to the sound of a flute.",
      "13": "They finish out their days in prosperity.\nThen they go down to the grave in a moment.",
      "14": "They say to God, “Keep away from us.\nWe know your ways, but we find no pleasure in them.”",
      "15": "“Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him,\nand what benefit do we gain from pleading with him?”",
      "16": "But I know that their prosperity is not in their own hands,\nso I have distanced myself from the way of life of the wicked.",
      "17": "How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?\nHow often does the disaster they deserve come upon them?\nHow often does God in his anger dole out their fair share of pain?",
      "18": "How often are they like straw blown by the wind,\nlike chaff that a windstorm whisks away?",
      "19": "People say, “God stores up a man’s punishment for his children,”\nbut he should repay the man himself so that he experiences it!",
      "20": "Let his own eyes see his condemnation.\nLet him drink from the rage of the Almighty,",
      "21": "for what does he care about his household after his death,\nwhen his allotment of months has run out?",
      "22": "Can anyone teach God knowledge,\nsince he judges even the most exalted ones?",
      "23": "One person dies with vigor in his bones,\ncompletely secure and at ease.",
      "24": "His body is filled out with fat,\nand his bones are rich with marrow.",
      "25": "Another person dies with his soul filled with bitterness,\nwithout ever tasting anything good.",
      "26": "Both of them lie down together in the dust,\nand worms cover them both.",
      "27": "Oh, I know your thoughts\nand your schemes to harm me.",
      "28": "For you say, “Where is the nobleman’s house,\nand where is the tent, which was the dwelling of the wicked?”",
      "29": "Why don’t you question those who travel the roads?\nWhy don’t you acknowledge the lessons they learned?",
      "30": "They say that the wicked man is spared from the day of disaster,\nand that he escapes the day of raging fury.",
      "31": "Who denounces him to his face for the way he has lived?\nWho repays him for what he has done?",
      "32": "When he is carried to the tombs,\nwhen a vigil is kept at his burial mound,",
      "33": "the clods of dirt from the streambed are sweet to him.\nEveryone follows his funeral procession.\nA crowd of people marches ahead of it.",
      "34": "So how can you comfort me with your useless words?\nThere is nothing left from your answers but fraud!"
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "Eliphaz the Temanite responded:",
      "2": "Can a man benefit God?\nCan even a wise man be of any use to him?",
      "3": "Should the Almighty be delighted if you are righteous?\nDoes he gain any advantage if your ways are blameless?",
      "4": "Is it because of your reverence that he rebukes you\nand comes against you in judgment?",
      "5": "Isn’t your wickedness great?\nIsn’t your guilt endless?",
      "6": "You have seized collateral from your brothers without cause,\nand you have stripped off clothing from the naked.",
      "7": "You have not given water to the weary,\nand you have withheld bread from the hungry.",
      "8": "The earth belongs to a forceful man,\nand a well-respected man dwells in it.",
      "9": "You send widows away empty-handed.\nYou crush the arms of the fatherless.",
      "10": "That is why snares are all around you,\nand sudden fear overwhelms you.",
      "11": "That is why you cannot see in the darkness,\nand floodwaters cover you.",
      "12": "Is not God in the heights of heaven?\nLook at the highest stars, so high above!",
      "13": "But you say, “What does God know?\nCan he judge through the thick darkness?",
      "14": "Dark clouds are a veil around him,\nso he does not see us\nas he walks back and forth in heaven’s dome.”",
      "15": "Are you the guardian of the ancient way,\n    the one traveled by wicked men?",
      "16": "They were snatched away before their time.\nTheir foundation was washed away by a river.",
      "17": "They said to God, “Keep away from us,”\nand “What can the Almighty do to us?”",
      "18": "even though he had filled their houses with good.\nThat is why the way of life of the wicked is far from me.",
      "19": "The righteous see this and are glad.\nThe innocent mock them, saying,",
      "20": "“Surely our adversaries have been erased!\nFire has eaten up their abundance.”",
      "21": "Be reconciled with God.\nBe at peace with him.\nThen good will come to you.",
      "22": "Accept teaching from his mouth,\nand set his words in your heart.",
      "23": "If you turn to the Almighty, you will be built up.\nIf you want to put injustice far from your tent,",
      "24": "throw your purest gold into the dust\nand your gold from Ophir upon the rocks in the ravines.",
      "25": "Then the Almighty will be your purest gold\nand your most precious silver.",
      "26": "Then you will find pleasure in the Almighty,\nand you will lift up your face to God.",
      "27": "You will pray to God, and he will hear you,\nand you will fulfill your vows.",
      "28": "You will decide on a matter, and it will be done for you,\nand light will shine on your ways.",
      "29": "When people are brought low,\nand you say, “Lift them up,”\nGod will save the downcast.",
      "30": "He will deliver even the person who is not innocent,\nwho will escape by the purity of your hands."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "Then Job responded:",
      "2": "Even today my complaint is bitter.\nHis hand weighs heavily on me despite my groaning.",
      "3": "I wish I knew where I could find him,\nso that I could come to his place for judgment.",
      "4": "Then I would lay out my case before him,\nand I would fill my mouth with arguments.",
      "5": "I would know what words he would use to respond to me,\nand I would consider what he would say to me.",
      "6": "Would he use his great power to press charges against me?\nNo, he will certainly give me a hearing.",
      "7": "There, an upright man could argue with him,\nand I would be delivered from my judge forever.",
      "8": "But if I walk to the east, he is not there.\nIf I go back to the west, I find no sign of him.",
      "9": "When he is at work in the north, I do not detect him.\nWhen he turns to the south, I do not see him.",
      "10": "But I am sure he knows the way I take.\nWhen he has tested me, I will come out like gold.",
      "11": "My feet have followed his footsteps closely.\nI have kept to his way, and I have not turned aside.",
      "12": "I have not departed from the command from his lips.\nI have treasured the sayings from his mouth in my heart.",
      "13": "He stands alone.\nWho can make him change?\nWhatever his soul desires, he will do.",
      "14": "He carries out his decrees against me,\nand he has so many of them!",
      "15": "That is why I am in a panic in his presence.\nWhen I think about this, I dread him.",
      "16": "God has made me lose heart.\nThe Almighty has terrified me.",
      "17": "Nevertheless, I am not silenced by the darkness,\nby the dark cloud that covers my face."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "Why are appointments never scheduled by the Almighty?\nWhy do those who know him never see such days?",
      "2": "People move boundary stones.\nThey steal a flock and take it to pasture.",
      "3": "They drive away donkeys that belong to the fatherless.\nThey seize the widow’s ox as collateral.",
      "4": "They shove the poor out of the way.\nThe oppressed people of the land hide together.",
      "5": "They go out to their labor, like wild donkeys in the wilderness,\n    looking for food.\nThe wasteland is their only source of food for themselves\n    and their children.",
      "6": "They gather their straw in the open countryside.\nThey glean leftovers in the vineyard of the wicked.",
      "7": "They spend the night naked, without clothing.\nThey have no covering from the cold.",
      "8": "They are soaked by heavy rain from the mountains.\nThey cling to a cliff for shelter.",
      "9": "The wicked tear away a fatherless child from its mother’s breast.\nThey take a poor mother’s nursing baby as collateral.",
      "10": "The poor walk around naked, without clothing.\nThey pick up sheaves but are still hungry.",
      "11": "They press olive oil among the terraces of olive trees.\nThey tread winepresses, but they remain thirsty.",
      "12": "The dying people of the city groan,\nand wounded souls cry out for help,\nbut God does not bring charges against anyone.",
      "13": "There are people who rebel against the light.\nThey do not acknowledge its ways or dwell in its paths.",
      "14": "At the end of the daylight a murderer arises,\nand he kills the poor and needy.\nAt night he acts as a thief.",
      "15": "The eye of an adulterer keeps watch for twilight.\nHe says, “No eye can get a good look at me.”\nHe wears a mask over his face.",
      "16": "In the dark of night he digs into houses.\nBy day such people hide inside.\nThey keep away from the light.",
      "17": "For all of them, morning is their darkness.\nThey are familiar with the sudden terror of darkness.",
      "18": "They float by like foam on the surface of the water.\nTheir portion of the land is cursed,\nso no one turns onto the road to their vineyards.",
      "19": "As drought and heat snatch away the water from the snow,\nthe grave snatches away a sinner.",
      "20": "The womb forgets him.\nA worm finds him sweet.\nHe will no longer be remembered.\nWickedness is broken like a tree.",
      "21": "He feeds on the childless woman,\nand he does nothing good for the widow.",
      "22": "But God drags away the mighty by his strength.\nHe rises up, so the wicked have no confidence in their lives.",
      "23": "God lets them be secure, and they prop themselves up,\nbut God’s eyes are on their ways.",
      "24": "They are high and mighty for a little while,\nbut then they are gone.\nThey are brought low like all the rest.\nThey are gathered together, like ears of grain that have been cut off.",
      "25": "So then, who can make me out to be a liar?\nWho can reduce my words to nothing?"
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "Bildad the Shuhite responded:",
      "2": "The power to rule and to inspire fear belongs to him.\nHe makes peace on high.",
      "3": "Can anyone count his troops?\nIs there anyone on whom his light does not rise?",
      "4": "How then can a man be righteous with God?\nHow can one born of a woman be pure?",
      "5": "If even the moon does not shine brightly for him,\nand if the stars are not pure in his eyes,",
      "6": "how much less a man, who is a maggot,\nand a son of man, who is a worm?"
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "Then Job responded:",
      "2": "How marvelously you have helped the helpless!\nHow wonderfully you have saved the arm that has no strength!",
      "3": "What great advice you have given to the one who lacks wisdom!\nWhat great insight you have revealed!",
      "4": "Who helped you proclaim these words?\nWhose breath came out of your mouth?",
      "5": "The spirits of the dead writhe in pain underneath the waters,\nalong with all those who dwell there.",
      "6": "Hell is naked before God,\nand there is nowhere to hide in the place of destruction.",
      "7": "He stretches out the northern sky across the emptiness.\nHe suspends the earth on nothing.",
      "8": "He encloses water in his clouds,\nbut the clouds are not broken apart by its weight.",
      "9": "He dims the face of the full moon by veiling it with his clouds.",
      "10": "He drew a circle around the surface of the waters.\nIt marks the boundary of light and darkness.",
      "11": "The pillars of the heavens shake.\nThey are stunned by his rebuke.",
      "12": "By his power he calmed the sea.\nBy his understanding he smashed Rahab.",
      "13": "By his breath the skies became beautiful.\nHis hand pierced the fleeing serpent.",
      "14": "But all these are just the fringe of his ways!\nHow faint a whisper we hear of him!\nWho understands his power, which is displayed in the thunder?"
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "After a pause, Job began to present this discourse:",
      "2": "As God lives, he has deprived me of justice.\nThe Almighty has made my life bitter.",
      "3": "Yes, as long as the breath of life is still in me,\nas long as the breath from God is still in my nostrils,",
      "4": "my lips will not speak wickedness,\nand my tongue will not murmur deception.",
      "5": "May I be cursed if I ever admit you are right.\nUntil I die, I will never deny my integrity.",
      "6": "I have held tight to my righteousness,\nand I will not let it go.\nMy conscience will not accuse me as long as I live.",
      "7": "May my enemy be like the wicked.\nMay the one who rises up against me be like the unjust.",
      "8": "For what hope is there for a godless person when God cuts him off,\nwhen God takes away his life?",
      "9": "Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him?",
      "10": "Will he take delight in the Almighty?\nWill he call upon God at all times?",
      "11": "I will teach you about the hand of God.\nI will not hide what the Almighty is doing.",
      "12": "Listen, all of you have observed this.\nSo why do you continue to spew forth such worthless vapor?",
      "13": "This is the allotment a wicked man receives from God,\nthe inheritance that tyrants receive from the Almighty:",
      "14": "Although his children are many, they are sent to the sword.\nHis offspring will not be satisfied with bread.",
      "15": "Those who survive will be buried by a plague.\nThey will be buried, and their widows will not weep.",
      "16": "Though the wicked man piles up silver like dust,\nand he accumulates clothing like mounds of clay,",
      "17": "the righteous will wear what he accumulated,\nand the innocent will divide his silver.",
      "18": "He has built a house, but it will be like a moth’s cocoon,\nlike a shack that a watchman has put up.",
      "19": "He goes to bed as a rich man,\nbut his wealth does not remain.\nHe opens his eyes, and it is all gone.",
      "20": "Terrors sweep over him like floodwaters.\nAt night, a strong wind carries him away.",
      "21": "The east wind lifts him up, and off he goes.\nIt blows him away from his place.",
      "22": "It hurls itself at him, and it does not spare him.\nHe flees from its power as fast as he can.",
      "23": "It mockingly claps its hands at him\nand drives him from his place with hissing."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "Yes, there is a mine for silver\nand a place where gold is refined.",
      "2": "Iron is taken from the ground,\nand copper is smelted out of stone.",
      "3": "A miner puts an end to darkness by exploring its farthest limits.\nHe looks for ore in the gloom and in the deep darkness.",
      "4": "He breaks open a mineshaft far from where settlers live,\nin places no one has walked before.\nFar away from other people, he dangles and sways.",
      "5": "The earth’s surface produces food,\nbut its depths are overturned as if by fire,",
      "6": "in places where the stones are sapphires\nand the dust is gold.",
      "7": "No scavenging bird knows the way there,\nand the eyes of vultures have not seen it.",
      "8": "The king of beasts has not set foot on it.\nThe lion has not prowled there.",
      "9": "The miner’s hand attacks the hard rock.\nHe overturns the roots of the mountain.",
      "10": "He cuts tunnels into the rocks,\nand his eyes see every treasure.",
      "11": "He dams up even the trickling water from the rivers,\nand he brings light to the earth’s hidden places.",
      "12": "But wisdom—where can it be found?\nWhere is the place for understanding?",
      "13": "Mankind does not know where it is kept.\nIt is not found in the land of the living.",
      "14": "The deep ocean says, “It is not in me!”\nThe sea says, “It is not with me!”",
      "15": "It cannot be purchased with the best gold,\nand silver cannot be weighed out as its price.",
      "16": "It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir\nor with precious onyx or sapphires.",
      "17": "Gold and crystal cannot be compared to it.\nThe finest gold jewelry cannot be substituted for it.",
      "18": "Coral and quartz are not worth mentioning,\nand the value of wisdom is greater than a bag of rubies.",
      "19": "The chrysolite of Cush cannot be compared with it.\nIt cannot be purchased even with pure gold.",
      "20": "But what about wisdom—where does it come from?\nAnd where is the place to find understanding?",
      "21": "It is hidden from the eyes of all the living.\nIt is concealed from the birds of the sky.",
      "22": "Destruction and Death say,\n“With our ears we have heard only a rumor about it.”",
      "23": "God understands the way to it,\nand he alone knows its place,",
      "24": "because he watches the ends of the earth,\nand he sees everything under the heavens.",
      "25": "He determines the weight of the wind,\nand he measures out the waters by volume.",
      "26": "He made a decree for the rain\nand established a path for the roaring thunderstorm.",
      "27": "He saw wisdom and appraised its value.\nHe established it and also explored it.",
      "28": "Then he said to mankind:\nListen carefully. The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,\nand to turn away from evil is understanding."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "Job resumed his discourse. He said:",
      "2": "Oh how I wish I could be as I used to be\n    in the months gone by,\n    in the days when God used to watch over me,",
      "3": "when his lamp was shining over my head,\nand I walked through darkness toward his light,",
      "4": "when I was in my prime,\nand the friendly guidance of God was over my tent,",
      "5": "when the Almighty was still with me,\nand my children still surrounded me,",
      "6": "when my footsteps were washed in cream,\nand a rock poured out streams of oil for me,",
      "7": "when I went out to the gatehouse of the city,\nand I took my customary seat in the public square.",
      "8": "The young men saw me and stepped aside.\nThe elders rose and remained standing in my presence.",
      "9": "The officials held back their words.\nThey placed their hands over their mouths.",
      "10": "The voices of the nobles fell silent.\nTheir tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.",
      "11": "Every ear that heard what I said called me blessed.\nEvery eye that saw what I did testified on my behalf.",
      "12": "Because I saved the poor when they cried for help\nand the fatherless when they had no helper,",
      "13": "the blessing of the dying rested upon me,\nand I made the heart of the widow happy.",
      "14": "I dressed myself with righteousness,\nand it clothed me.\nMy justice clothed me like a robe and a turban.",
      "15": "I was eyes for the blind and feet for the lame.",
      "16": "I was a father for the needy.\nI investigated their cases for people I did not know.",
      "17": "I shattered the fangs of the wicked,\nand I snatched their prey from their teeth.",
      "18": "So I thought: “I will pass away in my own nest,\nafter multiplying my days like grains of sand.",
      "19": "My roots will be soaked with water,\nand dew will settle on my branches at night.",
      "20": "My honor will always be fresh for me,\nand my bow in my hand will never wear out.”",
      "21": "People listened to me eagerly.\nThey kept silent, waiting for my advice.",
      "22": "After I spoke, they did not keep speaking.\nMy words fell on them gently.",
      "23": "They waited for me the way people wait for rain.\nThey opened their mouths the way people wait for spring showers.",
      "24": "When I laughed with them, they did not believe it.\nIn the light from my face, they were never downcast.",
      "25": "I chose the way for them,\nand I was seated as their head,\nlike a king among the troops,\nlike one who comforts mourners."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "But those far younger than I am now laugh at me—\nmen whose fathers I would not have allowed\n    to serve with my sheepdogs.",
      "2": "The strength of their hands was useless to me.\nTheir vigor had failed.",
      "3": "Emaciated from famine and hunger,\nthey gnawed desert plants in the desolate wasteland.",
      "4": "They picked marsh plants among the brush,\nand their food was the roots of broom bushes.",
      "5": "They were driven out of the community.\nPeople shouted at them like thieves.",
      "6": "They lived in dry streambeds,\nin holes among the dust and the rocks.",
      "7": "They brayed between shrubs,\nand they huddled under thorn bushes.",
      "8": "Sons of fools and nameless nobodies,\nthey were driven out of the land with whips.",
      "9": "But now I am the target of their mocking songs,\nand my name has become proverbial as a term of scorn.",
      "10": "They despise me and keep their distance.\nThey do not hesitate to spit in my face.",
      "11": "God has unhooked my bowstring,\nand he has afflicted me,\nso they throw off all restraint in my presence.",
      "12": "At my right hand this rabble rises up like a mob.\nThey trip my feet.\nThey besiege me with their plans to destroy me.",
      "13": "They cut off my path to escape.\nThey try to benefit from my destruction.\nThey need no one to help them.",
      "14": "They pour through the breach in my wall.\nThey roll in through the ruins.",
      "15": "Terrors are unleashed against me.\nMy prestige is blown away by the wind.\nMy security has passed by like a cloud.",
      "16": "Now my soul is being poured out within me.\nDays of suffering have seized me.",
      "17": "Night pierces my bones with pain.\nThe pain gnawing at me never stops.",
      "18": "God tugs violently at my clothing.\nHe chokes me like the collar of my robe.",
      "19": "He has thrown me into the mud,\nand I have become like dust and ashes.",
      "20": "I cry to you for help, but you do not answer me.\nWhenever I stand up, you pay no attention to me.",
      "21": "You have become cruel to me.\nWith a strong hand you assault me.",
      "22": "You lift me up with the wind, and it carries me away.\nYou scatter me in the raging storm.",
      "23": "Yes, I know that you are bringing me down to death,\nto the home where all the living meet.",
      "24": "Will he really stretch out his hand against a pile of ruins,\nwhen the ruined man screams for help?",
      "25": "Didn’t I weep for those who live through hard days?\nDidn’t my soul grieve for the needy?",
      "26": "But when I waited for good, evil came.\nWhen I hoped for light, darkness came.",
      "27": "My emotions are boiling over.\nThey are never quiet.\nDays of suffering confront me.",
      "28": "I walk around darkened, but not by the sun.\nI stand in the assembly and cry for help.",
      "29": "I have become a brother to jackals,\na companion for screeching ostriches.",
      "30": "My skin turns black and falls off,\nand my bones burn with fever.",
      "31": "My lyre plays only sad songs.\nMy flute accompanies only the sound of weeping."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "I have made a covenant with my eyes.\nHow then could I stare at a virgin with desire?",
      "2": "If I did, what reward would I receive from God above?\nWhat inheritance from the Almighty on high?",
      "3": "Is not ruin the reward for the wicked,\nand misfortune the reward for evildoers?",
      "4": "But doesn’t God see my ways?\nDoesn’t he count my every step?",
      "5": "Have I walked with deceit and lies?\nHas my foot hurried to pursue fraud?",
      "6": "If God weighs me on an honest scale,\nhe will know my integrity.",
      "7": "If my footsteps have slipped off the path,\nif my heart has pursued things desired by my eyes,\nif anything corrupt has stuck to my palms,",
      "8": "then let someone else eat what I have sown.\nLet my crops be uprooted.",
      "9": "If my heart has been enticed by a woman,\nif I have lurked at my neighbor’s doorway,",
      "10": "let my wife grind for another,\nand let other men crouch down over her.",
      "11": "For that would have been shameful behavior,\na guilty deed worthy of judgment.",
      "12": "There is a fire that consumes all the way to hell,\nthat would completely burn up all my harvest.",
      "13": "If I have denied justice to my male servants\nor to my female servants in their disputes with me,",
      "14": "then what would I do when God arises,\nwhen he comes to call me to account?\nHow could I respond to him?",
      "15": "Didn’t he who made me in the womb also make my servant?\nDidn’t the same God fashion us both in the womb?",
      "16": "If I have withheld from the poor what they desired,\nif I have darkened the eyes of the widow,",
      "17": "if I have eaten my food all by myself\nand have not shared it with the fatherless—",
      "18": "no, from the time of my youth, the fatherless child grew up with me,\nand I was like a father to him.\nFrom the womb of my mother I guided the widow.",
      "19": "If I saw anyone perishing from lack of clothing,\nif the needy had nothing to wear,",
      "20": "his very body blessed me,\n    as he was warmed by the wool from my sheep.",
      "21": "If I raised my hand against the fatherless child,\n    because I had influence in the court at the city gate,",
      "22": "then let my shoulder be knocked out of its socket,\nand let my upper arm be broken.",
      "23": "Now doom from God terrifies me,\nand I cannot endure his majesty.",
      "24": "If I placed my confidence in gold,\nand if I said to pure gold, “You are my security,”",
      "25": "if I rejoiced because I was so rich\nand because my hand had obtained so much,",
      "26": "if I saw the shining sun and the moon moving in its splendor,",
      "27": "if my heart was gullible enough to worship them in secret,\nand I kissed my hand to honor them,",
      "28": "that would have made me guilty and deserving of judgment,\nfor I would have denied God above.",
      "29": "If I rejoiced at the misfortune of someone who hates me,\nor I was thrilled because trouble caught up with him—",
      "30": "but no, I have not savored sin by asking for a curse on his life.",
      "31": "Did the men in my tent ever have to say\n    that there was someone who had not been filled with meat from Job?",
      "32": "No stranger ever had to spend the night outside.\nI have opened my door to the traveler.",
      "33": "If I had covered up my sin like Adam,\nand I had hidden my guilt in my heart,",
      "34": "because I was frightened of the crowd,\nand the contempt of the clans filled me with terror,\nso that I was silent and I did not go out of a door—",
      "35": "Oh how I wish I had someone to listen to me!\nLook, here is my seal on my testimony.\nLet the Almighty answer me!\nLet me see the written indictment from my accuser.",
      "36": "I would lift it up on my shoulder.\nI would place it on my head as a crown.",
      "37": "I would account to him for every single step.\nI would approach him like the chief of a tribe.",
      "38": "If my soil cries out against me,\nand its furrows weep because of me,",
      "39": "if I have consumed its wealth without paying for it,\nif I have caused the death of its owners,",
      "40": "then let a thorn bush grow up instead of wheat,\nand stinkweeds instead of barley.\nThe words of Job are concluded."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "These three men gave up trying to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.",
      "2": "So Elihu son of Barakel, the Buzite from the clan of Ram, burned with anger. His anger burned against Job because Job had justified himself rather than God.",
      "3": "His anger also burned against his three companions, because they had no answer for Job, but they nevertheless had condemned him.",
      "4": "Up to this point, Elihu had held back, and he had not spoken to Job, because the others were older and more experienced than he was.",
      "5": "When Elihu saw that the three men had no ready answer, his anger burned.",
      "6": "So Elihu son of Barakel, the Buzite, responded. He said:\nI am young and inexperienced, and you are aged.\nThat is why I held back,\nand I was afraid to tell you what I know.",
      "7": "I thought that experience should speak.\nMany years should give a man wisdom.",
      "8": "However, it is the spirit in a man\nand the breath of the Almighty that give a man understanding.",
      "9": "It is not just the important men who are wise.\nThe elderly are not the only ones who know how to judge cases.",
      "10": "That is why I now say, “Listen to me.”\nI will declare what I know—yes, I will.",
      "11": "Notice that I waited for you to finish your words.\nI have listened carefully to your conclusions.\nThe whole time you were searching for the right words,",
      "12": "I paid attention to you.\nBut look, not one of you showed Job that he was wrong\nor came up with an answer for Job.",
      "13": "So do not say, “We have found wisdom,\nbut it is God, not a man, who will have to refute him.”",
      "14": "Job has not drawn up his speeches against me,\nso I will not respond to him with arguments like yours.",
      "15": "Those three are shattered. They no longer respond.\nThey have run out of words.",
      "16": "I have waited patiently,\nbut since they no longer speak,\nand they just stand there and do not answer anymore,",
      "17": "I will now respond with my contribution.\nI will now declare what I know,",
      "18": "for I am full of words.\nA wind in my belly is building up pressure.",
      "19": "My belly is like unvented wine.\nI am like a new wineskin ready to burst.",
      "20": "I intend to speak, so that I can find relief for myself.\nLet me open my lips and answer.",
      "21": "I will certainly not show favoritism to any man.\nI will not address any man with flattering titles,",
      "22": "because I do not know how to pass out flattering titles.\nIf I did so, my Maker would quickly carry me away."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "But now, Job, listen to my speech.\nPay close attention to all my words.",
      "2": "Listen, because I have opened my mouth.\nSee how my tongue shapes words in my mouth.",
      "3": "My speech will reveal my upright heart.\nMy lips express my knowledge plainly.",
      "4": "The spirit of God made me.\nThe breath of the Almighty gave me life.",
      "5": "Refute me if you are able.\nLay out your case before me! Take your stand!",
      "6": "Look, my mouth belongs to God, just as your mouth does.\nLike you I was snipped off from a lump of clay.",
      "7": "Look, you should not be terrified by how awesome I am.\nPressure from me should not intimidate you.",
      "8": "However, you said this in my hearing,\nand I did hear the sound of these words:",
      "9": "“I am pure, without any sinful rebellion.\nI am clean. I have no guilt.",
      "10": "But look how God finds pretexts to oppose me.\nHe treats me like his enemy.",
      "11": "He has put my feet in stocks.\nHe patrols all my paths.”",
      "12": "Job, listen to this!\nYou are not right.\nI must refute you!\nCertainly, God is greater than a man.",
      "13": "Why do you bring charges against him,\njust because he does not answer all of a man’s questions?",
      "14": "God does speak, sometimes one way, sometimes another,\nbut people do not pay attention to it.",
      "15": "In a dream, in a vision in the night,\nwhen people are falling into a deep sleep,\nwhile they slumber on their beds,",
      "16": "he whispers a revelation into people’s ears,\nand he confirms his warnings to them,",
      "17": "in order to turn a man from his course of action\nand to suppress a person’s pride.",
      "18": "He spares his life from the pit.\nHe spares his life from crossing the stream of death.",
      "19": "Or a person may be disciplined on his bed by pain\nand by continual agony in his bones,",
      "20": "so that his life makes food disgusting to him,\nand he has no appetite for delicious food.",
      "21": "His flesh wastes away and disappears,\nand his bones, which were hidden, now stick out.",
      "22": "Then his soul draws near to destruction,\nand his life to those who bring death.",
      "23": "If there is a messenger at his side to mediate,\none out of a thousand, to tell a man what is right for him,",
      "24": "if he is gracious to him,\nif he says, “Spare him from going down to the pit.\nI have found a ransom for him,”",
      "25": "then his flesh would become more vigorous than it was in his youth.\nHe would return to days of youthful vitality.",
      "26": "Then he would pray to God,\nand God would be pleased with him.\nWith a joyful cry he would see God’s face,\nand God would restore his righteousness to the man.",
      "27": "Then the man would turn to people and say,\n“I have sinned, and I have perverted what is right,\nyet I was not punished as much as I deserved.",
      "28": "God has redeemed my soul from passing into the pit,\nand my life will see the light.”",
      "29": "Look, God does all these things with a man—\ntwo times, or even three times—",
      "30": "to bring back his soul from the pit,\nso that light shines on him among the living.",
      "31": "Pay attention, Job. Listen to me.\nBe silent, so that I may speak.",
      "32": "If you have anything to say, answer me.\nSpeak up, for I would be delighted to declare you innocent.",
      "33": "If you have nothing to say, listen to me\nBe silent, so I may teach you wisdom."
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "Elihu resumed his speech and said:",
      "2": "Hear my words, you wise men.\nYou learned men, pay attention to me.",
      "3": "It is true that the ear tests words as the mouth tastes food.",
      "4": "So now we should choose for ourselves what is just.\nWe should determine among ourselves what is good.",
      "5": "This is what Job said:\n“I am in the right,\nbut God has deprived me of justice.",
      "6": "Would I lie about what is just for me?\nHis arrow has inflicted an incurable wound on me,\nthough I did not rebel.”",
      "7": "Who is like Job?\nHe drinks down derision against God like water.",
      "8": "He travels the road with evildoers,\nand he walks with wicked men,",
      "9": "because he said,\n“It is no benefit to a man when he takes pleasure in God.”",
      "10": "So then, you men with understanding, listen to me.\nI swear that God never does anything wicked.\nThe Almighty is far from wrongdoing.",
      "11": "He repays a man for what he does.\nHe causes the consequences of his ways to catch up with him.",
      "12": "God would absolutely not do anything evil.\nThe Almighty does not pervert justice.",
      "13": "Did anyone put him in charge of the earth?\nDid anyone place the whole world under his control?",
      "14": "If God resolved in his heart to recall his spirit and breath to himself,",
      "15": "all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.",
      "16": "But if you have understanding, listen to this.\nHear the sound of my words:",
      "17": "Is it possible that one who hates justice could govern?\nWill you condemn the Righteous One, who is mighty?",
      "18": "He says to kings, “You are worthless,”\nand tells nobles, “You are evil.”",
      "19": "He shows no favoritism to high officials,\nand he shows no more regard for the rich than for the poor,\nbecause they are all the work of his hands.",
      "20": "In a moment they die, in the middle of the night.\nPeople are shaken, and they pass away.\nEven the mighty are taken away effortlessly, without a human hand,",
      "21": "because God’s eyes are on the ways of a man,\nand he sees all his steps.",
      "22": "There is no darkness,\nand there is no dark shadow where evildoers can hide,",
      "23": "for God does not need to investigate further\nor to set a time of judgment for a person.",
      "24": "He breaks mighty rulers without further inquiry,\nand he sets up others in their place.",
      "25": "Because he knows their deeds,\nhe overthrows them at night,\nand they lie crushed.",
      "26": "Because of their wickedness,\n    he strikes them in plain sight of everyone.",
      "27": "He does this because they turned aside from following him,\nand they were not wise enough to follow all his ways.",
      "28": "They caused the poor to cry out to God,\nso he heard the cry of the afflicted.",
      "29": "But if God remains quiet, who can condemn him?\nIf he hides his face, who can observe him?\nBut even if he does, he still rules over both nations and individuals,",
      "30": "to prevent a godless man from ruling,\nso that the godless man does not lay snares for the people.",
      "31": "What if someone says to God,\n“I have accepted my punishment.\nI will not keep sinning.",
      "32": "Teach me about what I do not see.\nIf I have done evil, I will not do it again.”",
      "33": "Would God then be obligated to repay you on your terms,\nwhen you refuse to repent?\nBut, Job, it is your decision, not mine.\nSo tell me what you know.",
      "34": "Men who have understanding say this to me,\nand any wise person who listens tells me the same thing:",
      "35": "“Job speaks without knowledge,\nand his words reveal a lack of understanding.”",
      "36": "I wish that Job would be tested to the limit,\nbecause he responds like a wicked man.",
      "37": "Yes, he even adds rebellion to his sin.\nAmong us he shows his contempt by clapping his hands,\nand he multiplies his words against God."
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "Then Elihu continued:",
      "2": "Do you really think it is right when you say,\n“My righteousness is greater than God’s”?",
      "3": "You even say, “What use will this be to me?\nHow will it profit me more than if I sinned?”",
      "4": "But I will respond to your words—and to your friends with you!",
      "5": "Look at the heavens and you will see.\nTake a good look at the clouds.\nThey are high above you!",
      "6": "If you have sinned, how does that affect God?\nIf your rebellious deeds are many, what harm can you do to him?",
      "7": "If you are righteous, what are you giving to him?\nWhat does he receive from your hand?",
      "8": "Your wickedness only affects a man like you,\nand your righteousness only impacts other people.",
      "9": "They cry out because of severe oppression.\nThey scream for relief from the arm of the powerful.",
      "10": "But no one asks, “Where is God my Maker,\n    who provides songs in the night,",
      "11": "who teaches us more than the wild animals on the earth,\n        who makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?”",
      "12": "Then the wicked cry out, but he does not answer,\n    because of their arrogant pride.",
      "13": "Certainly God will not listen to an insincere cry,\nand the Almighty will not pay attention to it.",
      "14": "How much less when you say\n    that you do not see him,\n    that your case has been presented to him,\n    and that you are waiting for him!",
      "15": "Besides that, you say that his anger has not demanded an accounting,\nand that he does not fully understand sin.",
      "16": "Job opens his mouth pointlessly,\nand he heaps up words without knowledge."
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "Elihu kept talking and said:",
      "2": "Be patient with me a little longer.\nI intend to inform you further,\nsince I have more to say on God’s behalf.",
      "3": "I will provide you with comprehensive knowledge,\nand I will justify my Maker.",
      "4": "You can be sure that none of my words are false.\nA man with complete knowledge is here with you.",
      "5": "Yes, God is mighty, but he does not despise people.\nHe is mighty and has great understanding.",
      "6": "He does not keep a wicked man alive,\nbut he does give justice to the oppressed.",
      "7": "He does not turn his eyes away from the righteous.\nHe seats them on thrones with kings\nand exalts them forever.",
      "8": "But if people are bound in chains,\nand they are held captive by cords of affliction,",
      "9": "he declares to them what they have done—\nhow arrogantly they have committed rebellious deeds.",
      "10": "He opens their ears to accept discipline,\nand he tells them to turn back from wickedness.",
      "11": "If they listen and serve him,\nthey will complete their days in prosperity,\nand their years will end in pleasure.",
      "12": "But if they do not listen,\nthey will be overwhelmed by a stream.\nThey will breathe their last without knowledge.",
      "13": "Godless hearts nourish anger.\nThey do not cry out for help even when he imprisons them.",
      "14": "Their souls die while they are still young,\nand they end their lives among the male prostitutes at their shrines.",
      "15": "God delivers the afflicted by means of their affliction,\nand he gets their attention through their suffering.",
      "16": "Certainly he is drawing you out of the jaws of distress\n    to a wide-open place, where you will not be hemmed in.\nYou will be comfortable at your table covered with rich food.",
      "17": "But now you are caught up with the judgment of the wicked,\nand judgment and justice have taken hold of you.",
      "18": "Watch out, so that no one lures you with luxury.\nDo not let a large payment turn you aside.",
      "19": "Can your affluence arrange for your security,\n    so that you do not suffer want?\nCan even your strongest efforts accomplish that?",
      "20": "Do not long for night time, when nations vanish from their place.",
      "21": "Watch out. Do not turn to evil,\nbecause that is why you have been tested by affliction.",
      "22": "Listen to me. God is exalted in his power.\nWho is a teacher like him?",
      "23": "Who has dictated his way for him?\nWho has said, “You have done wrong”?",
      "24": "Remember that you should praise his work,\n    which people have celebrated in song.",
      "25": "All mankind has observed it.\nPeople can look at it from a distance.",
      "26": "Yes, God is exalted far beyond our comprehension.\nThe number of his years is beyond investigation.",
      "27": "He draws up drops of water from the sea,\nand he distills the raindrops to form mist,",
      "28": "which flow down from the clouds\nand pour down abundantly on mankind.",
      "29": "Indeed, who understands how the clouds spread out?\nWho understands how the thunder rumbles out from his shelter?",
      "30": "Look how he spreads his light all around him,\nand he covers the bottom of the sea.",
      "31": "He uses this to bring judgment on peoples\nand to provide abundant food.",
      "32": "With his hands he grasps the lightning,\nand he gives it orders as it advances.",
      "33": "Through the thunder he sounds his war cry.\nThe herds sense the coming of the rising storm."
    },
    "37": {
      "1": "When I hear this, my heart races\nand leaps from its place.",
      "2": "Listen! Listen to the booming thunder of his voice,\nto the rumble that goes out from his mouth.",
      "3": "He turns it loose across the whole sky,\nand his light reaches the ends of the earth.",
      "4": "After the lightning, a voice roars.\nHe thunders with his majestic voice.\nHe does not restrain the lightning.\nThen his voice is heard!",
      "5": "God thunders with his voice in wonderful ways.\nHe does great things that we do not understand.",
      "6": "To the snow he says, “Fall on the earth.”\nTo the pouring rain, the torrential downpours of rain,\n    he says, “Be strong.”",
      "7": "He brings an end to all the work of men’s hands,\n    so that they recognize his work.",
      "8": "The wild animals take shelter in their lairs.\nThey remain in their dens.",
      "9": "A winter wind comes out from its room,\nand driving winds bring icy cold.",
      "10": "The breath of God produces ice.\nThe wide surface of the water turns solid.",
      "11": "Yes, he loads dark clouds with moisture,\nand he fills the clouds with his light.",
      "12": "The clouds swirl around at his direction.\nThey do whatever he commands them\n    over the face of the whole inhabited world.",
      "13": "Whether their purpose is to bring punishment or mercy to the world,\n    he makes them achieve their goal.",
      "14": "Listen to this, Job! Stand still and recognize the wonders of God!",
      "15": "Do you know how God arranges them?\nDo you know how he makes his light shine out from his clouds?",
      "16": "Do you know how the clouds float in the sky,\n    those marvels produced by perfect knowledge?",
      "17": "You, whose clothing is too hot for you\n    when the land rests quietly because of the hot south wind,",
      "18": "can you help him spread out the clouds\n    when the sky is as hard as a metal mirror?",
      "19": "Teach us what we should say to him!\nWe are not able to prepare our case because of the darkness.",
      "20": "Should he be notified that I want to speak?\nOr would a man who said that be swallowed up?",
      "21": "But no one can look at the sun.\nIt is too bright when the wind has cleared the sky of the clouds.",
      "22": "God’s golden splendor comes from the north.\nGod is surrounded by awesome majesty.",
      "23": "As for the Almighty, we cannot comprehend him.\nHe is exalted in power,\nbut he does not violate justice and great righteousness.",
      "24": "Therefore men should revere him,\nbecause he has regard for all those who are wise in heart."
    },
    "38": {
      "1": "Then the Lord responded to Job out of a violent storm. He said:",
      "2": "Who is this who spreads darkness over my plans\n    with his ignorant words?",
      "3": "Get ready for action like a man!\nThen I will ask you questions,\nand you will inform me.",
      "4": "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?\nTell me, if you understand anything about it.",
      "5": "Who determined its dimensions?\nI am sure you know.\nWho stretched out the surveying line over it?",
      "6": "What supports its foundation?\nWho set its cornerstone in place,",
      "7": "when the morning stars sang loud songs together,\n        and all the sons of God shouted for joy?",
      "8": "Who locked up the sea behind doors\n    when it burst out of the womb?",
      "9": "When I clothed the sea with clouds,\nwhen I wrapped it with thick darkness as its swaddling cloths,",
      "10": "when I broke its power with my decree,\nwhen I locked it up behind barred, double doors,",
      "11": "I said, “You may come this far, but no farther.\nHere is the barrier for your proud waves.”",
      "12": "Have you ever in all your days given a command to the morning?\nHave you ever set a time for the sun to rise,",
      "13": "so it may grab the earth by its edges\nand shake the wicked out of it?",
      "14": "The earth’s shapes become visible like designs impressed on clay,\nand its decorations can be seen like those on a garment.",
      "15": "Their light is withheld from the wicked,\nand an uplifted arm is broken.",
      "16": "Have you ever traveled to the sources of the sea\nor walked around in the dark depths of the ocean?",
      "17": "Have the gates of death been revealed to you?\nHave you seen the gates of the shadow of death?",
      "18": "Do you comprehend the vast expanses of the earth?\nTell me, if you know all this.",
      "19": "How can someone get to the dwelling of light?\nWhere is the place for darkness?",
      "20": "Could you lead it to its property?\nDo you know the way to its house?",
      "21": "You must know that, since you were born before it,\nand you have lived for so many days!",
      "22": "Have you visited the warehouses where the snow is kept?\nHave you seen the warehouses where the hail is stored?",
      "23": "I have reserved them for troubled times,\nfor days of battle and war.",
      "24": "What is the way to the place where the lightning divides,\nwhere the east wind is scattered over the earth?",
      "25": "Who has excavated a channel for the floodwaters\nand a road for the rolling thunder?",
      "26": "They bring rain to lands where no one lives,\nto a wilderness without a person in it.",
      "27": "The rain satisfies the wilderness and wasteland\nand causes the dry ground to produce green plants.",
      "28": "Does the rain have a father?\nWho is the father of the drops of dew?",
      "29": "Whose womb produces the ice?\nWho gives birth to the heavy frost from the sky?",
      "30": "The water is disguised as stone,\nand the surface of the deep is trapped under ice.",
      "31": "Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,\nor loosen the belt of Orion?",
      "32": "Can you lead out the constellations at the right season\nand guide the Bear with her cubs?",
      "33": "Do you know the laws that govern the skies?\nCan you establish God’s rule on earth?",
      "34": "Can you raise your voice to the clouds,\nso that a flood of water submerges you?",
      "35": "Can you unleash the lightning bolts,\nso that they come and say to you, “Here we are”?",
      "36": "Who has placed wisdom in the human heart\nand given understanding to the mind?",
      "37": "Who has the wisdom to count the clouds\nand to empty the water jars of the sky,",
      "38": "when the loose dust has been poured into molds to harden,\nand the clods of dirt are cemented together?",
      "39": "Can you hunt prey for a lioness?\nCan you satisfy the appetite of the young lions,",
      "40": "when they crouch in their dens,\nor they lie in wait in the thicket?",
      "41": "Who prepares its provisions for the raven,\nwhen its young are screaming to God,\nwhile they thrash around in the nest waiting for food?"
    },
    "39": {
      "1": "Do you know the time when the antelope on the cliffs gives birth?\nDo you keep watch over the doe as she is in labor?",
      "2": "Do you count how many months they carry their young?\nDo you know when it is time for them to give birth?",
      "3": "They crouch down.\nThey give birth to their fawns.\nTheir labor pains are over.",
      "4": "Their young are lively and live in the open countryside.\nThey go out, and they do not return to them.",
      "5": "Who set the wild donkey free?\nWho untied the restraints on the onager?",
      "6": "I have given it the wasteland as its home,\nthe salt flats as its dwelling place.",
      "7": "It brays at the commotion in a town.\nIt does not listen to the shouting of the driver.",
      "8": "It explores the mountains as its pasture,\nwhile it searches for anything green.",
      "9": "Is a wild ox willing to serve you?\nWill it spend the night at your manger?",
      "10": "Can you lead the wild ox down a furrow with a rope?\nWill it work the fields in the valleys behind you?",
      "11": "Will you depend on it because it is so strong?\nWill you rely on it to labor for you?",
      "12": "Will you trust it to return your seed grain\nand to bring it to your threshing floor?",
      "13": "The wings of a screeching ostrich flap wildly,\nbut they do not have feathers and plumage like a stork’s.",
      "14": "She leaves her eggs on the ground.\nShe keeps them warm in the dust.",
      "15": "She forgets that a foot may crush them,\nor a wild animal may trample them.",
      "16": "She is hard-hearted toward her children.\nIt is as if they were not hers.\nIt does not bother her if her labor is for nothing,",
      "17": "because God made her forget wisdom,\nand he has not given her any understanding.",
      "18": "But as soon as she jumps up to run,\nshe laughs at the horse and the rider.",
      "19": "Did you give strength to the horse?\nDid you clothe its neck with a flowing mane?",
      "20": "Did you give it the ability to jump like a locust?\nIts snorting and neighing are frightening.",
      "21": "It paws at the ground in the valley.\nIt rejoices in its strength.\nIt goes out to meet the weapons of war.",
      "22": "It laughs at danger and is not afraid.\nIt does not turn away from the sword.",
      "23": "A quiver rattles against it.\nA spear and a javelin flash.",
      "24": "Shaking with excitement, it swallows up ground.\nIt doesn’t just stand there when the ram’s horn sounds.",
      "25": "As often as the horn sounds, it neighs and snorts!\nFrom a distance it smells the battle,\nthe thunder of the commanders and the war cries.",
      "26": "Did you teach the hawk how to soar,\nas it spreads out its wings to the south?",
      "27": "Is it at your command that the eagle flies high\nand makes its nest in a lofty place?",
      "28": "On a rocky cliff it settles down to spend the night,\non a pinnacle of rock in a mountain stronghold.",
      "29": "From there it spies its food.\nIts eyes spot it far away.",
      "30": "Its young ones drink up the blood.\nWherever the carcasses are—there it is."
    },
    "40": {
      "1": "The Lord responded to Job and said:",
      "2": "Will the one who makes charges against the Almighty\n    dare to correct him?\nThe one who accuses God should make his case!",
      "3": "Job answered the Lord and said:",
      "4": "No, I am insignificant.\nHow could I reply to you?\nI will put my hand over my mouth.",
      "5": "I spoke once, but I cannot defend it.\nTwice, but I will not go any further.",
      "6": "Then the Lord answered Job from the violent storm. He said:",
      "7": "Get ready for action like a man!\nThen I will ask you questions,\nand you will inform me.",
      "8": "Will you really deny that I am just?\nWill you convict me, so that you can be acquitted?",
      "9": "Do you have an arm like God’s arm?\nDoes your voice thunder like his?",
      "10": "Go ahead, please. Adorn yourself with dignity and honor.\nClothe yourself with splendor and majesty.",
      "11": "Pour out your overflowing anger.\nLook at every proud man and bring him low.",
      "12": "Look at every proud man and humble him.\nTrample the wicked where they stand.",
      "13": "Bury them all together in the dust.\nCover their faces in the hidden place.",
      "14": "Then I will praise you\nand admit that your right hand can save you.",
      "15": "Take a look at Behemoth,\n    which I made just as I made you.\nHe eats grass like cattle.",
      "16": "Would you look at the power of his hips\nand the strength of the muscles of his belly!",
      "17": "He stiffens his tail like a cedar.\nThe tendons of his thighs are tight.",
      "18": "His bones are tubes of bronze.\nHis skeleton is like bars of iron.",
      "19": "He stands at the head of God’s creatures,\nbut his Maker draws near with his sword.",
      "20": "Yes, the mountains carry their floodwaters to him.\nAll the wild animals play there.",
      "21": "He lies under the lotus plants,\nhidden among the reeds in the marsh.",
      "22": "The lotus plants cover him with their shadows.\nPoplars by the stream surround him.",
      "23": "The river rages, but he is not frightened.\nHe remains calm even if the Jordan bursts into his mouth.",
      "24": "Can people capture him by his eyes?\nCan they pierce his nose with a hook?"
    },
    "41": {
      "1": "Can you pull out Leviathan with a fishhook?\nCan you tie down his tongue with a rope?",
      "2": "Can you put a reed in his nose\nor pierce his jaw with a hook?",
      "3": "Will he keep asking for your favor\nor speak tender words to you?",
      "4": "Will he sign a contract with you\nso that you keep him as your servant forever?",
      "5": "Can you play with him like a bird?\nCan you put him on a leash for your girls?",
      "6": "Do the merchants barter for Leviathan’s meat?\nDo they divide it up with the other tradesmen?",
      "7": "Can you fill his hide with harpoons\nand his head with fishing spears?",
      "8": "If you lay your hand on him,\nyou will never forget the battle and won’t do it again.",
      "9": "Listen! Any hope you have of overcoming him is unfounded.\nWouldn’t you be knocked down by the mere sight of him?",
      "10": "No one is fierce enough to risk stirring him up.\nWho then can stand before me?",
      "11": "Who can confront me and demand that I repay him?\nEverything under the whole sky belongs to me.",
      "12": "I will tell about the parts of his body.\nI will describe his power and his beautiful design.",
      "13": "Who can strip off his outer covering?\nWho can touch his double layer of armor?",
      "14": "Who dares to open the doors to his mouth,\n    which is surrounded with terrifying teeth?",
      "15": "His back is like rows of shields,\n    which are tightly joined together.",
      "16": "They are so close together not even a breath of air\ncan pass between them.",
      "17": "They are fastened to each other,\nso they stick together and cannot be separated.",
      "18": "His snorts are flashes of light.\nHis eyes are like the eyelids of dawn.",
      "19": "Blazing torches come out of his mouth.\nSparks of fire shoot out.",
      "20": "Smoke pours out from his nostrils\n    like a pot boiling over a reed fire.",
      "21": "His breath sets coals on fire,\nand flames come out of his mouth.",
      "22": "Strength dwells in his neck.\nDespair dances ahead of him.",
      "23": "The folds of his flesh are compact,\nsolid and immovable.",
      "24": "His heart is as hard as rock,\nas hard as a lower millstone.",
      "25": "When he rises up, the mighty are afraid.\nWhen he thrashes around, they retreat.",
      "26": "If someone strikes him with a sword, it has no effect.\nNeither do spears, arrows, or javelins.",
      "27": "To him iron is like straw;\nbronze is like rotten wood.",
      "28": "Arrows do not make him flee.\nTo him sling stones are like chaff;",
      "29": "clubs are like stubble.\nHe laughs at the shaking of a javelin.",
      "30": "His underbelly is like sharp pieces of broken pottery.\nIt leaves marks in the mud like a threshing sledge.",
      "31": "He makes the depths boil like a cooking pot.\nHe makes the sea like a cauldron of ointment.",
      "32": "He leaves a shiny wake behind him.\nThe deep looks like a white-haired man.",
      "33": "There is nothing at all like him on earth,\na creature without fear.",
      "34": "He looks down on everything that is lofty.\nHe is king over every proud creature!"
    },
    "42": {
      "1": "Job responded to the Lord. He said:",
      "2": "I know that you can do all things.\nNo purpose of yours can be thwarted.",
      "3": "You asked, “Who is this who spreads darkness over my plans\n    with his ignorant words?”\nI have made statements about things I did not understand,\nthings too wonderful for me to know.",
      "4": "You said, “Listen now and I will speak.\nI will ask you questions, and you will inform me.”",
      "5": "My ear heard about you.\nNow my eyes see you.",
      "6": "So I despise myself.\nI repent in dust and ashes.",
      "7": "After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My anger burns against you and your two friends, because none of you have spoken correctly about me, as my servant Job did.",
      "8": "So now, take seven bulls and seven rams for yourselves, go to my servant Job, and offer up a whole burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, so that I will look upon him with favor and not deal with you on the basis of your foolishness, for none of you have spoken correctly about me, as my servant Job did.”",
      "9": "So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Na’amathite went and did as the Lord had told them, and the Lord looked on Job with favor.",
      "10": "Then the Lord restored Job’s fortunes, after he had prayed on behalf of his friends. The Lord gave Job twice as much of everything as he had before.",
      "11": "Then all his brothers and sisters and all his acquaintances came to Job. They dined with him in his house, and they showed him sympathy and comforted him concerning the tragedy that the Lord had brought on him. Each of them gave him one qesitah of silver and one gold ring.",
      "12": "The Lord blessed the last part of Job’s life more than the first part, so he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys.",
      "13": "He had seven sons and three daughters.",
      "14": "He named his first daughter Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren Happuk.",
      "15": "In the whole land there were no women as beautiful as the daughters of Job. Their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.",
      "16": "After this, Job lived one hundred forty years and saw his sons and their children to the fourth generation.",
      "17": "Job died, old and fulfilled by a long life."
    }
  },
  "Psalm": {
    "1": {
      "1": "How blessed is the man\n    who does not walk in the advice of the wicked,\n    who does not stand on the path with sinners,\n    and who does not sit in a meeting with mockers.",
      "2": "But his delight is in the teaching of the Lord,\nand on his teaching he meditates day and night.",
      "3": "He is like a tree planted beside streams of water,\n    which yields its fruit in season,\n    and its leaves do not wither.\nEverything he does prospers.",
      "4": "Not so the wicked!\nNo, they are like the chaff which the wind blows away.",
      "5": "Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,\nnor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.",
      "6": "Yes, the Lord approves of the way of the righteous,\nbut the way of the wicked will perish."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Why do the nations rage?\nWhy do the peoples grumble in vain?",
      "2": "The kings of the earth take a stand,\nand the rulers join together\n    against the Lord\n    and against his Anointed One.",
      "3": "“Let us tear off their chains\nand throw off their ropes from us.”",
      "4": "The one who is seated in heaven laughs.\nThe Lord scoffs at them.",
      "5": "Then he speaks to them in his anger,\nand in his wrath he terrifies them.",
      "6": "“I have installed my King on Zion, my holy mountain.”",
      "7": "I will proclaim the decree of the Lord.\nHe said to me:\n“You are my Son.\nToday I have begotten you.",
      "8": "Ask me,\nand I will give you the nations as your inheritance\nand the ends of the earth as your possession.",
      "9": "You will smash them with an iron rod.\nYou will break them to pieces like pottery.”",
      "10": "So now, you kings, do what is wise.\nAccept discipline, you judges of the earth.",
      "11": "Serve the Lord with fear,\nand rejoice with trembling.",
      "12": "Kiss the Son,\nor he will be angry,\nand you will be destroyed in your way,\nfor his wrath can flare up in a moment.\nHow blessed are all who take refuge in him."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "A psalm by David. When he fled from Absalom, his son.",
      "2": "O Lord, how my foes are multiplying!\nMany are rising up against me!",
      "3": "Many are saying about my life, Interlude\n“There is no salvation for him in God.”",
      "4": "But you, O Lord, are a shield for me.\nYou are my glory and the one who lifts up my head.",
      "5": "With a loud voice I cry out to the Lord, Interlude\nand he answers me from his holy mountain.",
      "6": "I lie down, and I sleep.\nI awake, because the Lord sustains me.",
      "7": "I will not be afraid of the thousands of people\n    who line up against me on all sides.",
      "8": "Rise up, O Lord! Save me, my God!\nYes, you will strike all my enemies on the jaw.\nThe teeth of the wicked you will break.",
      "9": "Salvation belongs to the Lord. Interlude\nYour blessing rests on your people."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "For the choir director. With stringed instruments. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "My righteous God, answer me when I call.\nWhen I was under pressure, you gave me relief.\nBe merciful to me and hear my prayer.",
      "3": "You people, how long will you turn my glory into shame?\nHow long will you love empty delusions? Interlude\nHow long will you pursue lies?",
      "4": "Know this: The Lord has set apart\n    his favored one for himself.\nThe Lord will hear when I call to him.",
      "5": "You may be upset, but do not sin.\nWhen you are on your beds,\n    speak to your heart, but remain silent. Interlude",
      "6": "Offer righteous sacrifices,\nand trust in the Lord.",
      "7": "Many are saying, “Who can show us any good?”\nShine the light of your face on us, O Lord.",
      "8": "You have placed joy in my heart greater than the joy\n    when grain and new wine are plentiful.",
      "9": "In complete peace I will lie down, and I will sleep,\nfor you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "For the choir director. For flutes. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "Turn your ear to my words, O Lord.\nUnderstand me when I sigh.",
      "3": "Pay attention to my cry for help,\n    my King and my God,\n    for to you I pray.",
      "4": "Lord, in the morning you hear my voice.\nIn the morning I lay out my requests in front of you,\nand I watch for your answer.",
      "5": "For you are not a God who takes pleasure in evil.\nWith you the wicked cannot dwell.",
      "6": "The arrogant cannot stand before your eyes.\nYou hate all evildoers.",
      "7": "You put to death those who speak lies.\nThe Lord is disgusted with bloodthirsty, deceitful men.",
      "8": "But as for me, by your great mercy\n    I will enter your house.\n    I will bow down toward your holy temple\n        with reverence for you.",
      "9": "Lord, lead me in your righteousness.\nBecause of those who slander me,\nmake your way straight before me.",
      "10": "Nothing reliable comes out of their mouth.\nFrom within them comes destruction.\nTheir throat is an open grave.\nWith their tongue they flatter.",
      "11": "Declare them guilty, O God!\nLet them fall because of their own schemes.\nFor their many treacherous deeds banish them,\n    because they have rebelled against you.",
      "12": "But let all who take refuge in you be glad.\nLet them sing for joy forever.\nYou cover them with protection,\n    so those who love your name rejoice in you.",
      "13": "Yes, you bless the righteous, Lord.\nYou surround them with your favor as a shield."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "For the choir director. With stringed instruments.\nAccording to sheminith. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger.\nDo not discipline me in your wrath.",
      "3": "Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am fading away.\nHeal me, Lord, for my bones are trembling,",
      "4": "and my soul is terrified.\nBut you, O Lord—how long?",
      "5": "Turn, O Lord, and deliver my soul.\nSave me because of your mercy.",
      "6": "For in death no one remembers you.\nIn the grave who praises you?",
      "7": "I am worn out from my groaning.\nI flood my bed all night long.\nWith my tears I drench my couch.",
      "8": "My eyes are blurred by sorrow.\nThey are worn out because of all my foes.",
      "9": "Turn away from me, all you evildoers,\nbecause the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.",
      "10": "The Lord has heard my cry for mercy.\nThe Lord accepts my prayer.",
      "11": "They will be put to shame.\nAll my enemies will be terrified.\nThey will turn back.\nThey will be put to shame in an instant."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "A shiggaion by David, which he sang to the Lord\nbecause of the words of Cush, from the tribe of Benjamin.",
      "2": "O Lord my God, in you I take refuge.\nSave me from all my pursuers and deliver me.",
      "3": "Otherwise, like a lion they will tear me apart.\nThey will drag me away with no one to rescue me.",
      "4": "O Lord my God, if I have done this,\nif there is injustice in my hands,",
      "5": "if I have done evil to anyone who is at peace with me,\nor if I have robbed my foe for no reason,",
      "6": "then let an enemy pursue my life and overtake me.\nLet him trample my life to the ground\nand make my glory dwell in the dust. Interlude",
      "7": "Stand up, O Lord, in your anger.\nRise up against the fury of my foes.\nAwake for me. You have commanded justice.",
      "8": "A crowd of peoples surrounds you.\nTurn against them from on high.",
      "9": "Let the Lord judge the peoples.\nAcquit me, O Lord, according to my righteousness,\naccording to my integrity which is in me.",
      "10": "The evil of the wicked will come to an end,\nbut you will establish the righteous.\nYou search minds and hearts, O righteous God.",
      "11": "My shield is God, who saves the upright in heart.",
      "12": "God, the judge, is righteous,\nbut he is a God who expresses his wrath every day.",
      "13": "If he does not relent,\n    the Lord will sharpen his sword.\n    He has bent his bow and will string it.",
      "14": "He prepares his deadly weapons.\n    He will make his arrows flames.",
      "15": "Yes, whoever conceives evil and is pregnant with trouble\n    will give birth to disappointment.",
      "16": "He digs a pit and scoops it out,\nand he will fall into the hole he has made.",
      "17": "The trouble he causes comes back on his own head.\nHis violence comes down on top of his own skull.",
      "18": "I will thank the Lord because of his righteousness,\nand I will make music to the name of the Lord Most High."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to gittith. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!\nSet this glory of yours above the heavens.",
      "3": "From the lips of little children and nursing babies\n    you have established strength because of your foes,\n        to put a stop to the enemy and the avenger.",
      "4": "Whenever I look up at your heavens, the works of your fingers,\nthe moon and the stars, which you have set in place—",
      "5": "what is man that you remember him,\nthe son of man that you pay attention to him!",
      "6": "Nevertheless, you make him suffer need,\n    apart from God for a while,\nbut you crown him with glory and honor.",
      "7": "You make him the ruler over the works of your hands.\nYou put everything under his feet:",
      "8": "all flocks and cattle, and even the wild animals,",
      "9": "the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea,\n    which pass through the currents of the seas.",
      "10": "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to “The Death of the Son.” A psalm by David.",
      "2": "I will thank you, Lord, with all my heart.\nI will tell about all your wonderful deeds.",
      "3": "I will be glad and rejoice in you.\nI will make music to your name, O Most High.",
      "4": "When my enemies turn back,\nthey stumble and perish from your presence,",
      "5": "for you have upheld my rights and my cause.\nYou sat on the throne, judging righteously.",
      "6": "You have rebuked the nations,\nand you made the wicked perish.\nYou have blotted out their name forever and ever.",
      "7": "As for the enemy, their destruction is complete and final.\nYou have uprooted cities.\nMemory of them has perished with them.",
      "8": "The Lord is seated forever.\nHe has established his throne for judgment.",
      "9": "The Lord himself will judge the world in righteousness.\nHe will judge the peoples with fairness.",
      "10": "The Lord will be a refuge for those who have been crushed,\na refuge for times of trouble.",
      "11": "Those who know your name will trust in you,\nfor you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.",
      "12": "Make music for the Lord, who is seated in Zion.\nProclaim his deeds among the peoples.",
      "13": "Yes, he who avenges bloodshed remembers them.\nHe does not forget the cry of the afflicted.",
      "14": "Have mercy on me, O Lord.\nSee my afflictions that are caused by those who hate me,\nand raise me up from the gates of death,",
      "15": "so that I may declare all your praise.\nIn the gates of the Daughter of Zion I will rejoice in your salvation.",
      "16": "The nations have sunk into the pit they have made.\nTheir feet are caught in the net that they have hidden.",
      "17": "The Lord makes himself known by the judgment he has carried out.\nBy the work of his hands the wicked are snared. Interlude for meditation",
      "18": "The wicked return to the grave,\nall the nations who forget God.",
      "19": "But he will never forget the needy.\nThe hope of the afflicted will never perish.",
      "20": "Rise up, O Lord. Do not let man triumph.\nLet the nations be judged in your presence.",
      "21": "Strike them with fear, O Lord.\nLet the nations know they are only human. Interlude"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Why, Lord, do you stand so far away?\nWhy do you hide in times of distress?",
      "2": "Because of the pride of the wicked, the oppressed burn.\nThey are caught in the schemes that the wicked plan.",
      "3": "Yes, the wicked man boasts about his heart’s desires.\nHe blesses the robber. He despises the Lord.",
      "4": "With his nose in the air, the wicked does not seek God.\nThere is no room at all for God in his thoughts.",
      "5": "His ways are prosperous all the time.\nHe is haughty. Your judgments do not concern him.\nHe snorts at all of his foes.",
      "6": "He says in his heart, “I will not be shaken.\nThrough age after age I will have no trouble.”",
      "7": "Cursing fills his mouth, along with lies and threats.\nTrouble and evil lie under his tongue.",
      "8": "He waits in ambush by the villages.\nIn hidden places he murders the innocent.\nHis eyes are spying on the helpless.",
      "9": "He lies in ambush. He hides like a lion in a thicket.\nHe lies in ambush to catch the oppressed.\nHe catches the oppressed by dragging them in his net.",
      "10": "The helpless are crushed. They sink down.\nThey fall under his strength.",
      "11": "He says in his heart, “God has forgotten.\nHe hides his face. He never sees.”",
      "12": "Rise up, O Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.\nDo not forget the oppressed.",
      "13": "Why does the wicked man despise God?\nWhy does he say in his heart,\n“You do not seek justice”?",
      "14": "But you do see. You notice trouble and grief.\nYou take it into your own hands.\nThe helpless one abandons himself to you.\nFor the fatherless you are indeed a helper.",
      "15": "Break the arm of the wicked.\nYou pursue the wickedness of the evil man\n    until you find no more.",
      "16": "The Lord is King forever and ever.\nThe nations will perish from his land.",
      "17": "Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted.\nYou strengthen their hearts,\nand your ear pays attention,",
      "18": "to obtain justice for the fatherless and the crushed,\nso that the worldly man may no longer terrify."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "For the choir director. By David.",
      "2": "In the Lord I take refuge.\nHow can you say to my soul:\n“Flee to your mountain like a bird.",
      "3": "Look! The wicked bend their bow.\nThey set their arrow against the string\n    to shoot in the darkness at the upright in heart.",
      "4": "When the foundations are being torn down,\n    what can the righteous do?”",
      "5": "The Lord is in his holy temple.\nThe Lord is on his throne in heaven.\nHis eyes observe.\nHe focuses on the children of Adam.",
      "6": "The Lord is righteous.\nHe examines the wicked.\nHe really hates those who love violence.",
      "7": "On the wicked he will rain down fiery coals and sulfur.\nA scorching wind will be the cup given to them.",
      "8": "Indeed, the Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness.\nThe upright will view his face."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to sheminith. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "Save us, Lord, for the merciful have disappeared.\nThe faithful have vanished from among mankind.",
      "3": "Everyone speaks falsehood to his neighbor.\nTheir flattering lips speak double-talk.",
      "4": "May the Lord cut off all flattering lips.\nMay he cut off every tongue that speaks boastfully,",
      "5": "which says, “With our tongues we will establish our power.\nWe say what we please. Who is lord over us?”",
      "6": "“Because of the destruction of the oppressed,\nbecause of the groaning of the poor,\nnow I will rise up,” says the Lord.\n“I will keep him safe from the one who puffs against him.”",
      "7": "The words of the Lord are pure words,\nlike silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.",
      "8": "You, Lord, will keep them safe.\nYou will protect them from such people forever.",
      "9": "The wicked strut around\n    when depravity is honored by the children of Adam."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "For the choir director. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?\nHow long will you hide your face from me?",
      "3": "How long must I experience worries in my soul,\nsorrow in my heart every day?\nHow long will my enemy tower over me?",
      "4": "Look at me. Answer me, O Lord my God.\nGive light to my eyes\n    so I do not sleep in death,",
      "5": "so my enemy does not say, “I have overcome him,”\n    so my foes do not rejoice when I fall.",
      "6": "But I trust in your mercy.\nMy heart rejoices in your salvation.",
      "7": "I will sing to the Lord\n    because he has accomplished his purpose for me."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "For the choir director. By David.",
      "2": "The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”\nThey are corrupt. They do disgusting things.\nThere is no one who does good.",
      "3": "The Lord looks down from heaven on all the children of Adam\n    to see if there is anyone who understands, anyone who seeks God.",
      "4": "Every one of them has turned away.\nAltogether they have become rotten.\nThere is no one who does good.\nThere is not even one.",
      "5": "Don’t any of these evildoers understand,\nthose who devour my people as if they were eating bread?\nThey do not call on the Lord.",
      "6": "There they are! They are terrified\n    because God is present in the circle of the righteous.",
      "7": "You try to put the plans of the poor to shame,\nbut the Lord is their refuge.",
      "8": "Who will provide salvation for Israel from Zion?\nWhen the Lord restores his people,\nlet Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!"
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "A psalm by David.",
      "2": "Lord, who may be a guest in your tent?\nWho may dwell on your holy mountain?",
      "3": "One who walks with integrity,\nwho does what is righteous,\nand who speaks the truth in his heart.",
      "4": "He has no slander on his tongue.\nHe does not harm his friend,\nand he does not defame his neighbor.",
      "5": "He despises everyone whom God rejects,\nbut he honors those who fear the Lord.\nWhen he promises something,\n    he does not break his word\n    even though it costs him a lot.",
      "6": "He does not lend his money to get interest,\nand he does not accept a bribe against the innocent.\nOne who does these things will never be toppled."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "A miktam by David.",
      "2": "Guard me, O God, for I take refuge in you.",
      "3": "I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord.\nI have no good apart from you.”",
      "4": "The holy ones who are in the land are glorious.\nAll my delight is in them.",
      "5": "Those who chase after another god will increase their sorrows.\nI will not pour out their drink offerings of blood.\nI will not take up their names on my lips.",
      "6": "Lord, you are the cup that has been given to me.\nYou have secured an allotment for me.",
      "7": "The property lines chosen for me fall in pleasant places.\nYes, a delightful inheritance is mine.",
      "8": "I will bless the Lord, who guides me.\nEven at night my heart instructs me.",
      "9": "I have set the Lord always before me.\nBecause he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.",
      "10": "Therefore my heart is glad,\nand my whole being rejoices.\nEven my flesh will dwell securely",
      "11": "because you will not abandon my life to the grave.\n    You will not let your favored one see decay.",
      "12": "You have made known to me the path of life,\n    fullness of joy in your presence,\n    pleasures at your right hand forever."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Hear my righteous plea, O Lord.\nPay attention to my outcry.\nTurn your ear to my prayer, which is not offered by deceitful lips.",
      "2": "May a just verdict for me come from you.\nMay your eyes observe the things that are right.",
      "3": "You have tested my heart.\nYou have visited me at night.\nYou have refined me;\nyou have found nothing wrong.\nI resolved that my mouth will not overstep its bounds.",
      "4": "As for the deeds of people:\n    by the words from your lips\n    I have kept myself from the ways of the violent.",
      "5": "Keep my footsteps on your paths.\nMy steps have not slipped.",
      "6": "Indeed, I call to you because you will answer me, O God.\nTurn your ear toward me. Hear what I say.",
      "7": "Perform wonders through your mercy.\nBy your right hand save those who seek refuge\n    from those who rise up against them.",
      "8": "Guard me like the pupil of your eye.\nIn the shadow of your wings hide me",
      "9": "from the wicked who try to destroy me,\n    from those enemies of my life who surround me.",
      "10": "Their hearts are calloused.\nTheir mouths speak arrogantly.",
      "11": "Now they surround our steps.\nThey watch us to throw us to the ground.",
      "12": "He is like a lion that is eager to tear,\nlike a young lion crouching in its hiding place.",
      "13": "Rise, O Lord. Confront him. Bring him down.\nSave my life from the wicked by your sword.",
      "14": "Save me from such men by your hand, O Lord,\nfrom men of this world, whose reward is in this life.",
      "15": "b But you fill the stomachs of those whom you treasure.\nTheir children are satisfied,\nand they leave their wealth to their children.",
      "16": "Indeed, in righteousness I will view your face.\nWhen I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "For the choir director.\nBy David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the grasp of all his enemies, even from the grasp of Saul.",
      "2": "Then he said:\nI love you, O Lord, my strength.",
      "3": "The Lord is my rocky cliff, my stronghold, and my deliverer.\nMy God is my rock. I take refuge in him.\nHe is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my high fortress.",
      "4": "I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise,\nand I am saved from my enemies.",
      "5": "The ropes of death entangled me.\nFloodwaters of destruction rolled over me.",
      "6": "The ropes of the grave wrapped around me.\nThe traps of death threatened me.",
      "7": "In my distress I called to the Lord.\nTo my God I cried out.\nHe heard my voice from his temple.\nMy cry came before him. It reached his ears.",
      "8": "Then the earth shook and quaked,\nand the foundations of the mountains trembled.\nThey shook because the Lord was angry.",
      "9": "Smoke rose from his nostrils,\nand fire from his mouth devoured.\nCoals were set on fire by it.",
      "10": "Then he tore open the heavens and came down.\nA dark cloud was under his feet.",
      "11": "He rode upon a cherub, and he flew.\nHe soared on the wings of the wind.",
      "12": "He made the darkness around him his hiding place.\nDark rain clouds surrounded him like a canopy.",
      "13": "Emerging from the brightness in front of him\n    his clouds passed by with hail and coals of fire.",
      "14": "Then the Lord thundered in the heavens.\nThe Most High raised his voice with hail and coals of fire.",
      "15": "Then he shot his arrows and scattered the enemy.\nHe shot great lightning bolts and routed them.",
      "16": "Then the sources of water were revealed,\nand the foundations of the world were uncovered\n    by your rebuke, O Lord,\n    by the breath of wind from your nostrils.",
      "17": "He reached down from on high and took hold of me.\nHe drew me out of deep waters.",
      "18": "Because they were too strong for me,\nhe rescued me from my powerful enemy,\nfrom those who hate me.",
      "19": "They confronted me on the day of my disaster,\nbut the Lord supported me.",
      "20": "Then he brought me out into a wide-open space.\nHe rescued me because he delighted in me.",
      "21": "The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness.\nAccording to the cleanness of my hands he has repaid me,",
      "22": "for I have kept the ways of the Lord.\nI have not done evil and departed from my God.",
      "23": "So all his just decrees remain before me,\nand I have not turned his statutes away from me.",
      "24": "I have been blameless with him.\nI have kept myself from guilt.",
      "25": "The Lord has repaid me according to my righteousness,\naccording to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.",
      "26": "To the merciful you reveal yourself as merciful.\nTo the blameless person you reveal yourself as blameless.",
      "27": "To the pure you reveal yourself as pure,\nbut to the crooked you reveal yourself as crafty.",
      "28": "For you save humble people,\nbut you bring low the eyes of the arrogant.",
      "29": "Yes, you light my lamp, O Lord.\nMy God turns my darkness to light.",
      "30": "For with you I can charge against a battalion,\nand with my God I can jump over a wall.",
      "31": "This God—his way is blameless.\nThe speech of the Lord is pure.\nHe is a shield for all who take refuge in him.",
      "32": "For who is God besides the Lord?\nAnd who is the Rock except our God?",
      "33": "This God wraps me with strength\nand makes my way perfect.",
      "34": "By making my feet like those of a deer\n    he enables me to stand on high places.",
      "35": "Because he trains my hands for battle,\n    my arms can draw a bronze bow.",
      "36": "Then you give me the shield of your salvation.\nYour right hand sustains me,\nand you stoop down to lift me up.",
      "37": "You widen the path under my feet,\nso that my ankles do not give way.",
      "38": "I pursued my enemies, and I overtook them.\nSo I did not turn back until they were wiped out.",
      "39": "I crushed them so that they could not rise again.\nThey fell beneath my feet.",
      "40": "You wrapped me with strength for battle.\nYou made those who rose up against me bow down to me.",
      "41": "You made my enemies turn their backs and flee.\nI destroyed those who hate me.",
      "42": "They cried for help, but there was no one to save them.\nThey cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them.",
      "43": "So I grind them as fine as dust blown by the wind.\nI dump them out like mud in the streets.",
      "44": "You delivered me from the accusations of the people.\nYou made me the head of nations.\nA people I did not know serve me.",
      "45": "As soon as they hear me, they obey me.\nForeigners cower before me.",
      "46": "Foreigners fall exhausted.\nThey come trembling from their strongholds.",
      "47": "The Lord lives! Blessed be my Rock!\nMay the God who saves me be exalted!",
      "48": "The God who avenges me subdues peoples under me.",
      "49": "You delivered me from my enemies.\nYes, you exalted me above those who rose against me.\nYou rescued me from the violent man.",
      "50": "Therefore I will praise you among the nations, Lord.\nTo your name I will make music.",
      "51": "By providing great salvation for his King,\nhe shows mercy to his Anointed One,\nto David and to his Descendant forever."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "For the choir director. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "The heavens tell about the glory of God.\nThe expanse of the sky proclaims the work of his hands.",
      "3": "Day after day they pour out speech.\nNight after night they display knowledge.",
      "4": "They do not speak. They say no words.\nTheir voice is not heard.",
      "5": "Their voice goes out into all the earth,\nand their word reaches the end of the world.\nGod has pitched a tent for the sun in the heavens.",
      "6": "It comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy.\nIt celebrates like a champion who has run his race.",
      "7": "It sets out from one end of the heavens.\nIt runs until it reaches the other end.\nThere is nowhere to hide from its heat.",
      "8": "The law of the Lord is perfect.\nIt revives the soul.\nThe testimony of the Lord is trustworthy.\nIt gives wisdom to the inexperienced.",
      "9": "The precepts of the Lord are right.\nThey give joy to the heart.\nThe commandment of the Lord is bright.\nIt gives light to the eyes.",
      "10": "The fear of the Lord is pure.\nIt stands forever.\nThe just decrees of the Lord are truth.\nThey are altogether righteous.",
      "11": "They are more desirable than gold,\neven better than much pure gold.\nThey are sweeter than honey,\neven honey dripping from the honeycomb.",
      "12": "Yes, by them your servant is warned.\nIn keeping them there is great reward.",
      "13": "Who can recognize his own errors?\nDeclare me innocent of hidden sins.",
      "14": "Restrain your servant also from deliberate sins.\nDo not let them rule over me.\nThen I will be blameless.\nThen I will be innocent of great rebellion.",
      "15": "May the speech from my mouth\nand the thoughts in my heart be pleasing to you,\nO Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "May the Lord answer you in the day of distress.\nMay the name of the God of Jacob lift you up.",
      "2": "May he send you help from the holy place.\nMay he support you from Zion.",
      "3": "May he remember all your sacrificial gifts. Interlude\nMay he accept your burnt offerings.",
      "4": "May he give you whatever your heart desires.\nMay he fulfill all your plans.",
      "5": "We will shout joyfully when God saves you.\nIn the name of our God we will lift up our banners.\nMay the Lord fulfill all your prayers.",
      "6": "Now I know that the Lord saves his Anointed.\nHe answers him from his holy heavens\n    with powerful acts of salvation from his right hand.",
      "7": "Some rely on chariots, and some on horses,\nbut we rely on the name of the Lord our God.",
      "8": "They are brought to their knees and fall,\nbut we rise up and stand firm.",
      "9": "Lord, save the king! Answer us in the day we call!"
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength.\nHe joyfully celebrates salvation from you.",
      "2": "You have granted him what his heart desired. Interlude\nYou have not denied the request from his lips.",
      "3": "Yes, you meet him to give him great blessings.\nYou place a crown of pure gold on his head.",
      "4": "He asked you for life, and you gave it to him—\nlength of days, forever and ever.",
      "5": "He receives great glory through the salvation you gave.\nYou bestow splendor and majesty on him.",
      "6": "Surely you grant him blessings forever.\nYou make him glad with joy in your presence.",
      "7": "Surely the king trusts in the Lord,\nand through the mercy of the Most High he will not be shaken.",
      "8": "Your hand will reach all your enemies.\nYour right hand will reach those who hate you.",
      "9": "At the time when you appear, O Lord,\nyou will make them like a blazing furnace.\nIn his anger he will swallow them.\nFire will consume them.",
      "10": "You will cause their fruit to perish from the earth,\ntheir seed from among the children of Adam.",
      "11": "Indeed, they intend evil against you.\nThey plan wicked schemes,\nbut they will not succeed,",
      "12": "because you will make them turn and run\n    when you get ready to aim your arrows at them.",
      "13": "Rise up, O Lord, in your strength.\nWe will sing and make music because of your might."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to “Doe of the Dawn.”\nA psalm by David.",
      "2": "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\nMy groaning does nothing to save me.",
      "3": "My God, I call out by day, but you do not answer.\nI call out by night, but there is no relief for me.",
      "4": "Yet you are seated as the Holy One, praised by Israel.",
      "5": "In you our fathers trusted.\nThey trusted and you delivered them.",
      "6": "They cried out to you, and they were rescued.\nThey trusted in you, and they were not disappointed.",
      "7": "But I am a worm and not a man,\nscorned by men and despised by the people.",
      "8": "All who see me mock me. They sneer.\nThey shake their heads.",
      "9": "They say, “Trust in the Lord.”\n“Let the Lord deliver him.\nLet him rescue him, if he delights in him.”",
      "10": "But you are the one who brought me out of the belly.\nYou made me trust when I was at my mother’s breasts.",
      "11": "I was cast on you from the womb.\nFrom the belly of my mother you have been my God.",
      "12": "Do not be distant from me, for distress is near,\nand there is no one to help.",
      "13": "Many bulls surround me.\nStrong bulls from Bashan encircle me.",
      "14": "Enemies open their mouths wide against me,\nlike a lion that tears its prey and roars.",
      "15": "Like water I am poured out.\nAll my bones are pulled apart.\nMy heart has become like wax.\nIt has melted in the middle of my chest.",
      "16": "My strength is dried up like broken pottery,\nand my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth.\nYou lay me in the dust of death.",
      "17": "For dogs have surrounded me.\nA band of evil men has encircled me.\nThey have pierced my hands and my feet.",
      "18": "I can count all my bones.\nThey stare and gloat over me.",
      "19": "They divide my garments among them.\nFor my clothing they cast lots.",
      "20": "But you, O Lord, do not be distant.\nO my Strength, come quickly to help me.",
      "21": "Deliver my life from the sword,\nmy only life from the power of the dog.",
      "22": "Save me from the mouth of the lion.\nFrom the horns of the wild oxen you have answered me.",
      "23": "I will declare your name to my brothers.\nIn the midst of the congregation I will praise you.",
      "24": "You who fear the Lord, praise him!\nAll you descendants of Jacob, honor him!\nStand in awe of him, all you descendants of Israel!",
      "25": "For he has not despised nor detested the affliction of the afflicted.\nHe has not hidden his face from him,\nbut when he cried out to him, he heard.",
      "26": "You are the source of my praise in the great congregation.\nI will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who fear him.",
      "27": "The poor will eat and be satisfied.\nThose who seek him will praise the Lord—\nmay he live in your hearts forever!",
      "28": "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,\nand all the families of the nations will bow down before you.",
      "29": "For the kingdom belongs to the Lord,\nand he rules over the nations.",
      "30": "All the rich of the earth will eat and bow down.\nAll who go down to the dust will kneel before him—\nthose who cannot keep themselves alive.",
      "31": "Descendants will serve him.\nFor generations people will be told about the Lord.",
      "32": "They will come and proclaim his righteousness\n    to a people yet to be born—\nbecause he has done it."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "The Lord is my shepherd.\nI lack nothing.",
      "2": "He causes me to lie down in green pastures.\nHe leads me beside quiet waters.",
      "3": "He restores my soul.\nHe guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.",
      "4": "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,\nI will fear no evil, for you are with me.\nYour rod and your staff, they comfort me.",
      "5": "You set a table for me in the presence of my foes.\nYou drench my head with oil.\nMy cup is overflowing.",
      "6": "Surely goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life,\nand I will live in the house of the Lord forever."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "The earth is the Lord’s\nand everything that fills it,\nthe world and all who live in it,",
      "2": "because he founded it on the seas,\nand he established it on the rivers.",
      "3": "Who may go up to the mountain of the Lord?\nWho may stand in his holy place?",
      "4": "He who has clean hands and a pure heart,\nwhose soul is not set on what is false,\nwho does not swear deceitfully.",
      "5": "He will receive blessing from the Lord\nand righteousness from the God who saves him.",
      "6": "Such are the people of Jacob who look for the Lord,\nwho seek your face. Interlude",
      "7": "Lift up your heads, you gates.\nLift yourselves up, you ancient doors,\nand the King of Glory will come in.",
      "8": "Who is this King of Glory?\nThe Lord strong and mighty,\nthe Lord mighty in battle.",
      "9": "Lift up your heads, you gates.\nLift up, you ancient doors,\nand the King of Glory will come in.",
      "10": "Who is he, this King of Glory?\nThe Lord of Armies—he is the King of Glory. Interlude"
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "To you, O Lord, I will lift up my soul.",
      "2": "In you I have trusted, O my God.\nDo not let me be put to shame.\nDo not let my enemies triumph over me.",
      "3": "All who hope in you will never be put to shame,\nbut those who are treacherous for no reason will be put to shame.",
      "4": "Make known to me your ways, O Lord.\nTeach me your paths.",
      "5": "Make me walk in your truth and teach me,\nbecause you are the God who saves me.\nIn you I hope all day long.",
      "6": "Remember, O Lord, your compassion and your mercy,\nfor they are from eternity.",
      "7": "Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways.\nAccording to your mercy remember me,\nbecause of your goodness, O Lord.",
      "8": "Good and upright is the Lord.\nTherefore, he instructs sinners in the right way.",
      "9": "He directs the humble to what is just,\nand he teaches the humble his way.",
      "10": "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth\n    for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.",
      "11": "For the sake of your name, O Lord,\nyou forgive my guilt, although it is great.",
      "12": "Who, then, is the man who fears the Lord?\nThe Lord will instruct him in the way he chooses.",
      "13": "That man will enjoy a good life,\nand his descendants will possess the land.",
      "14": "The guidance of the Lord is with those who fear him.\nHis covenant will give them knowledge.",
      "15": "My eyes are always on the Lord,\nbecause he frees my feet from the net.",
      "16": "Turn toward me and be gracious to me,\nbecause I am lonely and afflicted.",
      "17": "The distress of my heart increases.\nBring me out of my anguish.",
      "18": "See my affliction and my trouble,\nand take away all my sins.",
      "19": "See my enemies—\nhow they have increased,\nand how violently they hate me!",
      "20": "Guard my life and rescue me.\nDo not let me be put to shame,\nfor I have taken refuge in you.",
      "21": "May integrity and uprightness protect me,\n    because I wait for you.",
      "22": "Redeem Israel, O God, from all its distress!"
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "Judge me favorably, O Lord,\nbecause I have walked in my integrity.\nIn the Lord I have trusted. I have not wavered.",
      "2": "Test me, O Lord, and examine me.\nRefine my thoughts and my emotions,",
      "3": "for your mercy is in front of my eyes,\nand I keep walking in your truth.",
      "4": "I do not sit with deceivers.\nI do not associate with hypocrites.",
      "5": "I hate the company of evildoers.\nI do not sit with the wicked.",
      "6": "I wash my hands from sin,\nso I can march around your altar, O Lord,",
      "7": "to shout thanks to you\n    and to proclaim all your wonderful deeds.",
      "8": "Lord, I love the house where you reside,\nthe place where your glory dwells.",
      "9": "Do not snatch my soul away along with sinners,\nnor my life with bloodthirsty men,",
      "10": "who grasp wicked schemes in their hands,\nwhose right hands are full of bribes.",
      "11": "But as for me, I will walk in my integrity.\nRedeem me and be merciful to me.",
      "12": "My feet stand on level ground.\nIn the assemblies I will bless the Lord."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "The Lord is my light and my salvation—\nwhom shall I fear?\nThe Lord is the stronghold of my life—\nof whom shall I be afraid?",
      "2": "When evildoers advance against me to eat my flesh,\nwhen my foes and my enemies come against me,\nit is they who will stumble and fall.",
      "3": "If an army lines up against me, my heart will not fear.\nIf war rises against me, even then I will keep trusting.",
      "4": "One thing I ask from the Lord. This is what I seek:\nthat I live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,\n    to gaze on the beauty of the Lord,\n    and to seek him in his temple.",
      "5": "Yes, he will hide me in his shelter on the day of trouble.\nHe will hide me in his tent.\nHe will set me high on a rock.",
      "6": "Then my head will be lifted up above the enemies who surround me.\nI will offer sacrifices at his tent with a joyful shout.\nI will sing and make music to the Lord.",
      "7": "Hear me, O Lord. With my voice I call.\nBe merciful to me and answer me.",
      "8": "When you say, “Seek my face,” my heart says to you,\n    “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”",
      "9": "Do not hide your face from me.\nDo not turn your servant away in anger.\nYou have been my help.\nDo not reject me or forsake me, O God who saves me.",
      "10": "If my father and my mother abandoned me,\n    the Lord would take me in.",
      "11": "Lord, teach me your way,\nand lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.",
      "12": "Do not give me up to the desire of my foes,\nbecause false witnesses rise up against me,\nand so do those who breathe out violence.",
      "13": "Unless I was confident to see the goodness of the Lord\n    in the land of the living—",
      "14": "Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart,\nand wait for the Lord!"
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "O Lord, I keep calling to you.\nMy Rock, do not be deaf to me.\nIf you remain silent to me,\nI will become like those who go down to the pit.",
      "2": "Hear the sound of my plea for mercy when I cry out to you,\nwhen I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary.",
      "3": "Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those evildoers.\nThey speak peace to their neighbors but hide evil in their hearts.",
      "4": "Give to them what they have done to others.\nAccording to their evil actions,\naccording to the deeds of their hands,\npunish them.\nRepay to them what they deserve.",
      "5": "Because they do not recognize the works of the Lord\nor the deeds of his hands,\nhe will tear them down and not build them up.",
      "6": "Blessed be the Lord,\nbecause he has heard the sound of my plea for mercy.",
      "7": "The Lord is my strength and my shield.\nIn him my heart trusts, and I am helped.\nMy heart also celebrates.\nWith my song I will give thanks to him.",
      "8": "The Lord is their strength.\nHe is a stronghold of salvation for his anointed king.",
      "9": "Save your people, and bless the people that belong to you.\nShepherd them, and carry them forever."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "Ascribe to the Lord, you sons of God,\nAscribe to the Lord glory and strength.",
      "2": "Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name.\nBow down to the Lord in the splendor of holiness.",
      "3": "The voice of the Lord is heard over the waters.\nThe God of glory thunders.\nThe Lord thunders above the mighty waters.",
      "4": "The voice of the Lord thunders in power.\nThe voice of the Lord thunders in majesty.",
      "5": "The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars.\nThe Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.",
      "6": "He makes Mount Lebanon skip like a calf.\nSirion skips like a young wild ox.",
      "7": "The voice of the Lord slashes with flashes of fire.",
      "8": "The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.\nThe Lord shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.",
      "9": "The voice of the Lord destroys the oaks\nand strips the forests bare.\nSo in his temple they all say, “Glory!”",
      "10": "The Lord is seated over the flood.\nThe Lord is seated as King forever.",
      "11": "The Lord gives strength to his people.\nThe Lord blesses his people with peace."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "I will exalt you, O Lord,\nbecause you lifted me up.\nYou did not let my enemies rejoice over me.",
      "2": "O Lord my God, I cried out to you,\nand you healed me.",
      "3": "Lord, you snatched my life from the grave.\nYou kept me alive so I did not go down into the pit.",
      "4": "Make music to the Lord, you his favored ones,\nand give thanks when you remember his holiness,",
      "5": "for we spend a moment under his anger,\nbut we enjoy a lifetime in his favor.\nIn the evening, weeping comes to stay through the night,\nbut in the morning, there is rejoicing!",
      "6": "But I—I said in my security,\n“I will never be knocked down.”",
      "7": "Lord, in your favor you made strength\n    stand like a mountain for me.\nThen you hid your face. I was terrified.",
      "8": "To you, O Lord, I call.\nTo the Lord I cry for mercy:",
      "9": "“What gain is there in shedding my blood,\nin sending me down to destruction?\nWill the dust praise you?\nWill it proclaim your truth?",
      "10": "Lord, hear and be merciful to me.\nLord, be a helper for me.”",
      "11": "You turned my mourning into dancing.\nYou removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,",
      "12": "so that my whole being may make music to you\nand not be silent.\nO Lord my God, I thank you forever."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "In you, Lord, I have taken refuge.\nLet me never be put to shame.\nIn your righteousness deliver me.",
      "2": "Turn your ear toward me.\nHurry! Rescue me!\nBe a rock where I take refuge,\na fortified place that saves me.",
      "3": "Yes, you are my rocky cliff and my stronghold.\nFor the sake of your name you will lead me and guide me.",
      "4": "You will pull me out of the net that they hid for me,\nbecause you are my refuge.",
      "5": "Into your hand I commit my spirit.\nYou have redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.",
      "6": "I hate those who keep worthless idols,\nbut I trust in the Lord.",
      "7": "I will be glad and rejoice in your mercy,\nbecause you saw my affliction.\nYou knew the distress of my soul.",
      "8": "You have not left me in the hand of the enemy.\nYou have made my feet stand in a wide-open space.",
      "9": "Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress.\nMy eye grows weak with sorrow—\nmy soul and my body too.",
      "10": "Yes, my life is consumed by grief,\nand my years by groaning.\nMy strength fails because of my guilt,\nand my bones grow weak.",
      "11": "Because of all my foes,\nI am a disgrace, especially to my neighbors.\nI am dreaded by those who know me.\nThose who see me on the street flee from me.",
      "12": "I have been forgotten like a dead man, gone from memory.\nI have become like a broken pot.",
      "13": "Yes, I hear the slander of many.\nThere is terror on every side.\nWhen they conspire together against me,\nthey plot to take my life.",
      "14": "But I—I trust in you, O Lord.\nI say, “You are my God.”",
      "15": "My times are in your hand.\nDeliver me from the hand of my enemies\nand from those who pursue me.",
      "16": "Let your face shine on your servant.\nSave me in your mercy.",
      "17": "Do not allow me to be put to shame, O Lord,\nbecause I have cried out to you.\nBut let the wicked be put to shame.\nLet them be silent in the grave.",
      "18": "Let lying lips be silenced,\nthose who speak against the righteous\n    impudently with pride and contempt.",
      "19": "How great is your goodness,\nwhich you store up for those who fear you,\nwhich you deliver for those who take refuge in you\n    in the presence of the people.",
      "20": "You hide them in your presence from the schemes of man.\nYou conceal them in your shelter from accusing tongues.",
      "21": "Blessed be the Lord,\nbecause he made his mercy wonderful for me\n    when I was in a besieged city.",
      "22": "In my alarm I said, “I am cut off from before your eyes!”\nBut you heard the sound of my cry for mercy\n    when I cried out to you.",
      "23": "Love the Lord, all his favored ones!\nThe Lord preserves the faithful,\nbut he pays back in full the one who acts proudly.",
      "24": "Be strong, and let your heart be firm,\n    all you who wait confidently for the Lord."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "By David. A maskil.",
      "2": "How blessed is the person\n    whose rebellion is forgiven,\n    whose sin is covered.",
      "3": "How blessed is the person\n    whose guilt the Lord does not charge against him,\n    in whose spirit there is no deceit.",
      "4": "When I kept silent,\nmy bones wasted away as I groaned all day long.",
      "5": "For day and night your hand was heavy on me. Interlude\nMy moisture was dried up by the droughts of summer.",
      "6": "I acknowledged my sin to you,\nand I did not cover up my guilt.\nI said, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord,” Interlude\nand you forgave the guilt of my sin.",
      "7": "Because of this, let everyone who receives favor pray to you\n    at a time when you may be found.\nSurely when the mighty waters overflow,\nthey will not reach him.",
      "8": "You are my hiding place.\nYou will protect me from distress. Interlude\nYou will surround me with shouts of deliverance.",
      "9": "I will make you wise.\nI will instruct you in the way that you should go.\nI will guide you, keeping my eye on you.",
      "10": "Do not be like a horse or a mule, which has no understanding.\nIts mouth must be controlled by a bit and bridle,\nor else it will not come to you.",
      "11": "Many are the sorrows of the wicked,\nbut mercy will surround those who trust in the Lord.",
      "12": "Rejoice in the Lord and celebrate, all you righteous,\nand shout joyfully, all you upright in heart."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "Shout joyfully to the Lord, you righteous.\nThe praise of the upright is beautiful.",
      "2": "Thank the Lord with a lyre.\nMake music for him with the ten-stringed harp.",
      "3": "Sing to him a new song.\nPlay skillfully and shout praises.",
      "4": "Yes, the word of the Lord is right,\nand everything he does is trustworthy.",
      "5": "He loves righteousness and justice.\nThe mercy of the Lord fills the earth.",
      "6": "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.\nBy the breath of his mouth he made the whole army of stars.",
      "7": "He gathers the water of the sea into a heap.\nHe puts the depths into storehouses.",
      "8": "Let all the earth fear the Lord.\nLet all the inhabitants of the world revere him.",
      "9": "For he said, “Let it be,” and it was!\nHe gave a command, and there it stood.",
      "10": "The Lord wrecks the plan of the nations.\nHe hinders the intentions of the peoples.",
      "11": "The plan of the Lord stands forever.\nThe intentions of his heart stand through all generations.",
      "12": "How blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,\nthe people he chose to be his possession.",
      "13": "From heaven the Lord observes.\nHe sees all the children of Adam.",
      "14": "From his throne room he looks at all the inhabitants of earth.",
      "15": "He alone is the one who shapes all their hearts.\nHe understands all their deeds.",
      "16": "No king is saved by the great size of his army.\nNo hero is rescued by his great strength.",
      "17": "You cannot rely on a horse to save you.\nIts great strength will not deliver you.",
      "18": "Look, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,\non those who wait for his mercy.",
      "19": "He will deliver their souls from death.\nHe keeps them alive in famine.",
      "20": "Our souls wait for the Lord.\nHe is our help and our shield.",
      "21": "Yes, in him our heart rejoices,\nbecause we trust in his holy name.",
      "22": "May your mercy, O Lord, be on us,\n    even as we wait confidently for you."
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "By David. When he pretended to be insane in the presence of Abimelek, who drove him away, and David left.",
      "2": "I will bless the Lord at all times.\nHis praise will always be in my mouth.",
      "3": "In the Lord my soul will boast.\nThe humble will hear and rejoice.",
      "4": "Proclaim the greatness of the Lord with me,\nand let us exalt his name together.",
      "5": "I sought the Lord, and he answered me.\nFrom all my terrors he delivered me.",
      "6": "His people look to him and are radiant,\nand their faces will never blush.",
      "7": "This poor man called, and the Lord heard.\nFrom all his distress the Lord saved him.",
      "8": "The Angel of the Lord camps around those who fear him,\nand he delivers them.",
      "9": "Taste and see that the Lord is good.\nBlessed is everyone who takes refuge in him.",
      "10": "Fear the Lord, you his saints,\nsince those who fear him lack nothing.",
      "11": "Young lions may lack food and be hungry,\nbut those who seek the Lord do not lack any good thing.",
      "12": "Come, children, listen to me.\nI will teach you the fear of the Lord.",
      "13": "Who wants to find pleasure in life?\nWho would love to experience many good days?",
      "14": "Guard your tongue from evil\nand your lips from speaking deceit.",
      "15": "Turn from evil and do good.\nSeek peace and pursue it.",
      "16": "The eyes of the Lord watch over the righteous.\nHis ears listen to their cry.",
      "17": "The face of the Lord is set against those who do evil,\n    to cut off memory of them from the earth.",
      "18": "The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears.\nFrom all their distress he delivers them.",
      "19": "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.\nHe saves those whose spirits have been crushed.",
      "20": "Many are the troubles of the righteous,\nbut the Lord delivers him from them all.",
      "21": "He watches over all his bones;\nnot one of them will be broken.",
      "22": "Evil will slay the wicked.\nThose who hate the righteous will be found guilty.",
      "23": "The Lord redeems the soul of his servants.\nAnyone who takes refuge in him will not be found guilty."
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "Lord, oppose those who oppose me.\nFight against those who fight against me.",
      "2": "Put on your armor and shield.\nRise up to help me.",
      "3": "Wield a spear and block the way of those who pursue me.\nSay to my soul, “I am your salvation.”",
      "4": "May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame.\nMay those who plot to harm me be turned back and dismayed.",
      "5": "May they be like chaff driven by the wind.\nMay an angel of the Lord drive them away.",
      "6": "May their path be dark and slippery.\nMay an angel of the Lord pursue them.",
      "7": "Without cause they hid their net to catch me.\nWithout cause they dug a pit to trap me.",
      "8": "May devastation overtake him before he knows it.\nMay the net which he hid catch him.\nMay he fall into it to his own destruction.",
      "9": "Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord.\nIt will delight in his salvation.",
      "10": "All my bones will say, “Lord, who is like you?\nYou rescue the poor from the one too strong for him,\nthe poor and needy from the one who robs him.”",
      "11": "Malicious witnesses arise.\nThey ask me about things I do not know.",
      "12": "They repay me with evil instead of good.\nThey rob my soul of happiness.",
      "13": "But when they were sick, I dressed in sackcloth.\nI afflicted myself with fasting.\nMy prayers returned unanswered.",
      "14": "I walked around mourning,\n    as if mourning for a friend or for my brother.\nI bowed down, dirty with ashes,\n    as though mourning for my mother.",
      "15": "But when I stumbled, they were happy.\nThey gathered together.\nYes, attackers gathered together against me\n    though I did not expect it.\nThey ripped me and were never quiet.",
      "16": "Like profane mockers, they gnashed their teeth at me.",
      "17": "Lord, how long will you look on?\nRestore my life from their devastating attacks,\nmy precious life from these young lions.",
      "18": "I will give thanks to you in the great assembly.\nIn a large crowd I will praise you.",
      "19": "Do not let them rejoice over me—\nthose who are my enemies without cause.\nDo not let those who hate me without reason mock me.",
      "20": "For they do not speak for peace,\nbut they devise false accusations\n    against those who live quietly in the land.",
      "21": "They also open their mouths wide against me.\nThey say, “Ha! Ha! We see with our own eyes.”",
      "22": "Lord, you have seen all this.\nDo not be silent.\nLord, do not be far from me.",
      "23": "Wake up and rise up to my defense!\nMy God and Lord, rise to my cause.",
      "24": "Judge me according to your righteousness,\n    O Lord, my God.\nDo not let them rejoice over me.",
      "25": "Do not let them say in their hearts,\n    “Aha! Just what we wanted!”\nDo not let them say,\n    “We have swallowed him.”",
      "26": "May those who rejoice over my trouble\n    be put to shame and disgrace.\nMay those who exalt themselves over me\n    be clothed with shame and contempt.",
      "27": "May those who are pleased by my acquittal\n    shout for joy and be glad.\nMay they always say, “The Lord is great.\nHe takes delight in the peace of his servant.”",
      "28": "My tongue will report your righteousness\nand your praise all day long."
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "For the choir director. By the servant of the Lord. By David.",
      "2": "A declaration about the rebellion of the wicked is deep in my heart.\nThere is no dread of God before his eyes,",
      "3": "because he flatters himself in his own eyes\n    too much to notice his guilt and to hate it.",
      "4": "The words from his mouth are deception and deceit.\nHe has given up being wise and doing good.",
      "5": "He plots deception even on his bed.\nHe sets out on a path that is not good.\nHe does not reject wrong.",
      "6": "Lord, your mercy reaches to the heavens.\nYour faithfulness to the skies.",
      "7": "Your righteousness is as high as the mountains of God.\nYour justice is as deep as the ocean.\nYou save both man and animal, O Lord.",
      "8": "How precious is your mercy, O God!\nSo all people find refuge in the shadow of your wings.",
      "9": "They are satisfied by the rich food of your house.\nYou let them drink from your river of delights.",
      "10": "For with you is the fountain of life.\nIn your light we see light.",
      "11": "Stretch out your mercy over those who know you,\nyour righteousness to the upright in heart.",
      "12": "Do not let the foot of the proud trample me.\nDo not let the hand of the wicked drive me away.",
      "13": "There the evildoers have fallen.\nThey have been thrown down.\nThey are not able to rise!"
    },
    "37": {
      "1": "Do not fret because of evildoers.\nDo not be envious of those who do wrong,",
      "2": "for like grass they will wither quickly.\nLike green plants they will wilt.",
      "3": "Trust in the Lord, and do good.\nDwell in the land and feed on faithfulness.",
      "4": "Take pleasure in the Lord,\nand he will grant your heart’s desires.",
      "5": "Commit your way to the Lord.\nTrust in him, and he will act.",
      "6": "He will make your righteousness shine like light,\nyour justice like noon.",
      "7": "Be silent before the Lord. Wait patiently for him.\nDo not fret when an evil man succeeds in his ways,\nwhen he carries out his wicked schemes.",
      "8": "Let go of anger and abandon rage.\nDo not fret—it leads only to evil.",
      "9": "For evildoers will be cut off,\nbut those who hope in the Lord will inherit the earth.",
      "10": "After a little while the wicked will be no more.\nWhen you search for them at their place, they are not there.",
      "11": "But the meek will inherit the earth.\nThey will enjoy plenty of peace.",
      "12": "The wicked person plots against the righteous.\nHe gnashes his teeth at him,",
      "13": "but the Lord laughs at the wicked,\nbecause he sees that his day is coming.",
      "14": "The wicked draw their sword,\nand they bend their bow\n    to make the poor and needy fall,\n    to slaughter those whose ways are upright.",
      "15": "Their swords will pierce their hearts,\nand their bows will be broken.",
      "16": "Better the little that one righteous person has\n    than the wealth of many wicked people,",
      "17": "because the arms of the wicked will be broken,\nbut the Lord upholds the righteous.",
      "18": "The Lord knows the days of the blameless.\nTheir inheritance will last forever.",
      "19": "They will not be ashamed in time of disaster.\nIn days of famine they will be full.",
      "20": "Surely the wicked will perish.\nThe enemies of the Lord will be\n    like beautiful flowers in the pastures.\nBut they will vanish. Like smoke they will vanish.",
      "21": "The wicked borrow and do not repay,\nbut the righteous are gracious and give.",
      "22": "So those God blesses will inherit the earth,\nbut those he curses will be cut off.",
      "23": "By the Lord the steps of a person are made secure.\nThen he will delight in his way.",
      "24": "Though he falls, he will not stay down,\nbecause the Lord holds him by his hand.",
      "25": "I was a young man. Now I am old.\nBut I have never seen a righteous person forsaken\nor his children begging for bread.",
      "26": "Every day he is gracious and lends.\nHis children will be blessed.",
      "27": "Turn back from evil and do good.\nThen you will remain forever.",
      "28": "For the Lord loves justice.\nHe will not forsake his favored ones.\nThey will be protected forever,\nbut the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.",
      "29": "The righteous will inherit the earth.\nThey will dwell on it forever.",
      "30": "The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom.\nHis tongue speaks what is just.",
      "31": "The law of his God is in his heart.\nHis steps do not slip.",
      "32": "The wicked spy on the righteous one and seek to kill him.",
      "33": "The Lord will not leave him in their hand.\nHe will not let him be condemned when he is put on trial.",
      "34": "Wait for the Lord and keep to his way.\nHe will raise you up to take possession of the earth.\nWhen the wicked are cut off, you will see it.",
      "35": "I saw a wicked, ruthless man.\nHe was rooted like a green plant in its native soil,",
      "36": "but he passed away. Just like that, he was gone!\nI searched for him, but he could not be found.",
      "37": "Take note of the blameless. Look at the upright.\nYes, there is a future for the man of peace.",
      "38": "But rebels will be completely destroyed.\nThe future of the wicked will be cut off.",
      "39": "The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord.\nHe is their stronghold in times of stress.",
      "40": "The Lord helps them and delivers them.\nHe delivers them from the wicked.\nHe saves them, because they have taken refuge in him."
    },
    "38": {
      "1": "Lord, do not rebuke me in anger.\nDo not discipline me in wrath.",
      "2": "Indeed, your arrows have stuck in me.\nYour hand has come down on me.",
      "3": "There is no health in my flesh because of your rage.\nThere is no wellness in my bones because of my sin,",
      "4": "because my guilt has gone over my head.\nLike a heavy burden, it is too heavy for me.",
      "5": "My wounds stink and ooze because of my folly.",
      "6": "I am drooping. I am completely bent over.\nAll day long I go around mourning.",
      "7": "Even my back burns with pain.\nMy whole body is unhealthy.",
      "8": "I have become numb. I am totally crushed.\nI groan loudly because of my anxious thoughts.",
      "9": "Lord, all my needs lie before you.\nMy sighs are not hidden from you.",
      "10": "My heart beats quickly. My strength leaves me.\nEven the light of my eyes is gone from me.",
      "11": "My loved ones and my friends stand far away\n    because of the blow I have suffered.\nMy neighbors stand at a distance.",
      "12": "Those who pursue my life set traps.\nThose who seek to harm me talk about my ruin.\nAll day long they plot deception.",
      "13": "I am deaf. I cannot hear.\nLike a mute person, I cannot open my mouth.",
      "14": "I am like a man who cannot hear.\nNo response comes from his mouth.",
      "15": "Yet I wait for you, Lord.\nYou will answer, O Lord my God.",
      "16": "So I said, “Do not let them celebrate because of me.\nDo not let them gloat when my foot slips.”",
      "17": "Look! I am about to fall,\nand I am always in pain,",
      "18": "so I declare my guilt,\nand I am troubled by my sin.",
      "19": "My aggressive enemies are numerous.\nThose who hate me for no reason are many.",
      "20": "Those who repay evil for good\n    slander me because I pursue what is good.",
      "21": "Do not forsake me, O Lord.\nMy God, do not be far from me.",
      "22": "Hurry to help me, O Lord, my salvation."
    },
    "39": {
      "1": "For the choir director. For Jeduthun. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "I said, “I will guard my ways\nso that I do not sin with my tongue.\nI will keep a muzzle on my mouth\n    as long as the wicked are confronting me.”",
      "3": "I said nothing. I kept silent.\nI did not even say anything good,\nbut my pain became worse.",
      "4": "Inside me my heart grew hot.\nAs I fretted, the fire burned.\nSo I spoke with my tongue.",
      "5": "Lord, help me understand my end.\nWhat is the limit of my days?\nLet me know how fleeting I am.",
      "6": "See, you have cut short my days.\nMy brief time before you is like nothing.\nIndeed, every person, even at his best,\n    is just a puff of air. Interlude",
      "7": "A man flickers like a mirage.\nHe really has no more effect than a breeze.\nHe piles things up, never knowing who will get them.",
      "8": "But now what do I wait for, Lord?\nMy hope is in you.",
      "9": "Save me from all my rebellious acts.\nDo not let fools scorn me.",
      "10": "I said nothing.\nI did not open my mouth,\nbecause you are the one who caused this.",
      "11": "Stop punching me.\nBy the attack of your hand I am finished.",
      "12": "By your rebuke against guilt you discipline a man.\nLike a moth you consume what he desires.\nIndeed, every person is nothing but a puff of air. Interlude",
      "13": "Hear my prayer, O Lord.\nListen to my cry.\nDo not ignore my tears,\nfor with you I am an alien,\njust a visitor, as were all my ancestors.",
      "14": "Look away from me, so I can smile again\nbefore I depart and am no more."
    },
    "40": {
      "1": "I waited and waited for the Lord.\nThen he turned to me and heard my cry.",
      "2": "Then he pulled me up from the deadly quicksand,\nfrom the mud and muck.\nHe made my feet stand on a rock to keep my steps from slipping.",
      "3": "Then he put a new song in my mouth,\na hymn of praise to our God.\nMany will see and fear.\nThey will trust in the Lord.",
      "4": "How blessed is everyone who trusts in the Lord,\nwho does not look to the proud\nor to those who turn aside to falsehood.",
      "5": "Many are the wonders you have done, O Lord my God.\nNo one can explain to you all your thoughts for us.\nIf I try to speak and tell about them,\nthey are too many to count.",
      "6": "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire.\nEars you have opened for me.\nYou did not ask for burnt offerings and sin offerings.",
      "7": "Then I said, “Here I am, I have come.\nThe book written on a scroll tells about me.",
      "8": "My God, I take pleasure in doing your will.\nYour law is in my heart.”",
      "9": "I preach righteousness in the great assembly.\nIndeed, I do not hold back my lips, O Lord, as you know.",
      "10": "I do not conceal your righteousness deep in my heart.\nI speak of your faithfulness and salvation.\nI do not hide your mercy and your truth from the great assembly.",
      "11": "Lord, you do not hold back your compassion from me.\nLet your mercy and your truth always protect me,",
      "12": "although troubles without number surround me.\nPunishments for my guilt have smothered me, so I cannot see.\nThey are more than the hairs of my head, so my courage deserts me.",
      "13": "Be pleased, O Lord, to save me.\nLord, hurry to help me.",
      "14": "Let all who seek to end my life be frustrated and completely confused.\nLet everyone who desires my ruin be turned back and disgraced.",
      "15": "Let those who say to me, “Aha! We got you!” be dismayed,\nbecause they have been put to shame.",
      "16": "But let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.\nLet those who love your salvation always say,\n“The Lord is great!”",
      "17": "Yet I am poor and needy.\nMay the Lord think about me.\nYou are my help and my deliverer.\nO my God, do not delay."
    },
    "41": {
      "1": "How blessed is the person who understands the plight of the weak!\nMay the Lord deliver him in the day of trouble.",
      "2": "May the Lord guard him and keep him alive.\nMay he be blessed in the land.\nMay you not surrender him to the desire of his enemies.",
      "3": "May the Lord sustain him on his sickbed.\nYou raise him up from his bed.",
      "4": "I said, “Lord, have mercy on me.\nHeal my soul, for I have sinned against you.”",
      "5": "My enemies speak evil about me:\n“When will he die and his name perish?”",
      "6": "If one comes to see me, he speaks falsely.\nIn his heart he collects malicious plans.\nHe goes out. He speaks about them in the street.",
      "7": "All who hate me whisper together against me.\nThey plan evil for me. They say,",
      "8": "“A deadly affliction is poured out on him.\nHe will never get up from the place where he lies.”",
      "9": "Even a man who was at peace with me,\na man whom I trusted, who ate my bread,\n    has raised up his heel to step on me.",
      "10": "But you, Lord, have mercy on me.\nRaise me up, so that I can repay them.",
      "11": "From this I know that you are pleased with me:\nMy enemy does not triumph over me.",
      "12": "As for me—in my integrity you uphold me,\nand you set me up in your presence forever.",
      "13": "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from eternity to eternity.\nAmen and Amen."
    },
    "42": {
      "1": "For the choir director. A maskil by the Sons of Korah.",
      "2": "As a doe pants for streams of water,\nso my soul pants for you, O God.",
      "3": "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.\nWhen can I go and appear before God?",
      "4": "My tears have been food for me day and night,\nwhile people are saying to me all day,\n“Where is your God?”",
      "5": "I am overcome by my emotions\nwhenever I remember these things:\n    how I used to arrive with the crowd,\n    as I led the procession to the house of God,\n    with loud shouts of thanksgiving,\n    with the crowd celebrating the festival.",
      "6": "Why are you so depressed, O my soul?\nWhy so disturbed within me?\nHope in God, for I will again praise him\n    for salvation from his presence.",
      "7": "My God, my soul is depressed within me.\nTherefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan,\nfrom the heights of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.",
      "8": "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your rapids.\nAll your breakers and your waves have swept over me.",
      "9": "By day the Lord commands his mercy,\nand at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.",
      "10": "I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me?\nWhy must I go around mourning because of oppression by the enemy?”",
      "11": "It is like breaking my bones when my foes taunt me.\nAll day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”",
      "12": "Why are you so depressed, O my soul?\nWhy so disturbed within me?\nHope in God, for I will again praise him\n    for my salvation from the face of my God."
    },
    "43": {
      "1": "Judge me justly, O God,\nand plead my case against an ungodly nation.\nRescue me from the deceitful, wicked man.",
      "2": "I know you are God, my stronghold.\nWhy have you rejected me?\nWhy must I go around mourning\n    because of oppression by the enemy?",
      "3": "Send out your light and your truth.\nLet them guide me.\nLet them bring me to your holy mountain,\nto your dwelling.",
      "4": "Then I will go to the altar of God,\nto God, my joy and gladness.\nThen I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.",
      "5": "Why are you so depressed, O my soul?\nWhy so disturbed within me?\nHope in God, for I will again praise him\n    for my salvation from the face of my God."
    },
    "44": {
      "1": "God, our ears have heard.\nOur fathers have told us the work you performed\n    in their days, in days long ago.",
      "2": "By your hand you drove out the nations,\nbut you planted your people.\nYou crushed the peoples,\nbut you sent your people forward.",
      "3": "For it was not by their sword\n    that they took possession of the land.\nIt was not their arm that saved them.\nIt was your right hand and your arm,\nand the light from your face,\nbecause you took pleasure in them.",
      "4": "You are the one who is my King, O God.\nCommand victories for Jacob.",
      "5": "Through you we drive back our foes.\nThrough your name we trample our adversaries.",
      "6": "For I do not trust in my bow,\nand my sword does not save me.",
      "7": "But you save us from our foes,\nand you put those who hate us to shame.",
      "8": "In God we make our boast all day,\nand we will praise your name forever. Interlude",
      "9": "But now you have rejected and humbled us,\nand you do not go out with our armies.",
      "10": "You made us turn back before the foe,\nand those who hate us have taken plunder for themselves.",
      "11": "You give us up for food like sheep,\nand you have scattered us among the nations.",
      "12": "You sold your people for no great price,\nand you have not profited from their sale.",
      "13": "You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,\nscorn and ridicule to those around us.",
      "14": "You have made us a laughingstock among the nations,\na reason for the peoples to shake their heads.",
      "15": "All day my disgrace is right in front of me,\nand the shame on my face covers me,",
      "16": "because of the voice of the slanderer and reviler,\nbecause of the enemy and avenger.",
      "17": "All this came on us, though we had not forgotten you.\nWe had not been false to your covenant.",
      "18": "Our hearts had not turned back.\nOur steps had not slipped off your path.",
      "19": "But you crushed us and made us a home for jackals,\nand you covered us with the shadow of death.",
      "20": "If we had forgotten the name of our God\nor spread out our hands to a foreign god,",
      "21": "would not God have discovered this,\nsince he knows the secrets of the heart?",
      "22": "Yet for your sake we are killed all day long.\nWe are considered sheep to be slaughtered.",
      "23": "Get up! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Wake up!\nDo not reject us forever.",
      "24": "Why do you hide your face?\nWhy do you forget our misery and our oppression?",
      "25": "For our souls bow down to the dust.\nOur bellies cling to the earth.",
      "26": "Stand up! Help us!\nRedeem us because of your mercy."
    },
    "45": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to “Lilies.”\nBy the Sons of Korah. A maskil. A love song.",
      "2": "My heart is bubbling over with a beautiful theme.\nI am reciting my works for the King.\nMy tongue is the pen of a rapid writer.",
      "3": "You are the most beautiful of the sons of Adam.\nGrace is poured out on your lips.\nTherefore God has blessed you forever.",
      "4": "Strap your sword on your thigh, you mighty warrior,\n    in your splendor and your majesty.",
      "5": "In your majesty advance successfully.\nRide forward in the cause of truth, humility, and righteousness.\nLet your right hand teach you awesome deeds.",
      "6": "Your arrows are sharpened.\nLet peoples fall beneath you.\nYour arrows are in the heart of the king’s enemies.",
      "7": "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.\nThe scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice.",
      "8": "You love righteousness and hate wickedness.\nTherefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy\n    more than any of your companions.",
      "9": "Myrrh, aloes, and cassia perfume all your garments.\nFrom ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad.",
      "10": "Daughters of kings are among your honored attendants.\nThe royal wife stands at your right hand in gold from Ophir.",
      "11": "Hear, O daughter, look and listen.\nForget your people and your father’s house,",
      "12": "because the king desires your beauty.\nBecause he is your lord, bow down to him.",
      "13": "Then the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift.\nThe richest people will seek your favor.",
      "14": "The princess, who waits inside, is all glorious.\nHer dress is interwoven with gold.",
      "15": "In embroidered garments she is led to the king.\nVirgins who follow her as attendants are brought to you.",
      "16": "They are brought with joyful celebration.\nThey enter the palace of the king.",
      "17": "Your sons will take the place of your fathers.\nYou will make them princes in all the earth.",
      "18": "I will preserve the memory of your name through all generations.\nTherefore peoples will praise you forever and ever."
    },
    "46": {
      "1": "God is our refuge and strength,\na helper who can always be found in times of trouble.",
      "2": "That is why we will not fear when the earth dissolves\nand when the mountains tumble into the heart of the sea.",
      "3": "Its waters roar and foam.\nThe mountains quake when it rises. Interlude",
      "4": "There is a river—its streams bring joy to the city of God,\nto the holy dwelling of the Most High.",
      "5": "God is in her. She will not fall.\nGod will help her at daybreak.",
      "6": "Nations are in turmoil. Kingdoms fall.\nGod raises his voice. The earth melts.",
      "7": "The Lord of Armies is with us.\nThe God of Jacob is a fortress for us. Interlude",
      "8": "Come, look at the works of the Lord.\nWhat a wasteland he has made of the earth!",
      "9": "He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.\nHe shatters the bow. He cuts up the spear.\nHe burns the carts with fire.",
      "10": "“Be still, and know that I am God.\nI will be exalted among the nations.\nI will be exalted on the earth.”",
      "11": "The Lord of Armies is with us.\nThe God of Jacob is a fortress for us. Interlude"
    },
    "47": {
      "1": "All you peoples, clap your hands!\nShout to God! Sing a loud song!",
      "2": "Yes, the Lord Most High is awesome.\nHe is the great King over all the earth!",
      "3": "He subdues peoples under us\nand nations under our feet.",
      "4": "He chooses our inheritance for us.\nIt is the pride of Jacob, whom he loves. Interlude",
      "5": "God has ascended with a joyful shout.\nThe Lord goes up with the sound of the ram’s horn.",
      "6": "Make music for God! Make music!\nMake music for our King! Make music!",
      "7": "For God is the King of all the earth.\nMake music for him with a wise song.",
      "8": "God reigns as king over the nations.\nGod is seated on his holy throne.",
      "9": "The nobles of the peoples come together\n    as the people of the God of Abraham.\nYes, the shields of the earth belong to God.\nHe is greatly exalted."
    },
    "48": {
      "1": "The Lord is great. He deserves to be praised\n    in the city of our God, on his holy mountain.",
      "2": "His mountain is lofty and beautiful, the joy of the whole earth.\nMount Zion, the northern mountain, is the city of the Great King.",
      "3": "God is in her citadels.\nHe is famous as her fortress.",
      "4": "Look! See! The kings came together.\nThey advanced together.",
      "5": "They saw. Yes, they were amazed.\nThey were terrified. They were put to flight.",
      "6": "Trembling seized them there,\npain like a woman giving birth.",
      "7": "You shattered them with an east wind, like ships of Tarshish.",
      "8": "What we have heard, we now have also seen:\n    In the city of the Lord of Armies,\n    in the city of our God, Interlude\n    God establishes her forever.",
      "9": "Inside your temple, O God, we meditate on your mercy.",
      "10": "Your praise, O God, reaches to the ends of the earth,\njust as your fame does.\nRighteousness fills your right hand.",
      "11": "Mount Zion rejoices.\nThe daughters of Judah celebrate because of your judgments.",
      "12": "Go around Zion. Yes, go all the way around her.\nCount her towers.",
      "13": "Consider her rampart.\nView her citadels, so that you may tell the next generation about them.",
      "14": "For this God is our God forever and ever.\nHe will guide us beyond death."
    },
    "49": {
      "1": "Hear this, all you peoples.\nPay attention, all you inhabitants of this world,",
      "2": "all you children of Adam, all mankind,\nrich and poor alike.",
      "3": "My mouth will speak wisdom.\nThe meditation of my heart will give understanding.",
      "4": "I will listen carefully to wise teaching.\nWith a lyre I will explain deep truths.",
      "5": "Why should I fear days of trouble,\ndays when the wickedness of my pursuers surrounds me?",
      "6": "They trust in their wealth.\nThey place their confidence in the abundance of their riches.",
      "7": "But no one can by any means redeem himself.\nHe cannot give God a ransom for himself—",
      "8": "(Yes, the ransom for their souls is costly.\nAny payment would fall short.)",
      "9": "—so that he could live on forever and not see the pit.",
      "10": "Yes, we can see that wise men die.\nThe fool and the senseless alike perish,\nand they leave their wealth to others.",
      "11": "They think their houses will remain forever,\ntheir dwellings for generation after generation\nbecause they named lands after themselves.",
      "12": "But man, though he has riches, does not even spend a night here.\nHe is like the animals that perish.",
      "13": "This way of theirs is foolishness,\nbut their followers approve of what they say. Interlude",
      "14": "They are like a flock destined for the grave.\nDeath will be their shepherd.\nThe upright will rule over them in the morning.\nTheir bodies will be consumed by the grave,\n    far from their mansions.",
      "15": "But surely God will redeem my life from the power of the grave.\nYes, he will take me to himself. Interlude",
      "16": "Do not be afraid when a man grows rich,\nwhen the glory of his house increases,",
      "17": "because when he dies, he cannot take anything along.\nHis glory will not go down with him.",
      "18": "Throughout his life he congratulates himself:\n“People praise you because you have done so well for yourself.”",
      "19": "He will go to the gathering place of his fathers.\nThey will never see the light!",
      "20": "A man who has riches but does not understand\n    is like the animals that perish."
    },
    "50": {
      "1": "A psalm by Asaph.",
      "2": "God, God the Lord, has spoken.\nHe calls to the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.",
      "3": "From Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined.",
      "4": "Our God comes and he will not be silent.\nFire devours in front of him.\nAround him a storm rages.",
      "5": "He calls to the heavens above and to the earth\n    to judge his people.",
      "6": "“Gather to me my favored ones,\nwho make a covenant with me by sacrifice.”",
      "7": "So the heavens proclaim his righteousness,\n    because God himself is judge. Interlude",
      "8": "Listen, my people, and let me speak, O Israel.\nThen I will testify against you:\nI am God, your God.",
      "9": "It is not because of your sacrifices that I rebuke you\nor because of your burnt offerings that are always in front of me.",
      "10": "I do not need to take a bull from your barn\n    or goats from your pens,",
      "11": "because every animal in the forest is mine,\nthe cattle on a thousand mountains.",
      "12": "I know every bird in the mountains,\nand everything that moves in the field is with me.",
      "13": "If I were hungry, I would not tell you,\nbecause the world is mine, and all that fills it.",
      "14": "Do I eat the flesh of bulls,\nor do I drink the blood of goats?",
      "15": "Sacrifice a thank offering to God,\nand fulfill your vows to the Most High.",
      "16": "Call on me in the day of distress.\nI will deliver you, and you will honor me.",
      "17": "But to the wicked, God says:\nWhat right do you have to recite my statutes\nor to take up my covenant with your mouth?",
      "18": "As for you—you hate discipline,\nand you throw my words behind your back.",
      "19": "If you see a thief, you approve of him,\nand you cast your lot with adulterers.",
      "20": "You devote your mouth to evil,\nand your tongue weaves deceit.",
      "21": "You sit and speak against your brother.\nYou slander your own mother’s son.",
      "22": "These things you have done, and I kept silent.\nYou thought I was just like you.\nI will indict you and accuse you to your face.",
      "23": "Now consider this, you who forget God,\nor I will tear you to pieces,\nand there will be no one to rescue you.",
      "24": "The one who sacrifices a thank offering honors me,\nand he sets up the way by which I will show him the salvation of God."
    },
    "51": {
      "1": "Be gracious to me, God,\n    according to your mercy.\nErase my acts of rebellion\n    according to the greatness of your compassion.",
      "2": "Scrub me clean from my guilt.\nPurify me from my sin.",
      "3": "For I admit my rebellious acts.\nMy sin is always in front of me.",
      "4": "Against you, you only, have I sinned,\nand I have done this evil in your eyes.\nSo you are justified when you sentence me.\nYou are blameless when you judge.",
      "5": "Certainly, I was guilty when I was born.\nI was sinful when my mother conceived me.",
      "6": "Since you desire truth on the inside,\nin my hidden heart you teach me wisdom.",
      "7": "Remove my sin with hyssop, and I will be clean.\nWash me, and I will be whiter than snow.",
      "8": "Let me hear joy and gladness.\nLet the bones you have crushed celebrate.",
      "9": "Hide your face from my sins.\nErase all my guilty deeds.",
      "10": "Create in me a pure heart, O God.\nRenew an unwavering spirit within me.",
      "11": "Do not cast me from your presence.\nDo not take your Holy Spirit from me.",
      "12": "Restore to me the joy of your salvation.\nSustain me with a willing spirit.",
      "13": "I will teach rebels your ways,\nand sinners will turn to you.",
      "14": "Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,\n    the God who saves me.\nMy tongue will shout for joy about your righteousness.",
      "15": "Lord, open my lips,\nand my mouth will declare your praise.",
      "16": "For you do not delight in sacrifice,\nor I would give it.\nYou do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.",
      "17": "The sacrifices God wants are a broken spirit.\nA broken and crushed heart, O God, you will not despise.",
      "18": "As it pleases you, do good for Zion.\nBuild up the walls of Jerusalem.",
      "19": "Then you will be pleased with righteous sacrifices,\n    burnt offerings and whole offerings.\nThen bulls will be offered up on your altar."
    },
    "52": {
      "1": "Why do you boast about evil, you hero?\nThe mercy of God endures all day long.",
      "2": "Your tongue plans destruction.\nIt is like a sharpened razor, you scheming liar.",
      "3": "You love evil rather than good. Interlude\nYou love lying rather than speaking what is right.",
      "4": "You lying tongue, you love every word that devours!",
      "5": "But God will tear you down forever.\nHe will grab you and pull you out of your tent. Interlude\nHe will uproot you from the land of the living.",
      "6": "Then the righteous will see and fear.\nThen they will laugh at him:",
      "7": "“Look, here is the man who did not make God his stronghold,\nbut trusted in the greatness of his wealth.\nHe grew strong by his destructive deeds!”",
      "8": "But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.\nI trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.",
      "9": "I will thank you forever because you have done this.\nI will hope in your name in the presence of your favored ones\n    because it is good."
    },
    "53": {
      "1": "The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”\nThey are corrupt. They commit horrible evil.\nThere is no one who does good.",
      "2": "God looks down from heaven on all the children of Adam\n    to see if there is anyone who understands,\n    anyone who seeks God.",
      "3": "Every single one has turned back.\nAltogether they have become rotten.\nThere is no one who does good.\nThere is not even one.",
      "4": "Don’t they know, all those evildoers,\n    who devour my people as if they were eating bread?\nThey do not call on God.",
      "5": "There they are, terrified, where there was nothing to fear.\nFor God scattered the bones of those who camped against you.\nYou put them to shame, because God despised them.",
      "6": "Who will provide salvation for Israel from Zion?\nWhen God restores his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!"
    },
    "54": {
      "1": "God, save me by your name.\nBy your power judge me justly.",
      "2": "God, hear my prayer.\nTurn your ear to the words of my mouth.",
      "3": "For strangers have risen up against me.\nRuthless men seek my life. Interlude\nThey pay no attention to God.",
      "4": "Indeed, God is my helper.\nThe Lord is the one who preserves my life.",
      "5": "Let evil return on those who oppress me.\nIn your faithfulness destroy them.",
      "6": "I will sacrifice willingly to you.\nI will praise your name, O Lord, because it is good.",
      "7": "Surely, from all my distress he has delivered me.\nMy eyes have looked down on my enemies."
    },
    "55": {
      "1": "Turn your ear to my prayer, O God.\nDo not hide from my plea for mercy.",
      "2": "Pay attention to me and answer me.\nI am troubled in my thoughts and I groan",
      "3": "because of talk from the enemy,\n    because of oppression from the wicked,\n    because they dump evil on me,\n    and in anger they hold a grudge against me.",
      "4": "My heart is in anguish within me.\nThe terrors of death fall on me.",
      "5": "Fear and trembling come over me.\nHorror covers me.",
      "6": "So I say, “I wish I had wings like a dove!\nI would fly away and find a place to rest.",
      "7": "Yes, I would flee far away. Interlude\nI would stay in the wilderness.",
      "8": "I would hurry to find shelter,\n    far from the violent wind, far from the storm.”",
      "9": "Swallow them up, O Lord.\nConfuse their speech,\nfor I see violence and contention in the city.",
      "10": "Day and night they sneak around on its walls.\nEvil and trouble are in the city.",
      "11": "Destruction lurks within it.\nTreachery and deceit never leave its streets.",
      "12": "For it is not an enemy who insults me—\nI could bear that.\nIt is not someone who hated me who rises up against me—\nI could hide from him.",
      "13": "But it is you, a man who served with me,\n    my colleague and my associate,",
      "14": "with whom I shared pleasant discussions\n    as we walked with the excited crowd at God’s house.",
      "15": "Let deadly destruction come on them.\nLet them go down to the grave alive,\nbecause evil is at home in their hearts.",
      "16": "As for me, I call to God,\nand the Lord saves me.",
      "17": "Evening, morning, and noon I cry out and I sigh,\nand he hears my voice.",
      "18": "In peace he redeems my life from the assault against me,\n    even when many are against me.",
      "19": "God will hear, and he will punish them— Interlude\nyes, he is seated on his throne from eternity!\n—because they never change, and they do not fear God.",
      "20": "The traitor reaches out his hand against those at peace with him.\nHe breaks his agreement.",
      "21": "His flattery is as smooth as butter,\nyet war is in his heart.\nHis words are more soothing than oil,\nyet they are drawn daggers.",
      "22": "Place your burden on the Lord,\nand he will support you.\nHe will never allow the righteous to fall.",
      "23": "But you, O God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction.\nBloody and deceitful men will not live half their days.\nBut as for me, I will trust in you."
    },
    "56": {
      "1": "For the choir director. “A Dove on Distant Oaks.”\nBy David. A miktam.\nWhen the Philistines had seized him in Gath.",
      "2": "Be merciful to me, O God, for a man pants as he pursues me.\nAll day long an attacker presses against me.",
      "3": "Those who spy on me pant as they pursue me all day long.\nYes, many are attacking me boldly.",
      "4": "On the day when I am afraid, I will trust in you.",
      "5": "In God I praise his word.\nIn God I trust. I will not fear.\nWhat can flesh do to me?",
      "6": "All day long they hurt my cause.\nAll their thoughts against me are evil.",
      "7": "They gather together. They hide.\nThey try to trip me by grabbing my heels\n    while they wait to take my life.",
      "8": "Because of their wickedness do not let them escape.\nIn your anger bring down the peoples, O God.",
      "9": "You keep a record of my tossing and turning.\nKeep my tears in your bottle.\nAren’t they all listed in your book?",
      "10": "Then my enemies will turn back on the day when I call.\nThis is how I will know that God is for me.",
      "11": "In God I praise a word.\nIn the Lord I praise a word.",
      "12": "In God I trust. I will not be afraid.\nWhat can man do to me?",
      "13": "My vows to you are binding, O God.\nI will complete my thank offerings to you,",
      "14": "because you have delivered my life from death.\nHave you not delivered my feet from stumbling\n    so I can walk before God in the light of life?"
    },
    "57": {
      "1": "For the choir director. “Do Not Destroy.” By David. A miktam.\nWhen he fled from Saul. In the cave.",
      "2": "Have mercy on me, O God,\nhave mercy on me,\nbecause my soul has taken refuge in you.\nIn the shadow of your wings I will take refuge\n    until destruction has passed by.",
      "3": "I call to God Most High,\nto God, who completes his plans for me.",
      "4": "He will send from heaven, and he will save me. Interlude\nHe puts to shame the one who pants as he pursues me.\nGod will send his mercy and his faithfulness.",
      "5": "My life is spent among lions.\nI lie down among ferocious men,\nwhose teeth are spears and arrows,\nwhose tongue is a sharp sword.",
      "6": "Be exalted above the heavens, O God.\nMay your glory be over all the earth.",
      "7": "They spread a net for my steps.\nMy soul was bowed down.\nThey dug a pit in front of me. Interlude\nThey have fallen into it.",
      "8": "My heart is steadfast, O God.\nMy heart is steadfast.\nI will sing and I will make music.",
      "9": "Awake, my soul!\nAwake, harp and lyre!\nI will awaken the dawn.",
      "10": "I will give thanks to you among the peoples, O Lord.\nI will make music to you among the nations,",
      "11": "because your great mercy reaches above the heavens,\nand your faithfulness to the skies.",
      "12": "Be exalted above the heavens, O God.\nLet your glory be over all the earth."
    },
    "58": {
      "1": "For the choir director. “Do Not Destroy.” By David. A miktam.",
      "2": "Do you “gods” really speak righteously?\nDo you sons of Adam judge rightly?",
      "3": "No, in your heart you commit injustices.\nOn the earth your hands distribute violence.",
      "4": "The wicked go off course already from the womb.\nFrom the belly they go astray. They speak lies.",
      "5": "Their venom is like the venom of a snake,\nlike a deaf cobra that has stopped its ears,",
      "6": "that will not listen to the sound of the charmers,\nhowever skillful the spellbinder may be.",
      "7": "O God, break their teeth in their mouths.\nTear out the fangs of the young lions, Lord!",
      "8": "Let them vanish like water that flows away.\nWhen he draws his bow, let his arrows be cut off.",
      "9": "As a slug melts away as it crawls along, so let him disappear.\nLike a stillborn child may they not see the sun.",
      "10": "Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns—\nwhether the thorns are green or dry—they will be swept away.",
      "11": "The righteous one will be glad when he sees vengeance.\nHe will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.",
      "12": "Then people will say, “Surely there is fruit for the righteous.\nSurely there is a God judging on the earth.”"
    },
    "59": {
      "1": "Deliver me from my enemies, my God.\nYou set me high above those who rise up against me.",
      "2": "Deliver me from evildoers.\nSave me from bloodthirsty men.",
      "3": "Yes, look how they lie in ambush to take my life!\nStrong men gather against me,\nbut it is not because I have rebelled,\nnot because I have sinned, O Lord.",
      "4": "I am not guilty,\nyet they run to take up their positions against me.\nRise up to meet me and see!",
      "5": "You, O Lord, God of Armies, the God of Israel,\nwake up and confront all the nations. Interlude\nDo not show mercy to all the wicked traitors.",
      "6": "They return at evening. They growl like dogs.\nThey prowl around the city.",
      "7": "Look, they gush from their mouths.\nTheir lips are swords,\nso they say, “Who hears?”",
      "8": "But you laugh at them, Lord.\nYou scoff at all those nations.",
      "9": "O my Strength, I watch for you,\nbecause God is my high fortress.",
      "10": "My merciful God will go ahead of me.\nGod will make me look down on those who slander me.",
      "11": "Do not kill them, or my people may forget.\nIn your might make them wander about.\nBring them down, O Lord, our shield.",
      "12": "The sin of their mouth is the words of their lips,\nso let them be caught in their pride,\nbecause of the curses and lies they proclaim.",
      "13": "Consume them in wrath.\nConsume them till they are no more.\nThen they will know to the ends of the earth Interlude\n    that God rules over Jacob.",
      "14": "They return at evening. They growl like dogs.\nThey prowl around the city.",
      "15": "They wander about for food.\nIf not satisfied, they howl.",
      "16": "But I will sing about your strength.\nIn the morning I will shout about your mercy,\nbecause you are a high fortress for me,\na refuge in the day of my distress.",
      "17": "O my Strength, to you I make music,\nbecause God is my high fortress, my merciful God."
    },
    "60": {
      "1": "For the choir director. “The Lily of Testimony.” A miktam by David.\nFor teaching. When he waged war against Aram Naharaim and against Aram Zobah, and Joab returned and struck down twelve thousand men of Edom in the Valley of Salt.",
      "2": "God, you have rejected us.\nYou have broken us down.\nYou have been angry. Return to us!",
      "3": "You have shaken the earth. You have torn it open.\nHeal its fractures, for it is about to collapse.",
      "4": "You have made your people suffer hardship.\nYou gave us wine to drink that makes us stagger.",
      "5": "You have set up a signal flag for those who fear you, Interlude\n    to be raised up against the bow.",
      "6": "Save us with your right hand and answer us,\nso that those you love may be delivered.",
      "7": "God has spoken in his holiness:\n“I will triumph. I will distribute Shechem,\nand I will measure off the Valley of Succoth.",
      "8": "Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine.\nEphraim is my helmet. Judah is my scepter.",
      "9": "Moab is my washbasin. On Edom I toss my sandal.\nI shout aloud over Philistia.”",
      "10": "Who will bring me into the fortified city?\nWho will lead me to Edom?",
      "11": "God, is it not you, who have rejected us?\nGod, is it not you, who no longer go out with our armies?",
      "12": "Give us help against the foe,\nfor human help is worthless.",
      "13": "In God we will do mighty deeds.\nHe is the one who will trample our foes."
    },
    "61": {
      "1": "For the choir director. On a stringed instrument. By David.",
      "2": "Hear my cry, O God.\nPay attention to my prayer.",
      "3": "From the end of the earth I call to you\n    when my heart is overwhelmed.\nLead me up onto the rock that is higher than I.",
      "4": "For you have been a refuge for me,\na tower of strength in the face of the enemy.",
      "5": "I want to keep living in your tent forever. Interlude\nI will take refuge under the cover of your wings.",
      "6": "For you, God, have heard my vows.\nYou have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.",
      "7": "Add days to the days of the king.\nHis years will last through all generations.",
      "8": "Let him be seated in God’s presence forever.\nAppoint your mercy and truth to protect him.",
      "9": "Then will I make music to your name forever,\n    to fulfill my vows day after day."
    },
    "62": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to Jeduthun. A psalm by David.",
      "2": "My soul rests quietly in God alone.\nMy salvation is from him.",
      "3": "He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress.\nI will not be disturbed.",
      "4": "How long will you threaten a man?\nDo all of you want to murder him,\n    like a leaning wall, like a fence to be pushed down?",
      "5": "Yes, they plan to push him down from his lofty place.\nThey are delighted with deceit.\nWith their mouths they bless,\nbut inside they curse. Interlude",
      "6": "My soul, rest quietly in God alone,\nfor my hope comes from him.",
      "7": "He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress.\nI will not be disturbed.",
      "8": "My salvation and my honor depend on God, my strong rock.\nMy refuge is in God.",
      "9": "Trust in him at all times, you people.\nPour out your hearts before him. Interlude\nGod is a refuge for us.",
      "10": "Yes, the sons of Adam are only a breath.\nThe sons of man are a delusion.\nOn a scale they weigh nothing.\nThey are nothing but air.",
      "11": "Do not trust in extortion.\nDo not put empty confidence in stolen goods.\nIf your wealth grows, do not set your heart on it.",
      "12": "One thing God has spoken,\ntwo things that I have heard:\n    that God has strength",
      "13": "and that you, Lord, have mercy.\nSurely you will repay each person\n    according to what he has done."
    },
    "63": {
      "1": "A psalm by David. When he was in the wilderness of Judah.",
      "2": "God, you are my God. Eagerly I seek you.\nMy soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you,\n    in a dry and dreary land without water.",
      "3": "Yes, in the sanctuary I have watched you\n    to see your power and your glory.",
      "4": "Because your mercy is better than life,\n    my lips will worship you.",
      "5": "Yes, I will bless you as long as I live.\nIn your name I will lift up my hands.",
      "6": "My soul will be satisfied with rich food.\nMy mouth will praise you with lips filled with songs.",
      "7": "Whenever I remember you on my bed,\nthroughout the watches of the night I meditate on you.",
      "8": "Because you are a help for me,\nI sing for joy under the shade of your wings.",
      "9": "My soul clings to you.\nYour right hand upholds me.",
      "10": "But those who seek my life will go to destruction.\nThey will go into the depths of the earth.",
      "11": "They will be given over to the power of the sword.\nThey will become food for foxes.",
      "12": "But the king will rejoice in God.\nAll who swear by him will praise him,\nbut the mouths of those speaking lies will be shut."
    },
    "64": {
      "1": "Hear my voice, O God, when I complain.\nProtect my life from the terror caused by the enemy.",
      "2": "Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked,\nfrom the noisy mob of evildoers.",
      "3": "They sharpen their tongues like a sword.\nThey shoot poison words like arrows.",
      "4": "They shoot at the innocent from hiding places.\nSuddenly they shoot at him. They have no fear.",
      "5": "They strengthen each other in an evil plot.\nThey discuss where to hide snares.\nThey say, “Who will see them?”",
      "6": "They plot evil deeds and they say,\n“We have come up with a perfect plot!”\nThe mind and heart of man are devious!",
      "7": "But God will shoot them.\nSuddenly they are wounded with an arrow.",
      "8": "Their own tongues cause their downfall.\nEveryone who sees them will shake his head.",
      "9": "Then all people will be afraid.\nThey will proclaim the work of God.\nThey will consider what he has done.",
      "10": "Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord\nand take refuge in him.\nLet all the upright in heart be confident!"
    },
    "65": {
      "1": "Praise waits for you, O God, in Zion.\nTo you vows will be fulfilled.",
      "2": "You who hear prayer, to you all mortals will come.",
      "3": "The record of my guilt overpowered me.\nYou atone for our rebellious acts.",
      "4": "How blessed is the one you choose and bring near!\nHe will dwell in your courtyards.\nWe will be satisfied by the goodness of your house,\nby the holiness of your temple.",
      "5": "In righteousness you answer us with awesome deeds,\n    O God who saves us.\nHe is trusted by all the farthest ends of the earth and the sea.",
      "6": "He establishes the mountains by his power.\nHe has wrapped himself with strength.",
      "7": "He stills the roaring of the seas,\nthe roaring of their waves,\nand the turmoil of the peoples.",
      "8": "Those living at the ends of the earth fear your signs.\nFrom sunrise to sunset you let them shout for joy.",
      "9": "You visit the earth and water it.\nYou make it very rich.\nGod’s stream is filled with water.\nYou provide grain for them, just as you planned.",
      "10": "You drench the land’s furrows. You flatten its plowed ground.\nYou soften it with showers. You bless its crops.",
      "11": "You crown the year with your goodness.\nThe tracks made by your carts overflow with riches.",
      "12": "The pastures of the wilderness drip.\nThe hills are wrapped with joy.",
      "13": "The meadows are clothed with flocks.\nThe valleys are dressed with grain.\nThey shout for joy. Yes! They sing."
    },
    "66": {
      "1": "Shout praise to God, all the earth!",
      "2": "Make music to the glory of his name!\nMake his praise glorious!",
      "3": "Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!”\nBecause of your great power your enemies must cower before you.",
      "4": "All the earth bows down to you.\nThey make music to you.\nThey make music to your name. Interlude",
      "5": "Come and see the works of God.\nHow awesome his deeds for all people!",
      "6": "He turned the sea into dry land.\nThey crossed through the river on foot.\nLet us rejoice in him there.",
      "7": "He rules by his power forever.\nHis eyes watch the nations. Interlude\nDo not let the rebellious rise up against him.",
      "8": "Bless our God, you peoples.\nLet the sound of his praise be heard.",
      "9": "He is the one who has preserved our lives.\nHe did not let our feet slip.",
      "10": "Indeed, you tested us, God.\nYou refined us as silver is refined.",
      "11": "You led us into a trap.\nYou laid a burden on our backs.",
      "12": "You let men ride over our heads.\nWe went through fire and through water,\nbut you brought us out to a well-watered place.",
      "13": "I will come to your house with whole burnt offerings.\nI will fulfill my vows to you,",
      "14": "which my lips uttered,\n    which my mouth spoke during my trouble.",
      "15": "I will offer fat animals to you as whole burnt offerings,\n    along with the smoke from rams. Interlude\nI will offer cattle with goats.",
      "16": "Come, listen, all you who fear God,\nand let me tell what he has done to save my life.",
      "17": "To him I cried out with my mouth.\nHigh praise was on my tongue.",
      "18": "If I had contemplated evil in my heart,\nthe Lord would not have listened,",
      "19": "but God has surely listened.\nHe has paid attention to the sound of my prayer.",
      "20": "Blessed be God, who has not turned aside my prayer\nor turned aside his mercy from me!"
    },
    "67": {
      "1": "May God be gracious to us and bless us. Interlude\nMay his face shine on us—",
      "2": "so that your way may be known on earth,\nyour salvation among all nations.",
      "3": "May the peoples praise you, O God.\nMay the peoples praise you—all of them.",
      "4": "May the countries be glad and sing for joy,\nbecause you rule the peoples with fairness, Interlude\nand you guide the countries of the earth.",
      "5": "May the peoples praise you, O God.\nMay the peoples praise you—all of them.",
      "6": "The earth will yield its harvest.\nGod, our God, will bless us.",
      "7": "God will bless us,\nand all the ends of the earth will fear him."
    },
    "68": {
      "1": "May God arise. May his enemies scatter.\nMay those who hate him flee from his presence.",
      "2": "As smoke is blown away, may you blow them away.\nAs wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God.",
      "3": "But the righteous rejoice and celebrate in the presence of God.\nThey will be happy and joyful.",
      "4": "Sing to God. Make music to his name.\nLift up a song to him who rides through the deserts.\nHis name is the Lord. Celebrate before him.",
      "5": "In his holy dwelling, God is a father for the fatherless\nand a judge who defends widows.",
      "6": "God causes the lonely to dwell together as a household.\nHe leads out the prisoners with music,\nbut the rebellious dwell in a scorched land.",
      "7": "God, when you went out in front of your people,\nwhen you marched through the wasteland, Interlude",
      "8": "the earth shook.\nYes, the heavens poured down rain,\n    before God, this one from Sinai,\n    before God, the God of Israel.",
      "9": "You dispersed plentiful showers, O God.\nYou strengthened your inheritance when it was weary.",
      "10": "Your people settled in it.\nIn your goodness you provided for the oppressed, O God.",
      "11": "The Lord provided the message.\nThe women who proclaimed it were a great army:",
      "12": "“Kings with armies flee—they flee!”\nThe woman who stays home shares in the plunder.",
      "13": "Even while you lie among the campfires,\nthe wings of a dove are sheathed with silver,\nand its feathers with yellow gold.",
      "14": "When the Almighty scattered the kings there,\nit snowed on Zalmon.",
      "15": "The mountain of Bashan is a mountain of God.\nThe mountain of Bashan is a mountain with many peaks.",
      "16": "O mountains with many peaks, why do you look jealously\n    at the mountain God desires for his home?\nIndeed, the Lord will dwell there forever.",
      "17": "The chariots of God are twice ten thousand,\nthousands upon thousands.\nAmong them the Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary.",
      "18": "You ascended on high. You led captivity captive.\nYou received gifts among men,\nso that even among the rebellious the Lord God might dwell.",
      "19": "Blessed be the Lord.\nDay by day he bears our burdens.\nHe is the God who saves us. Interlude",
      "20": "Our God is a God who saves.\nFrom God the Lord comes escape from death.",
      "21": "Surely God will crush the heads of his enemies,\nthe scalps of those who walk around in their guilt.",
      "22": "The Lord says, “I will bring them from Bashan.\nI will bring them from the depths of the sea,",
      "23": "so that you may stomp your foot in blood.\nThe tongues of your dogs get their share of the enemies’ blood.”",
      "24": "They see your processions, O God,\nthe processions of my God, my King, into the sanctuary.",
      "25": "The singers lead the way.\nAfter them come the musicians.\nIn the middle are virgins playing hand drums.",
      "26": "In the assemblies bless God, the Lord,\n    who is the Fountain of Israel.",
      "27": "There is little Benjamin, leading them.\nThe officers of Judah are their noisy crowd.\nThere are the officers of Zebulun and the officers of Naphtali.",
      "28": "Your God commands your strength.\nShow strength, O God, as you have done for us before.",
      "29": "Because of your temple at Jerusalem kings will bring tribute to you.",
      "30": "Threaten the beast among the reeds,\nthe herd of strong bulls among the calves (that is, the peoples),\n    until they submit with bars of silver.\nHe scatters the peoples who delight in battles.",
      "31": "Envoys will come from Egypt.\nCush will run to stretch out its hands to God.",
      "32": "Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth. Interlude\nMake music to the Lord,",
      "33": "to him who rides in the highest heavens,\n    in the ancient heavens.\nYes, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.",
      "34": "Proclaim God’s strength.\nHis majesty is over Israel,\nand his power is in the skies.",
      "35": "You are awesome, O God, from your sanctuary.\nThe God of Israel, he is the one\n    who gives power and strength to the people.\nBlessed be God!"
    },
    "69": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to “Lilies.” By David.",
      "2": "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.",
      "3": "I sink into the deep mud, where there is no place to stand.\nI have entered deep waters, and the rapids rush over me.",
      "4": "I am worn out from my crying. My throat is sore.\nMy eyes are blurry, as I wait for my God.",
      "5": "Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs on my head.\nThose who want to destroy me, my lying enemies, are strong.\nI must repay things I did not steal.",
      "6": "God, you know my folly,\nand my guilt is not hidden from you.",
      "7": "May those who place their confidence in you\n    not be put to shame because of me,\n    O Lord, the Lord of Armies.\nMay those who seek you not be disgraced because of me,\n    O God of Israel.",
      "8": "It is for your sake that I bear scorn.\nShame covers my face.",
      "9": "I have become a stranger to my brothers,\na foreigner to my mother’s sons.",
      "10": "Yes, zeal for your house consumes me.\nThe scorn of those who scorn you falls on me.",
      "11": "I wept as I fasted,\nbut this only brought insults to me.",
      "12": "When I wore sackcloth as my clothing,\nI was a joke to them.",
      "13": "Those who sit in the gatehouse gossip about me,\nand the songs of the drunks are about me.",
      "14": "But I direct my prayer to you, O Lord, for a time of favor.\nGod, in the greatness of your mercy,\n    answer me with the certainty of salvation from you.",
      "15": "Rescue me from the mud, so I do not sink.\nLet me escape from those who hate me and from the deep waters.",
      "16": "Do not let the rapids rush over me.\nDo not let the deep swallow me up.\nDo not let the pit close its mouth over me.",
      "17": "Answer me, Lord, for your mercy is good.\nAccording to your great compassion, turn to me.",
      "18": "Do not hide your face from your servant.\nBecause I am in distress, hurry, answer me.",
      "19": "Come near. Redeem my soul.\nRansom me because of my enemies.",
      "20": "You know my disgrace, my shame, and my confusion.\nAll my foes are in front of you.",
      "21": "Disgrace has broken my heart, and I am helpless.\nI waited for sympathy, but there was none.\nI waited for comforters, but I did not find any.",
      "22": "Instead they put bitter poison in my food.\nFor my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.",
      "23": "May the table set before them become a snare.\nMay it be a trap to them and their allies.",
      "24": "May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see.\nMake their legs always tremble.",
      "25": "Pour out your wrath on them.\nLet the heat of your anger catch up with them.",
      "26": "May their camp be desolate.\nMay there be no one dwelling in their tents.",
      "27": "For they pursue those you have disciplined, O God,\nand they talk about the pain of those you wound.",
      "28": "Add guilt to their guilt.\nDo not let them enter into your righteousness.",
      "29": "May they be erased from the book of life.\nMay they not be listed among the righteous.",
      "30": "But I am afflicted and in pain.\nO God, may salvation from you set me on high.",
      "31": "I will praise God’s name in song.\nI will proclaim his greatness with thanksgiving.",
      "32": "For the Lord this is better than an ox,\nthan a bull that has horns and hoofs.",
      "33": "The poor will see and be glad.\nYou who seek God, may your hearts live!",
      "34": "For the Lord listens to the needy,\nand he does not despise the captives who belong to him.",
      "35": "Let heaven and earth praise him,\nthe seas and all that move in them,",
      "36": "for God will save Zion,\nand he will build the cities of Judah.\nThen people will settle there and possess it.",
      "37": "Then the descendants of his servants will inherit it,\nand those who love his name will dwell in it."
    },
    "70": {
      "1": "Hurry, God! Rescue me!\nLord, hurry to help me!",
      "2": "May those who seek my life be put to shame and disgrace.\nMay all who desire to harm me be turned back and disgraced.",
      "3": "May those who say, “Aha! We got you!” be dismayed,\nbecause they have been put to shame.",
      "4": "But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.\nMay those who love your salvation always say, “Let God be exalted!”",
      "5": "Yet I am oppressed and poor.\nGod, hurry to me. You are my help and my deliverer.\nO Lord, do not delay."
    },
    "71": {
      "1": "In you, Lord, I have taken refuge.\nMay I not be put to shame forever.",
      "2": "In your righteousness rescue me and deliver me.\nTurn your ear to me and save me.",
      "3": "Be my rock and my refuge to which I can always go.\nYou give the command to save me,\nbecause you are my high ridge and my stronghold.",
      "4": "My God, deliver me from the hand of the wicked,\nfrom the grasp of the unjust and the ruthless.",
      "5": "For you have been my hope, Lord God,\nmy confidence since my youth.",
      "6": "I have depended on you since I was in the womb.\nYou separated me from my mother’s body.\nMy praise to you is continuous.",
      "7": "I am like an evil omen to many,\nbut you are my strong refuge.",
      "8": "My mouth is filled with praise for you\nand with your splendor all day long.",
      "9": "Do not throw me away in old age.\nAs my strength fails, do not forsake me.",
      "10": "For my enemies speak against me,\nand those who seek my life conspire together.",
      "11": "They say, “God has forsaken him.\nPursue him and seize him,\nbecause there is no one to rescue him.”",
      "12": "God, do not be far from me.\nMy God, hurry to help me.",
      "13": "Let them be ashamed.\nLet my murderous accusers be consumed.\nLet those who seek to harm me be covered\n    with shame and disgrace.",
      "14": "But as for me, I will always keep hoping.\nI will keep adding to my praise for you.",
      "15": "My mouth will tell about your righteousness,\nabout your salvation all day long,\nalthough I do not know how to tell all about it.",
      "16": "I will come and tell about your mighty deeds, Lord God.\nI will commemorate your righteousness, yours alone.",
      "17": "God, you have taught me since my youth,\nand even now I still declare your marvelous deeds.",
      "18": "Even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me,\ntill I declare the strength of your arm to the next generation,\nyour power to all who are to come.",
      "19": "Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heights.\nYou have done great things.\nGod, who is like you,",
      "20": "you who have made us see many troubles and disasters?\nYou will give us life again.\nFrom the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.",
      "21": "You will increase my greatness and comfort me once again.",
      "22": "Yes, I will praise you, my God, for your faithfulness.\nI will praise you with an instrument, with the harp.\nI will make music to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.",
      "23": "My lips will shout with joy when I make music to you.\nEven my soul, which you have redeemed, will shout.",
      "24": "Indeed, my tongue will tell of your righteousness all day long.\nHow ashamed, how disgraced they are—\n    those who are trying to harm me."
    },
    "72": {
      "1": "By Solomon.",
      "2": "God, give your authority to judge to the King.\nGive your righteousness to the Son of the King.",
      "3": "He will judge your people with righteousness.\nHe will judge your afflicted ones with justice.",
      "4": "The mountains will deliver peace to the people.\nThe hills will produce righteousness.",
      "5": "He will obtain justice for the afflicted among the people.\nHe will save the children of the poor,\nbut he will crush the oppressor.",
      "6": "They will fear you as long as the sun remains,\nand as long as the moon endures, through all generations.",
      "7": "He will come down like rain on a mown field,\nlike showers, like a downpour on the earth.",
      "8": "In his days the righteous will flourish,\nand peace will be plentiful till the moon is no more.",
      "9": "He will rule from sea to sea\nand from the River to the ends of the earth.",
      "10": "Those who dwell in the desert will bow before him,\nand his enemies will lick the dust.",
      "11": "The kings of Tarshish and of the sea coasts will bring tribute.\nThe kings of Sheba and Seba will offer him gifts.",
      "12": "All kings will bow down to him.\nAll nations will serve him.",
      "13": "He will certainly deliver the poor person who cries out,\nas well as the afflicted, and the one who has no helper.",
      "14": "He will take pity on the weak and the poor.\nHe will save the lives of the poor.",
      "15": "From oppression and violence he will redeem their lives,\nbecause their blood is precious in his sight.",
      "16": "May the King live!\nMay gold from Sheba be offered to him.\nMay people always pray for him.\nMay they bless him all day long.",
      "17": "Let there be an abundance of grain in the land.\nLet it wave on the top of the mountains.\nLet its fruit trees be like the cedars of Lebanon.\nLet people from the city flourish like the grass of the land.",
      "18": "May his name endure forever.\nMay his name flourish as long as the sun.\nThey will be blessed through him.\nAll nations will call him blessed.",
      "19": "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel,\n    who alone does marvelous deeds.",
      "20": "Blessed be his glorious name forever.\nMay the whole earth be filled with his glory.\nAmen and Amen.",
      "21": "This ends the prayers of David son of Jesse."
    },
    "73": {
      "1": "A psalm by Asaph.",
      "2": "Surely God is good to Israel, to the pure in heart.",
      "3": "But as for me, my feet almost slipped out from under me.\nI almost lost my footing.",
      "4": "I even envied the arrogant when I observed the peace of the wicked.",
      "5": "For there are no struggles at their death.\nTheir bodies are sturdy.",
      "6": "They do not have the trouble common to people.\nThey are not plagued along with the rest of mankind.",
      "7": "Therefore pride is their necklace.\nThey wear violence like clothing.",
      "8": "Their eyes bulge out of their fat.\nThe schemes of their hearts step over boundaries.",
      "9": "They mock. They speak maliciously.\nFrom a high perch they threaten oppression.",
      "10": "They set their mouths against the heavens.\nTheir tongues strut around on earth.",
      "11": "Therefore God’s people turn to them,\nand they drink it all in.",
      "12": "They say, “How can God know?\nDoes the Most High have knowledge?”",
      "13": "See, this is what the wicked are like—\nsecure forever, they increase in strength.",
      "14": "Have I really kept my heart pure for nothing?\nHave I kept my hands clean in vain?",
      "15": "I have been plagued all day.\nMy punishment comes every morning.",
      "16": "If I had said, “I will speak like this,”\nI would certainly have betrayed the circle of your children.",
      "17": "When I tried to understand this, it was very troubling to me,",
      "18": "until I went to the sanctuary of God.\nThen I understood their end.",
      "19": "Surely you place them on slippery places.\nYou cause them to fall into destruction.",
      "20": "How quickly they come to ruin,\ncompletely destroyed by terrors!",
      "21": "They are like a dream when someone wakes up.\nSo when you arise, O Lord,\nyou will despise them like an illusion.",
      "22": "Yes, my heart was bitter,\nand I was torn up inside.",
      "23": "I was unthinking and ignorant.\nI was a dumb animal before you.",
      "24": "Yet I am always with you.\nYou hold me by my right hand.",
      "25": "With your guidance you lead me,\nand afterward, you will take me to glory.",
      "26": "Who else is there for me in heaven?\nAnd besides you, I desire no one else on earth.",
      "27": "My flesh and my heart fail,\nbut God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.",
      "28": "No doubt about it!\nThose who are far from you will perish.\nYou destroy all who commit adultery against you.",
      "29": "As for me, God’s nearness is good for me.\nI have made the Lord God my refuge,\nso that I can tell about all your works."
    },
    "74": {
      "1": "A maskil by Asaph.",
      "2": "Why do you stay angry to the end, O God?\nWhy does your anger smoke against the flock in your pasture?",
      "3": "Remember your community that you purchased long ago,\nthe tribe that you redeemed to be your possession.\nRemember Mount Zion where you dwell.",
      "4": "March toward the perpetual ruins.\nMarch against all the evil done by the enemy in the sanctuary.",
      "5": "Your foes roared in the middle of your appointed place.\nThey set up their battle standards as signs.",
      "6": "They looked like men swinging axes in a thicket of trees.",
      "7": "Yes, they even chopped up all the carved paneling\n    with their hatchets and hammers.",
      "8": "They delivered your sanctuary to the fire.\nThey defiled the dwelling place for your Name\n    by throwing it to the ground.",
      "9": "They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely!”\nThey burned all the appointed places of God in the land.",
      "10": "We do not see any signs to guide us.\nThere is no longer a prophet,\nand none of us knows how long this will go on.",
      "11": "How long will the foe scoff, O God?\nWill the enemy insult your name forever?",
      "12": "Why do you hold back your hand, even your right hand?\nTake it out of your pocket and finish them off!",
      "13": "But you, O God, are my king from long ago,\nthe one who works salvation right here on earth.",
      "14": "It was you who shattered the sea by your power.\nYou broke the heads of the great sea monsters.",
      "15": "It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan.\nYou gave him as food to the people who live in the desert.",
      "16": "It was you who opened up a spring and a seasonal stream.\nYou dried up the rivers that flow year-round.",
      "17": "The day belongs to you, and the night is also yours.\nYou set the moon and sun in place.",
      "18": "It was you who laid out all the boundaries of the earth.\nSummer and winter—you shaped them.",
      "19": "Remember this—the enemy scoffs, Lord,\nand a foolish people has insulted your name.",
      "20": "Do not surrender the life of your turtledove to a wild animal.\nDo not forget the life of your afflicted ones forever.",
      "21": "Pay attention to the covenant,\nbecause dens of violence fill the dark places in the land.",
      "22": "Do not let the oppressed turn back in disgrace.\nLet the poor and needy praise your name.",
      "23": "Rise up, O God, and prosecute your case.\nRemember how the fools mocked you all day long.",
      "24": "Do not forget the sound of your foes,\nthe uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually."
    },
    "75": {
      "1": "We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks.\nYour wonderful deeds reveal that your name is near.",
      "2": "Yes, I choose the appointed time.\nI am the one who judges rightly.",
      "3": "The earth and all its inhabitants are shaking.\nI am the one who holds its pillars firm. Interlude",
      "4": "I say to the boasters, “Do not boast,”\nand to the wicked, “Do not raise a horn.",
      "5": "Do not raise your horns to the heights.\nDo not speak insolently with an outstretched neck.”",
      "6": "Indeed, power to promote someone does not come\n    from the east or from the west or from the wilderness.",
      "7": "No, it is God who makes the decision.\nHe brings down one. He raises up another.",
      "8": "Indeed, a cup is in the hand of the Lord.\nThe wine foams. It is fully mixed.\nHe pours this out.\nYes, they drain its dregs.\nAll the wicked of the earth drink.",
      "9": "As for me, I will proclaim this forever.\nI will make music for the God of Jacob.",
      "10": "I will cut off all the horns of the wicked.\nThe horns of the righteous will be lifted up."
    },
    "76": {
      "1": "God is known in Judah. In Israel his name is great.",
      "2": "His shelter is in Salem. His dwelling place is in Zion.",
      "3": "There he broke the flaming arrows, Interlude\nthe shield and the sword, and the weapons for battle.",
      "4": "You shine brightly as the Mighty One from the mountains full of prey.",
      "5": "The strong-hearted are plundered.\nThey have fallen into their final sleep.\nNot one of the strong men can lift his hands.",
      "6": "At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both chariot and horses sleep.",
      "7": "You are to be feared, yes, you.\nWho can stand before you at the time of your wrath?",
      "8": "From heaven you announced judgment.\nThe earth feared and was quiet",
      "9": "when you rose up to judge, O God, Interlude\nand to save all the afflicted of the earth.",
      "10": "Even the wrath of mankind will bring you praise.\nYou wear what remains of your wrath like a belt.",
      "11": "Make vows to the Lord your God and fulfill them.\nLet all who are around him bring tribute to the one who is fearsome.",
      "12": "He restrains the spirit of nobles.\nHe is fearsome against the kings of the earth."
    },
    "77": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to Jeduthun. By Asaph. A psalm.",
      "2": "With my voice to God—\nwith my voice I cried out to God,\nand he listened to me.",
      "3": "In the day when I was distressed I sought the Lord.\nAt night my hand was stretched out,\nand it never grew tired,\nbut my soul refused to be comforted.",
      "4": "God, I remembered and I groaned. Interlude\nI pondered, and my spirit became weak.",
      "5": "You propped my eyelids open.\nI was troubled but did not speak.",
      "6": "I thought about the days of long ago, the years long past.",
      "7": "During the night I remembered my music.\nWith my heart I pondered, and my spirit asked,",
      "8": "“Will the Lord reject forever?\nWill he never again show favor?",
      "9": "Has his mercy vanished to the end?\nHas what he said failed for all generations?",
      "10": "Has God forgotten to be gracious? Interlude\nHas he really shut up his compassion in anger?”",
      "11": "Then I said, “This is what hurts me:\nthe change of the right hand of the Most High.”",
      "12": "I will remember the deeds of the Lord.\nYes, I will remember your wonderful work from long ago.",
      "13": "I will meditate on all your work,\nand I will ponder all your deeds.",
      "14": "O God, your way is carried out in holiness.\nWhat god is as great as God?",
      "15": "You are the God who performs a wonderful deed.\nYou made known your power among the peoples.",
      "16": "With your arm you redeemed your people,\nthe descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Interlude",
      "17": "The waters saw you, O God.\nThe waters saw you and swirled.\nEven the depths were turbulent.",
      "18": "The clouds poured down water.\nThe skies echoed with thunder.\nIndeed, your arrows shot back and forth.",
      "19": "The sound of your thunder was heard in the tornado.\nLightning lit up the world.\nThe earth trembled and quaked.",
      "20": "Your route led through the sea.\nYour trail went through the mighty waters,\nbut your footprints were not detected.",
      "21": "You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron."
    },
    "78": {
      "1": "Give ear, O my people, to my instruction.\nTurn your ear to the words of my mouth.",
      "2": "I will open my mouth to share a lesson.\nI will speak about puzzling problems from long ago,",
      "3": "things we have heard and known,\nthings our fathers have told us.",
      "4": "We will not hide them from their descendants.\nWe will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,\nhis power, and the wonders that he has done.",
      "5": "He set up testimony for Jacob.\nIn Israel he established the law.\nHe commanded our fathers to make it known to their children.",
      "6": "Then the next generation would know it,\neven the children not yet born.\nThey would rise up and tell their children.",
      "7": "Then they would put their confidence in God,\nand they would not forget the deeds of God,\nbut they would keep his commands.",
      "8": "Then they would not be like their fathers,\na stubborn, rebellious generation,\na generation that did not keep their hearts steadfast,\nwhose spirits were not faithful to God.",
      "9": "The tribe of Ephraim, equipped and armed with bows,\n    deserted on the day of battle.",
      "10": "They did not keep God’s covenant, and they refused to walk in his law.",
      "11": "They forgot his deeds, the wonders he had shown to them.",
      "12": "In the presence of their fathers he had performed a wonder,\nin the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.",
      "13": "He split the sea and let them cross through it.\nHe made the water stand like a wall.",
      "14": "He led them with the cloud by day\nand all through the night with light from the fire.",
      "15": "He split the rocks in the wilderness,\nand he let them drink water as plentiful as the deep sea.",
      "16": "He brought streams out of the rocky cliff.\nHe made water flow down like rivers.",
      "17": "But they continued to sin against him even more,\n    by rebelling against the Most High in the desert.",
      "18": "They tested God in their hearts by demanding food for their cravings.",
      "19": "Then they spoke against God.\nThey said, “Is God able to set a table in the wilderness?",
      "20": "Sure, he struck the rock and water flowed out,\nand stream beds overflowed,\nbut can he really give us bread?\nCan he really supply meat for his people?”",
      "21": "Then the Lord heard, and he showed his anger.\nFire broke out against Jacob,\nand his anger rose against Israel,",
      "22": "because they did not believe in God,\nand they did not trust in his salvation.",
      "23": "Nevertheless, he gave a command to the skies above,\nand he opened the doors of the heavens.",
      "24": "He rained down manna for them to eat,\nand he gave them the grain of heaven.",
      "25": "Each of them ate the bread of the mighty ones.\nHe sent them all the food they could eat.",
      "26": "He sent out the east wind from the heavens,\nand he led out the south wind by his power.",
      "27": "Then he rained meat down on them like dust,\nand flying birds like sand on the seashore.",
      "28": "He made the birds fall down inside their camp,\n    all around their dwellings.",
      "29": "Then they ate until they had more than enough,\nfor he had brought them what they craved.",
      "30": "They had not yet turned away from what they craved.\nTheir food was still in their mouths.",
      "31": "Then God’s anger rose up against them.\nHe killed the strongest among them.\nHe cut down the best young men of Israel.",
      "32": "In spite of all this, they kept sinning,\nand they did not believe in his wonders.",
      "33": "So he ended their days in frustration\nand their years in terror.",
      "34": "Whenever he struck them down, they would seek him.\nThen they turned and sought God.",
      "35": "Then they remembered that God was their Rock,\nthat God Most High was their Redeemer.",
      "36": "But then they would deceive him with their mouths,\nand with their tongues they would lie to him.",
      "37": "Their hearts were not committed to him,\nand they were not faithful to his covenant.",
      "38": "Yet he was compassionate.\nHe atoned for their guilt and did not destroy them.\nMany times he restrained his anger,\nand he did not stir up his full wrath.",
      "39": "He still remembered that they were only flesh,\nlike a wind that goes by and does not return.",
      "40": "How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness!\nHow often they grieved him in the wasteland!",
      "41": "They repeatedly put God to the test.\nThey provoked the Holy One of Israel.",
      "42": "They did not remember the power of his hand—\nthe day when he redeemed them from the foe,",
      "43": "when he displayed his signs in Egypt\nand his wonders in the region of Zoan,",
      "44": "when he turned their rivers to blood,\nso they could not drink from their streams.",
      "45": "He sent against them a swarm of flies that bit them.\nThen he sent frogs that destroyed them.",
      "46": "Then he gave their crops to the grasshopper.\nHe gave what they worked for to the locust.",
      "47": "He killed their grapevines with hail,\nand their sycamore fig trees with sleet.",
      "48": "Then he turned over their cattle to hail,\nand their livestock to lightning bolts.",
      "49": "He sent against them his burning anger,\nhis wrath and indignation and distress\n    by sending destroying angels.",
      "50": "He prepared a path for his anger.\nHe did not spare their lives from death,\nbut he delivered their lives to the plague.",
      "51": "Then he struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,\nthe firstfruit of their virility in the tents of Ham.",
      "52": "But he led his people out like sheep.\nHe led them like a flock through the wilderness.",
      "53": "Then he guided them safely, so they were not afraid,\nbut the sea covered their enemies.",
      "54": "Then he brought them to the border of his holy land,\nto this mountain which his right hand had taken.",
      "55": "He drove out nations before them.\nHe marked the boundaries of their inheritance,\nand he settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.",
      "56": "But they tested him.\nThey rebelled against God Most High,\nand they did not keep his testimonies.",
      "57": "Yes, they turned aside and were treacherous like their fathers.\nThey were as undependable as a crooked bow.",
      "58": "Then they angered him with their high places,\nand they made him jealous with their idols.",
      "59": "God heard, and he showed his anger.\nHe completely rejected Israel.",
      "60": "So he abandoned his dwelling in Shiloh,\nthe tent where he dwelled among people.",
      "61": "So he sent the symbol of his strength away into captivity.\nHe gave his splendor into the hand of the foe.",
      "62": "He also handed over his people to the sword,\nand he showed his anger against his possession.",
      "63": "Fire consumed their best young men,\nso their virgins were not praised in wedding songs.",
      "64": "Their priests fell by the sword,\nand their widows did not weep.",
      "65": "Then the Lord awoke like someone who has been sleeping,\nlike a warrior overcome by wine.",
      "66": "Then he drove back his foes.\nHe gave them everlasting shame.",
      "67": "Then he rejected the tent of Joseph,\nand he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.",
      "68": "But he chose the tribe of Judah,\nMount Zion, which he loved.",
      "69": "Then he built up his sanctuary like the heights,\nlike the world that he established for all time.",
      "70": "Then he chose David his servant\nand took him from the sheep pens.",
      "71": "He brought him from following the mother sheep\n    to shepherd his people Jacob\n    and his possession Israel.",
      "72": "So he shepherded them with a sincere heart,\nand with skillful hands he led them."
    },
    "79": {
      "1": "God, the nations have invaded your possession.\nThey have profaned your holy temple.\nThey have reduced Jerusalem to a heap of ruins.",
      "2": "They have left the corpses of your servants\n    as food for the birds of the sky.\nThey have given the flesh of your favored ones to the wild animals.",
      "3": "They have poured out their blood like water all over Jerusalem,\nand there is no one to bury them.",
      "4": "We are subjected to contempt by our neighbors,\nto mockery and ridicule by those around us.",
      "5": "How long, O Lord? Will you stay angry forever?\nHow long will your jealous anger burn like fire?",
      "6": "Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge you,\non the kingdoms that do not call on your name,",
      "7": "because they have devoured Jacob,\nand they have destroyed his pastureland.",
      "8": "Do not charge the guilt of our fathers against us.\nHurry, let your compassion come to meet us,\nfor we are very weak.",
      "9": "God, who saves us, help us for the glory of your name.\nDeliver us and make atonement for our sins for your name’s sake.",
      "10": "Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”\nBefore our very eyes, display to the nations\n    vengeance for the poured-out blood of your servants.",
      "11": "May the groaning of the prisoner come before you.\nAccording to the great strength of your arm\n    preserve those doomed to death.",
      "12": "Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times as much scorn\n    as the scorn that they directed at you, Lord.",
      "13": "Then we your people, the flock of your pasture, will praise you forever.\nFrom generation to generation we will recount your praise."
    },
    "80": {
      "1": "For the choir director. To “Lilies.” A Testimony. By Asaph. A psalm.",
      "2": "O Shepherd of Israel, give ear,\nyou who lead Joseph like a flock.\nYou who are seated above the cherubim, shine forth.",
      "3": "Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh,\nstir up your might.\nCome with salvation for us.",
      "4": "God, restore us, and make your face shine,\n    so we will be saved.",
      "5": "Lord God of Armies, how long will your anger smoke\n    against the prayer of your people?",
      "6": "You make them eat bread with tears,\nand you make them drink tears by the quart.",
      "7": "You create strife between us and our neighbors,\nso our enemies join together in mocking us.",
      "8": "God of Armies, restore us, and make your face shine,\n    so we will be saved.",
      "9": "You brought a vine out from Egypt.\nYou drove out the nations, and you planted it.",
      "10": "You cleared a place for it,\nand it took root and filled the land.",
      "11": "The mountains were covered by its shade,\nthe cedars of God with its branches.",
      "12": "It sent out its boughs to the Sea,\nits shoots as far as the River.",
      "13": "Why have you broken down its walls\nso that all who pass by pick its fruit?",
      "14": "A wild boar from the forest tears it up,\nand the wild animals feed on it.",
      "15": "God of Armies, return now!\nLook down from heaven and see,\nand take care of this vine,",
      "16": "the shoot that your right hand has planted,\nthe son that you made strong for yourself.",
      "17": "It is burned with fire like garbage.\nBecause of the rebuke from your face they perish.",
      "18": "Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,\non the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself.",
      "19": "Then we will not turn away from you.\nCause us to live, and we will call on your name.",
      "20": "Lord God of Armies, restore us, and make your face shine,\n    so we will be saved."
    },
    "81": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to gittith. By Asaph.",
      "2": "Sing a loud song to God, our strength.\nShout to the God of Jacob!",
      "3": "Begin the music, and play the hand drum.\nPlay the sweet-sounding lyre along with the harp.",
      "4": "Sound the ram’s horn at the new moon\nand at the full moon for our festival day.",
      "5": "Yes, this is an order for Israel,\na regulation from the God of Jacob.",
      "6": "God established it as a testimony for Joseph\nwhen he went out against the land of Egypt.\nThere I heard a language I did not know.",
      "7": "The Lord says:\nI relieved Israel’s shoulders from the burden.\nHis hands were set free from carrying buckets.",
      "8": "In distress you called and I rescued you.\nI answered you from the hiding place of thunder. Interlude\nI tested you at the waters of Meribah.",
      "9": "Listen, my people, and I will warn you.\nIf only you would listen to me, Israel!",
      "10": "There shall be no foreign god among you!\nYou shall not bow down to a strange god.",
      "11": "I am the Lord your God,\n    who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.\nOpen your mouth wide, and I will fill it.",
      "12": "But my people would not listen to my voice,\nand Israel was not willing to obey me.",
      "13": "So I sent them off in the stubbornness of their hearts.\nThey walked according to their own plans.",
      "14": "If only my people would listen to me,\nif only Israel would walk in my ways,",
      "15": "I would subdue their enemies quickly.\nI would turn my hand against their foes.",
      "16": "Those who hate the Lord would cower before him,\nand their time of punishment would last forever.",
      "17": "But he would feed Israel with the best wheat.\nWith honey from the rock I would satisfy you."
    },
    "82": {
      "1": "God is standing in the assembly of God.\nIn the midst of the gods he renders judgment.",
      "2": "How long will you judge unjustly Interlude\nand show favoritism to the wicked?",
      "3": "Judge in favor of the weak and the fatherless.\nAcquit the oppressed and the poor.",
      "4": "Rescue the weak and the needy.\nDeliver them from the hand of the wicked.",
      "5": "They do not know. They do not understand.\nThey walk around in darkness.\nAll the foundations of the earth are shaken.",
      "6": "I myself said, “You are ‘gods,’\nand you are all ‘sons of the Most High.’",
      "7": "But you will die like men.\nYou will fall like any other ruler.”",
      "8": "Rise up, O God. Judge the earth,\nfor you will take possession of all the nations."
    },
    "83": {
      "1": "God, do not keep silent.\nDo not be deaf. Do not be quiet, God.",
      "2": "Look! Your enemies are in an uproar,\nand those who hate you have raised their head.",
      "3": "Against your people they devise deceptive schemes,\nand they plot together against the people you treasure.",
      "4": "They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation,\nso the name of Israel will not be remembered anymore.”",
      "5": "Indeed, with one mind they plot together.\nThey form an alliance against you—",
      "6": "the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,\nMoab and the Hagrites,",
      "7": "Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,\nPhilistia, with the inhabitants of Tyre.",
      "8": "Even Ashshur has joined with them. Interlude\nThey have become the arm of the sons of Lot.",
      "9": "Do to them as you did to Midian,\nas you did to Sisera and Jabin at the stream Kishon.",
      "10": "They perished at Endor.\nThey became like manure for the ground.",
      "11": "Make their nobles like Oreb and like Zeeb,\nall their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,",
      "12": "who said, “Let us take possession of God’s pastures for ourselves.”",
      "13": "My God, make them like tumbleweed,\nlike chaff before the wind.",
      "14": "As fire burns the forest,\nor as a flame sets the mountains on fire,",
      "15": "so pursue them with your violent wind,\nand terrify them with your storm.",
      "16": "Fill their faces with shame\nso that they will seek your name, O Lord.",
      "17": "May they be ashamed and terrified forever.\nMay they be disgraced and perish.",
      "18": "Let them know that you, whose name is the Lord,\nyou alone are the Most High over all the earth."
    },
    "84": {
      "1": "For the choir director. According to gittith. By the Sons of Korah.\nA psalm.",
      "2": "How I love your dwelling place, O Lord of Armies.",
      "3": "My soul grows weak and even wastes away,\nas I long for the courtyards of the Lord.\nMy heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.",
      "4": "Even the sparrow has found a home,\nand the swallow has found a nest for herself,\nwhere she may place her young near your altars,\nO Lord of Armies, my King and my God.",
      "5": "How blessed are those who live in your house. Interlude\nThey are always praising you.",
      "6": "How blessed is everyone whose strength is found in you.\nThe highways to Jerusalem are in their hearts.",
      "7": "As they pass through the Valley of Baca,\n    it becomes full of springs.\nThe autumn rain also covers it with pools.",
      "8": "They go from strength to strength.\nEach one will appear before God in Zion.",
      "9": "O Lord, God of Armies, hear my prayer. Interlude\nGive ear, O God of Jacob.",
      "10": "Look upon our Shield, O God.\nLook with favor on the face of your Anointed One.",
      "11": "Yes, one day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.\nI would rather wait at the doorway of the house of my God\n    than dwell in the tents of the wicked.",
      "12": "For the Lord is a sun and shield.\nGod gives grace and glory.\nThe Lord does not withhold any good thing\n    from those who walk with integrity.",
      "13": "O Lord of Armies, how blessed is everyone who trusts in you."
    },
    "85": {
      "1": "You showed favor to your land, O Lord.\nYou restored Jacob.",
      "2": "You removed the guilt of your people. Interlude\nYou covered all their sin.",
      "3": "You put away all your wrath.\nYou turned from your burning anger.",
      "4": "Restore us, O God who saves us.\nPut an end to your indignation with us.",
      "5": "Will you be angry with us forever?\nWill you extend your anger through all generations?",
      "6": "Will you not turn and revive us,\nso that your people may rejoice in you?",
      "7": "Show us your mercy, O Lord,\nand give us your salvation.",
      "8": "I will hear what the true God, the Lord, will say.\nHe indeed speaks peace to his people, to his favored ones,\nbut do not let them turn to foolish ways.",
      "9": "Surely his salvation is near for those who fear him,\nso that glory may dwell in our land.",
      "10": "Mercy and truth meet together.\nRighteousness and peace kiss each other.",
      "11": "Truth springs up from the earth,\nand righteousness looks down from heaven.",
      "12": "The Lord will indeed give good things,\nand our land will yield its harvest.",
      "13": "Righteousness walks in front of him.\nIt prepares the way for his footsteps."
    },
    "86": {
      "1": "Turn your ear, O Lord.\nAnswer me, for I am poor and needy.",
      "2": "Guard my life, for I am favored by you.\nYou are my God.\nSave your servant, who trusts in you.",
      "3": "Have mercy on me, O Lord,\nfor I call to you all day long.",
      "4": "Bring joy to the soul of your servant,\nfor to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.",
      "5": "Indeed, you, Lord, are good and forgiving\nand abounding in mercy to all who call to you.",
      "6": "Give ear to my prayer, O Lord.\nPay attention to the sound of my cries for mercy.",
      "7": "In the day of my distress I will call to you,\n    because you will answer me.",
      "8": "There is no one like you among the gods, O Lord.\nThere are no deeds like your deeds.",
      "9": "All the nations you have made will come.\nThey will bow before you, O Lord,\nand they will give glory to your name,",
      "10": "because you are great and do marvelous deeds.\nYou alone are God.",
      "11": "Teach me your way, O Lord.\nI will walk in your truth.\nGive me wholehearted commitment to fear your name.",
      "12": "I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart,\nand I will glorify your name forever.",
      "13": "For great is your mercy toward me,\nand you have delivered my soul from “the lowest hell.”",
      "14": "God, the arrogant rise against me.\nA mob of ruthless men seeks my life.\nThey pay no attention to you.",
      "15": "But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,\nslow to anger, abounding in mercy and faithfulness.",
      "16": "Turn to me and have mercy on me.\nGive your strength to your servant.\nSave the son of your maidservant.",
      "17": "Give a sign of your goodness for me.\nThen those who hate me will see it and be put to shame,\nbecause you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me."
    },
    "87": {
      "1": "The city he founded is on the holy mountains.",
      "2": "The Lord loves the gates of Zion\n    more than all the other dwellings of Jacob. Interlude",
      "3": "Glorious things are spoken about you, O City of God.",
      "4": "I will register Rahab and Babylon among those who know me.\nLook! Philistia and Tyre are there, along with Cush!\nOf them I say, “This one was born there in Zion.”",
      "5": "And about Zion it will be said,\n“This one and that one were born in her,\nand the Most High himself will establish her.”",
      "6": "When he registers the peoples,\nthe Lord will write: Interlude\n“This one was born there.”",
      "7": "Then the singers, as they dance, will sing,\n“All my springs are in you.”"
    },
    "88": {
      "1": "O Lord, the God who saves me, by day I cry out.\nAt night I cry before you.",
      "2": "May my prayer come before you.\nTurn your ear to my cry.",
      "3": "Indeed, my soul has had its fill of troubles,\nand my life has arrived at the grave.",
      "4": "I am treated like those who go down to the pit.\nI am like someone without strength.",
      "5": "I am turned loose with the dead.\nI am like the slain who lie in the grave,\nlike the ones you do not remember anymore,\nlike those who are cut off from your hand.",
      "6": "You have put me in the lowest pit,\nin dark places, in the depths.",
      "7": "Your wrath presses against me. Interlude\nYou have battered me with all your breakers.",
      "8": "You have distanced my acquaintances from me.\nYou have made me repulsive to them.\nI am shut in and I cannot get out.",
      "9": "My eyesight grows dim from affliction.\nI call to you, O Lord, every day.\nI spread out my hands to you.",
      "10": "Is it for the dead that you do a miracle? Interlude\nDo the spirits of the dead rise up and praise you?",
      "11": "Is your mercy declared in the tomb,\nyour faithfulness in decay?",
      "12": "Is your wonderful work known in the darkness?\nIs your righteousness known in the land of forgetfulness?",
      "13": "But I cry to you, O Lord,\nand in the morning my prayer comes before you.",
      "14": "Why, O Lord, do you reject my soul?\nWhy do you hide your face from me?",
      "15": "I have been afflicted\nand I have been close to death since my youth.\nI have endured your terrors.\nI am in despair.",
      "16": "Your rage has swept over me.\nYour terrors have destroyed me.",
      "17": "All day long they surround me like water.\nThey have battered me completely.",
      "18": "You have distanced my loved one and friend from me.\nMy only friend is darkness."
    },
    "89": {
      "1": "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.\nWith my mouth I will make your faithfulness known\n    through all generations.",
      "2": "Yes, I have said, “Your mercy is built to last forever.\nIn the heavens you establish your faithfulness.”",
      "3": "The Lord said,\n“I have made a covenant with my chosen one.\nI have sworn to David my servant.",
      "4": "I will establish your seed forever, Interlude\nand I will build your throne through all generations.”",
      "5": "The heavens praise your wonders, O Lord,\nalso your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.",
      "6": "For who in the skies can compare with the Lord?\nWho is like the Lord among the sons of God?",
      "7": "God is revered in the council of the holy ones.\nHe is to be feared more than all who surround him.",
      "8": "O Lord God of Armies, who is like you?\nYou are mighty, O Lord,\nand your faithfulness surrounds you.",
      "9": "You rule over the majestic sea.\nWhen its waves rise up, you quiet them.",
      "10": "You crushed Rahab like one of the slain.\nWith your strong arm you scattered your enemies.",
      "11": "The heavens are yours, and yours also is the earth.\nYou founded the world and everything that fills it.",
      "12": "You created the north and the south.\nTabor and Hermon shout for joy at your name.",
      "13": "Your arm works for you with power.\nYour hand is strong. Your right hand is raised high.",
      "14": "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.\nMercy and truth are right in front of you.",
      "15": "How blessed are the people who know the joyful cry.\nLord, they walk in the light from your face.",
      "16": "In your name they celebrate all day long.\nIn your righteousness they are lifted up.",
      "17": "For you are the beauty of their strength,\nand by your favor you exalt our Horn.",
      "18": "Indeed, our Shield belongs to the Lord,\nour King to the Holy One of Israel.",
      "19": "Once you spoke in a vision to your favored ones.\nYou said:\nI have granted help to a warrior.\nI have raised up a young man from among the people.",
      "20": "I found David my servant.\nWith my holy oil I have anointed him.",
      "21": "He is the one whom my hand will sustain.\nSurely my arm will strengthen him.",
      "22": "No enemy will subject him to tribute.\nNo violent man will oppress him.",
      "23": "I will crush his foes before him\nand strike down those who hate him.",
      "24": "My faithfulness and mercy will be with him,\nand through my name his horn will be exalted.",
      "25": "I will set his hand over the sea,\nhis right hand over the rivers.",
      "26": "He will call out to me, “You are my Father,\nmy God and the Rock that saves me.”",
      "27": "I will also make him the Firstborn,\nthe highest of the kings of the earth.",
      "28": "I will keep my mercy for him forever,\nand my covenant with him will stand firm.",
      "29": "I will establish his seed forever.\nHis throne will endure like the days of the heavens.",
      "30": "If his sons forsake my law,\nand they do not walk according to my judgments,",
      "31": "if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commands,",
      "32": "I will punish their rebellion with the rod, their guilt with whipping.",
      "33": "But I will not break off my mercy from him.\nI will not let my truth become false.",
      "34": "I will not violate my covenant.\nI will not alter what comes out of my lips.",
      "35": "Once and for all, I have sworn by my holiness—\nsurely I will not lie to David—",
      "36": "that his seed will continue forever,\nand his throne will endure before me like the sun.",
      "37": "It will be established forever like the moon. Interlude\nThis witness in the sky is faithful.",
      "38": "But you have rejected, you have cast off,\nyou have been very angry with your anointed one,",
      "39": "and you have renounced the covenant with your servant,\nand you have thrown his crown on the ground.",
      "40": "You have broken down all his walls\nand reduced his fortresses to rubble.",
      "41": "All who pass by on the road have plundered him.\nHe is despised by his neighbors.",
      "42": "You have raised up the right hand of his foes.\nYou have made all his enemies happy.",
      "43": "Indeed, you have deflected the edge of his sword,\nand you have not let him stand up in battle.",
      "44": "You have put an end to his majesty,\nand you have hurled his throne to the ground.",
      "45": "You have cut short the days of his youth. Interlude\nYou have clothed him with shame.",
      "46": "How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?\nWill your wrath burn like fire?",
      "47": "Remember me! What is my life!\nFor you have created such futility for all the children of Adam!",
      "48": "Can anyone live and not see death, Interlude\nor save his life from the power of the grave?",
      "49": "Where are your former mercies, O Lord,\nwhich you swore to David in your faithfulness?",
      "50": "Remember, Lord, the scorn your servants have endured.\n(I carry on my heart all the many peoples!)",
      "51": "Remember the scorn\n    with which your enemies have been scornful, O Lord,\n    with which they have scorned the steps of your Anointed One.",
      "52": "Blessed be the Lord forever!\nAmen and Amen."
    },
    "90": {
      "1": "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.",
      "2": "Before the mountains were born,\nbefore you gave birth to the earth and the world,\nfrom eternity to eternity you are God.",
      "3": "You grind people to dust,\nand you say, “Return, children of Adam.”",
      "4": "For a thousand years in your sight are like a day,\nlike yesterday that has gone by,\nor like a watch in the night.",
      "5": "You sweep them away like a flood.\nThey are like sleep in the morning,\nlike grass which changes quickly.",
      "6": "In the morning it sprouts and grows.\nBy evening it is cut down, and it withers.",
      "7": "Surely, we are consumed by your anger,\nand by your wrath we are terrified.",
      "8": "You have laid out our guilty deeds in front of you.\nOur hidden sins are revealed in the light of your face.",
      "9": "For all our days pass away under your fury.\nWe finish our years like a sigh.",
      "10": "The days of our lives add up to seventy years,\nor eighty years if we are strong.\nYet the best of them are trouble and sorrow,\nfor they disappear quickly, and we fly away.",
      "11": "Who can understand the power of your anger?\nBut your fury is consistent with the fear that is owed to you.",
      "12": "Teach us to number our days in such a way\n    that we bring a heart of wisdom.",
      "13": "Turn, O Lord! How long!\nChange your mind toward your servants.",
      "14": "Satisfy us in the morning with your mercy,\nso that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.",
      "15": "Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,\nfor as many years as we have seen trouble.",
      "16": "Let your deeds be seen by your servants\nand your majesty by their children.",
      "17": "May the kindness of the Lord our God rest upon us.\nEstablish the work of our hands for us.\nYes, establish the work of our hands."
    },
    "91": {
      "1": "One who lives in the shelter of the Most High\n    will stay in the shadow of the Almighty.",
      "2": "I will say to the Lord,\n“My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.”",
      "3": "Surely he will rescue you from the fowler’s trap,\nfrom the destructive plague.",
      "4": "With his feathers he will cover you,\nand under his wings you will find refuge.\nHis truth will be your shield and armor.",
      "5": "You will not fear the terror of night,\nnor the arrow that flies by day,",
      "6": "nor the plague that prowls in the darkness,\nnor the pestilence that destroys at noon.",
      "7": "A thousand may fall at your side,\nten thousand at your right hand,\nbut it will not come near you.",
      "8": "You will only observe it with your eyes.\nYou will see the punishment of the wicked.",
      "9": "Yes, you, Lord, are my refuge!\nIf you make the Most High your shelter,",
      "10": "evil will not overtake you.\nDisaster will not come near your tent.",
      "11": "Yes, he will give a command to his angels concerning you,\n    to guard you in all your ways.",
      "12": "They will lift you up in their hands,\nso that you will not strike your foot against a stone.",
      "13": "You will tread on the lion and the cobra.\nYou will trample the young lion and the serpent.",
      "14": "The Lord says,\nBecause he clings to me, I will rescue him.\nI will protect him, because he acknowledges my name.",
      "15": "He will call on me, and I will answer him.\nI will be with him in distress.\nI will deliver him and I will honor him.",
      "16": "With long life I will satisfy him,\nand I will let him see my salvation."
    },
    "92": {
      "1": "It is good to give thanks to the Lord,\nto make music to your name, O Most High,",
      "2": "to proclaim your mercy in the morning\nand your faithfulness every night,",
      "3": "with a ten-stringed instrument and with a harp,\nwith a melody on a lyre.",
      "4": "Yes, you make me glad by your work, O Lord.\nI sing loudly at the works of your hands.",
      "5": "How great are your works, O Lord.\nYour thoughts are very deep!",
      "6": "The senseless man does not know,\nand the fool does not understand this—",
      "7": "when the wicked spring up like weeds,\nand all evildoers bloom like flowers,\nthey will be destroyed forever.",
      "8": "But you are exalted forever, O Lord.",
      "9": "Without a doubt your enemies, O Lord,\nwithout a doubt your enemies will perish.\nAll evildoers will be scattered.",
      "10": "But you have raised my horn like that of a wild ox.\nI am drenched with fresh oil.",
      "11": "My eyes have looked in triumph over my adversaries.\nWhen evildoers rise against me, my ears hear their defeat.",
      "12": "The righteous will shoot up like a palm tree.\nThey will grow tall like a cedar in Lebanon.",
      "13": "Planted in the house of the Lord,\nthey will shoot up in the courtyards of our God.",
      "14": "They will still produce fruit in old age.\nThey will stay fresh and green.",
      "15": "Yes, they can proclaim, “The Lord is upright.\nHe is my Rock, and he does no wrong.”"
    },
    "93": {
      "1": "The Lord reigns. He is clothed in majesty.\nThe Lord is clothed—he wears strength like a belt.\nYes, the world stands firm. It will not be moved.",
      "2": "Your throne was established long ago.\nYou are from eternity.",
      "3": "The waves have lifted up, O Lord,\nthe waves have lifted up their voice.\nThe waves roar loudly.",
      "4": "Mightier than the thundering of the great waters,\nmightier than the breakers of the sea,\nthe Lord on high is mighty.",
      "5": "Your testimonies stand very firm.\nHoliness beautifies your house for endless days, O Lord."
    },
    "94": {
      "1": "O Lord, God of vengeance,\nGod of vengeance, shine forth.",
      "2": "Rise up, O Judge of the earth.\nRepay the proud with what they deserve.",
      "3": "How long will the wicked, O Lord,\nhow long will the wicked celebrate?",
      "4": "They gush. They speak arrogantly.\nAll the evildoers brag about themselves.",
      "5": "They crush your people, O Lord.\nThey oppress the people that belong to you.",
      "6": "They kill the widow and the alien.\nThey murder the fatherless.",
      "7": "Then they say, “The Lord does not see.\nThe God of Jacob does not understand.”",
      "8": "Understand, you brutes among the people.\nYou fools, when will you become wise?",
      "9": "The one who planted the ear—will he not hear?\nThe one who formed the eye—will he not observe?",
      "10": "The one who disciplines nations—will he not rebuke them?\nHe is the one who teaches mankind knowledge.",
      "11": "The Lord knows the thoughts of mankind.\nHe knows that they are just vapor.",
      "12": "How blessed is the person whom you discipline, O Lord,\nwhom you teach from your law.",
      "13": "You grant him rest in days of trouble,\nuntil a pit is dug for the wicked.",
      "14": "For the Lord will not desert his people,\nand he will never forsake those who are his own.",
      "15": "Then judgment will again be based on righteousness,\nand all the upright in heart will pursue it.",
      "16": "Who will rise up for me against the wicked?\nWho will take a stand for me against evildoers?",
      "17": "Unless the Lord had been my helper,\nmy soul would soon have dwelt in silence.",
      "18": "When I said, “My foot has slipped,”\nyour mercy, Lord, upheld me.",
      "19": "When my worries within me were many,\nyour comfort brought joy to my soul.",
      "20": "Can a destructive throne be allied with you,\none that creates injustice by its decrees?",
      "21": "They band together against the life of the righteous,\nand they condemn innocent blood.",
      "22": "But the Lord has become my fortress,\nand my God is the rock where I take refuge.",
      "23": "Then he will repay them for their iniquity,\nand he will destroy them for their wickedness.\nThe Lord our God will destroy them."
    },
    "95": {
      "1": "Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord.\nLet us give a loud shout to the Rock who saves us.",
      "2": "Let us approach his presence with thanksgiving.\nWith music we will shout to him.",
      "3": "For the Lord is the great God\nand the great King above all gods.",
      "4": "He holds the unexplored places of the earth in his hand,\nand the peaks of the mountains belong to him.",
      "5": "The sea belongs to him, for he made it,\nand his hands formed the dry land.",
      "6": "Come, let us bow down. Let us revere him.\nLet us kneel before the Lord our Maker,",
      "7": "for he is our God,\nand we are the people of his pasture\nand the flock in his hand.\nToday, if you hear his voice,",
      "8": "do not harden your hearts as they did at Meribah,\nas they did that day at Massah in the wilderness,",
      "9": "where your fathers challenged me\nand tested me though they had seen what I had done.",
      "10": "For forty years I was disgusted with that generation,\nand I said, “They are a people who have hearts that stray.\nThey do not acknowledge my ways.”",
      "11": "So I swore in my anger,\n“They shall never enter my resting place.”"
    },
    "96": {
      "1": "Sing to the Lord a new song.\nSing to the Lord, all the earth.",
      "2": "Sing to the Lord. Praise his name.\nProclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day.",
      "3": "Tell about his glory among the nations,\nabout his marvelous deeds among all peoples.",
      "4": "For great is the Lord and worthy of great praise.\nHe is to be feared above all gods.",
      "5": "For all the gods of the peoples are “nothings,”\nbut the Lord made the heavens.",
      "6": "Splendor and majesty are before him.\nPower and beauty are in his sanctuary.",
      "7": "Ascribe to the Lord, families of peoples,\nAscribe to the Lord glory and power.",
      "8": "Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name.\nBring a gift and come into his courtyards.",
      "9": "Bow down to the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.\nLook away from his face, all the earth.",
      "10": "Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”\nThe world is firmly established.\nIt will not be moved.\nHe will judge the peoples with fairness.",
      "11": "Let the heavens rejoice.\nLet the earth celebrate.\nLet the sea roar,\nand all that fills it.",
      "12": "Let the fields be overjoyed,\nand everything that is in them.\nThen all the trees of the forest will sing for joy",
      "13": "before the Lord, for he comes,\n    for he comes to judge the earth.\nHe will judge the world in righteousness\nand the peoples in his faithfulness."
    },
    "97": {
      "1": "The Lord reigns. Let the earth celebrate.\nLet the many islands and coastlands rejoice.",
      "2": "Clouds and deep darkness surround him.\nRighteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.",
      "3": "Fire goes out in front of him.\nIt burns up his foes all around him.",
      "4": "His lightning lights up the world.\nThe earth sees and writhes in pain.",
      "5": "The mountains melt like wax\n    in the presence of the Lord,\n    in the presence of the Lord of all the earth.",
      "6": "The heavens proclaim his righteousness,\nand all the peoples see his glory.",
      "7": "All who serve idols are put to shame,\nthose who boast in “nothings.”\nBow to him, all you gods!",
      "8": "Zion hears and rejoices,\nand the daughters of Judah celebrate\n    because of your judgments, O Lord.",
      "9": "For you, O Lord, are the Most High over all the earth.\nYou are raised up far above all gods.",
      "10": "Let those who love the Lord hate evil.\nHe guards the lives of his favored ones.\nHe delivers them from the hand of the wicked.",
      "11": "Light rises for the righteous\nand joy for the upright in heart.",
      "12": "Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous,\nand give thanks as you remember his holiness."
    },
    "98": {
      "1": "Sing to the Lord a new song,\nfor he has done marvelous things.\nHis right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.",
      "2": "The Lord has made his salvation known.\nHe has revealed his righteousness to the eyes of the nations.",
      "3": "He has remembered his mercy and his faithfulness\n    to the house of Israel.\nAll the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.",
      "4": "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.\nBreak out in joyful song! Make music!",
      "5": "Make music to the Lord with the lyre,\nwith the lyre and the sound of music.",
      "6": "With trumpets and the sound of the ram’s horn\n    shout for joy before the King, the Lord.",
      "7": "Let the sea roar, and everything that fills it,\nthe world, and all who live in it.",
      "8": "Let the rivers clap their hands.\nLet the mountains sing for joy together before the Lord,",
      "9": "for he comes to judge the earth.\nHe will judge the world in righteousness\nand the peoples with fairness."
    },
    "99": {
      "1": "The Lord reigns. Let the peoples tremble.\nHe is seated above the cherubim. Let the earth quake.",
      "2": "The Lord is great in Zion. He is exalted over all the peoples.",
      "3": "Let them praise your name, great and awesome.\nHe is holy!",
      "4": "The King is mighty. He loves justice.\nYou, Lord, have established fairness.\nIn Jacob you carried out justice and righteousness.",
      "5": "Exalt the Lord our God and bow down before his footstool.\nHe is holy!",
      "6": "Moses and Aaron were among his priests.\nSamuel was among those who call on his name.\nThey called on the Lord, and he answered them.",
      "7": "From within the pillar of cloud he spoke to them.\nThey kept his testimonies and the order that he gave them.",
      "8": "O Lord our God, you answered them.\nFor them you were a God who removes sin,\nbut you repaid them for their deeds.",
      "9": "Exalt the Lord our God,\nand bow down before his holy mountain,\nbecause the Lord our God is holy."
    },
    "100": {
      "1": "Shout to the Lord with joy, all the earth.",
      "2": "Serve the Lord with gladness.\nCome before him with joyful songs.",
      "3": "Know that the Lord is God.\nHe made us, and we are his.\nWe are his people, the sheep of his pasture.",
      "4": "Enter his gates with thanksgiving,\nhis courtyards with praise.\nGive thanks to him and bless his name.",
      "5": "For the Lord is good. His mercy endures forever.\nHis faithfulness continues through all generations."
    },
    "101": {
      "1": "I will sing about your mercy and justice.\nTo you, O Lord, I will make music.",
      "2": "I will act wisely, following the way that is honest.\nWhen will you come to me?\nWithin my palace I will conduct myself with integrity.",
      "3": "I will not tolerate an evil cause in my sight.\nI hate unfaithfulness and apostasy.\nIt will not stick to me.",
      "4": "A perverted heart shall be kept far from me.\nI will not acknowledge evil.",
      "5": "I will silence anyone who slanders his neighbor in secret.\nI cannot tolerate anyone who has arrogant eyes and a proud heart.",
      "6": "My eyes will watch for the faithful in the land,\nso that they can be seated with me.\nThose who walk in the way of integrity will serve as my ministers.",
      "7": "Anyone who practices deceit will not sit inside my palace.\nAnyone who is a liar will not stand in my sight.",
      "8": "Every morning I will silence all the wicked in the land,\nin order to cut off every evildoer from the city of the Lord."
    },
    "102": {
      "1": "O Lord, hear my prayer,\nand let my cry for help come to you.",
      "2": "Do not hide your face from me on the day when I am distressed.\nTurn your ear to me on the day I call.\nHurry! Answer me!",
      "3": "For my days go up in smoke,\nand my bones are burned like hot coals.",
      "4": "My heart is cut down and withered like grass,\nso I forget to eat my food.",
      "5": "Because of the sound of my groaning, my bones stick out of my flesh.",
      "6": "I am like an owl in the wilderness,\nlike a screech owl among the ruins.",
      "7": "I lie awake.\nI have become like a lonely bird on a roof.",
      "8": "All day long my enemies taunt me.\nThose who ridicule me use my name as a curse,",
      "9": "because I eat ashes like bread,\nand I mix tears with my drinks.",
      "10": "Because of your rage and your wrath,\n    you have picked me up and thrown me away.",
      "11": "My days are being stretched out like a shadow,\nand I am dried up like grass.",
      "12": "But you, Lord, sit on your throne forever,\nand you will be remembered through all generations.",
      "13": "You will rise and have compassion on Zion.\nYes, it is time to be gracious to her,\nbecause the appointed time has come.",
      "14": "Yes, your servants will show favor to her stones,\nand they will have compassion on her dust.",
      "15": "Then the nations will fear the name of the Lord,\nand all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.",
      "16": "For the Lord will rebuild Zion.\nHe will appear in his glory.",
      "17": "He will respond to the prayer of the naked.\nHe will not despise their prayer.",
      "18": "Let this be written till the last generation,\nso that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.",
      "19": "For the Lord looked down from his high, holy place.\nFrom heaven he viewed the earth",
      "20": "to hear the groans of the prisoner,\n    to release those condemned to death.",
      "21": "So the name of the Lord will be recorded in Zion\nand his praise in Jerusalem,",
      "22": "when the peoples and the kingdoms are gathered together\n    to serve the Lord.",
      "23": "He took away my strength during my lifetime.\nHe cut short my days.",
      "24": "I said, “My God, do not take me away in the middle of my days.”\nYour years go on through all generations.",
      "25": "Long ago you laid a foundation for the earth,\nand the heavens are the work of your hands.",
      "26": "They will perish, but you remain.\nAll of them wear out like a garment.\nLike clothing you will change them,\nand they will be changed.",
      "27": "But you are the same,\nand your years will never end.",
      "28": "The children of your servants will dwell with you,\nand their descendants will be established before you."
    },
    "103": {
      "1": "Bless the Lord, O my soul.\nAll that is within me, bless his holy name.",
      "2": "Bless the Lord, O my soul,\nand do not forget all his benefits—",
      "3": "who pardons all your guilt,\nwho heals all your diseases,",
      "4": "who redeems your life from the pit,\nwho crowns you with mercy and compassion,",
      "5": "who satisfies your life with goodness,\nso that your youth is renewed like the eagle.",
      "6": "The Lord performs righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.",
      "7": "He made known his ways to Moses,\nhis deeds to the people of Israel.",
      "8": "The Lord is compassionate and gracious,\nslow to anger, abounding in mercy.",
      "9": "He will not always accuse.\nHe will not keep his anger forever.",
      "10": "He does not treat us as our sins deserve.\nHe does not repay us according to our guilty deeds.",
      "11": "Yes, as high as the heavens are above the earth,\n    so powerful is his mercy toward those who fear him.",
      "12": "As distant as the east is from the west,\n    so far has he removed our rebellious acts from us.",
      "13": "As a father has compassion on his children,\n    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.",
      "14": "For he knows how we were formed.\nHe remembers that we are dust.",
      "15": "As for man, his days are like grass.\nLike a wildflower he blossoms.",
      "16": "Then the wind blows over it, and it is gone,\nand its place recognizes it no more.",
      "17": "But the Lord’s mercy is from eternity to eternity\n    over those who fear him,\nand his righteousness is with their children’s children,",
      "18": "with those who keep his covenant,\n    with those who remember his precepts in order to obey them.",
      "19": "The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,\nand his royal power rules over all.",
      "20": "Bless the Lord, you his angels,\nyou strong warriors who obey his word\n    by listening to what he says.",
      "21": "Bless the Lord, all his armies,\nyou who minister to him,\nyou who do whatever pleases him.",
      "22": "Bless the Lord, everything he has made\n    in all places where he rules.\nBless the Lord, O my soul."
    },
    "104": {
      "1": "Bless the Lord, O my soul.\nO Lord my God, you are very great.\nYou are clothed with splendor and majesty.",
      "2": "He wears light like a robe.\nHe stretches out the heavens like a canopy.",
      "3": "He lays beams on the waters to support his upper chambers.\nHe makes clouds his chariot.\nHe travels on the wings of the wind.",
      "4": "He makes his messengers winds.\nHis ministers are blazing fire.",
      "5": "He placed the earth firmly on its foundations.\nIt cannot be moved forever and ever.",
      "6": "You covered it with the deep as a garment.\nThe waters stood above the mountains.",
      "7": "At your rebuke they fled.\nAt the sound of your thunder they hurried away.",
      "8": "The waters surged up the mountains.\nThey went down into the valleys,\nto the place that you prepared for them.",
      "9": "You set a boundary that they cannot cross.\nThey will not return to cover the earth.",
      "10": "He makes springs flow into streams\n    that run between the mountains.",
      "11": "They give water to every wild animal.\nThe wild donkeys quench their thirst.",
      "12": "The birds of the sky live by the streams.\nFrom among the branches they send out their song.",
      "13": "He waters the mountains from his upper chambers.\nThe earth is filled with the fruit he produces.",
      "14": "He makes grass grow for the cattle,\nand plants that people use to produce food from the earth.",
      "15": "Also wine that makes people’s hearts glad,\nolive oil to make their face shine,\nand bread that sustains their lives.",
      "16": "The trees of the Lord have everything they need.\nHe planted the cedars of Lebanon,",
      "17": "where birds make their nests.\nThe stork has its home in the fir trees.",
      "18": "The high mountains are for the wild goats.\nThe crags are a refuge for the rock badgers.",
      "19": "The moon marks off the months and seasons.\nThe sun knows when to go down.",
      "20": "You bring darkness, and it becomes night.\nDuring it all the animals in the forest move about.",
      "21": "The young lions roar for their prey.\nThey are seeking their food from God.",
      "22": "The sun rises, and they gather together.\nThey return to their dens and lie down.",
      "23": "Man goes out to his work.\nHe continues his labor until evening.",
      "24": "How many are your works, O Lord!\nIn wisdom you made them all.\nThe earth is full of your creatures.",
      "25": "Here is the sea, great and very wide.\nIn it creatures swarm beyond number—\nliving things, the small with the large.",
      "26": "There the ships go back and forth,\nand the leviathan that you formed to play in it.",
      "27": "All of them wait hopefully for you to give them their food in its time.",
      "28": "You give it to them. They gather it up.\nYou open your hand. They are satisfied with good things.",
      "29": "You hide your face. They are terrified.\nYou take away their breath.\nThey breathe their last and return to their dust.",
      "30": "You send your Spirit—they are created.\nYou renew the face of the earth.",
      "31": "May the glory of the Lord endure forever.\nMay the Lord rejoice in his works.",
      "32": "He looks at the earth and it trembles.\nHe touches the mountains and they smoke.",
      "33": "I will sing to the Lord throughout my life.\nI will make music to my God as long as I last.",
      "34": "May my meditation be pleasing to him.\nI will rejoice in the Lord.",
      "35": "May sinners come to an end on the earth,\nand the wicked—may they be no more.\nBless the Lord, O my soul.\nPraise the Lord!"
    },
    "105": {
      "1": "Give thanks to the Lord.\nProclaim his name.\nMake his deeds known among the peoples.",
      "2": "Sing to him, make music to him.\nMeditate on all his wonders.",
      "3": "Take pride in his holy name.\nLet the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice.",
      "4": "Search for the Lord and his strength.\nSeek his face always.",
      "5": "Remember the wonders which he has done,\nhis signs, and the judgments from his mouth,",
      "6": "you descendants of Abraham his servant,\nyou sons of Jacob, his chosen ones.",
      "7": "He is the Lord our God.\nHis judgments are in all the earth.",
      "8": "He remembers his covenant forever,\nthe word he commanded for a thousand generations,",
      "9": "the covenant which he made with Abraham,\nand his oath to Isaac.",
      "10": "Yes, he confirmed it to Jacob as a statute,\nto Israel as an everlasting covenant.",
      "11": "He said, “To you I will give the land of Canaan,\nthe territory you will possess.”",
      "12": "While they were few in number,\njust a little group and aliens in the land,",
      "13": "they moved around from nation to nation,\nfrom one kingdom to another people.",
      "14": "He did not allow anyone to oppress them,\nand he rebuked kings because of them:",
      "15": "“Do not touch my anointed ones,\nand do not harm my prophets.”",
      "16": "Then he summoned a famine on the land.\nHe destroyed their entire food supply.",
      "17": "He sent ahead of them a man sold as a slave, Joseph.",
      "18": "They hurt his feet with chains.\nHis throat was clamped in an iron collar,",
      "19": "until the time when his predictions came true.\nThe promise of the Lord tested him.",
      "20": "The king sent for him and released him.\nThe ruler of peoples set him free.",
      "21": "He made him master of his house\nand ruler over all his possessions,",
      "22": "to bind his officials by his will,\nto teach his elders wisdom.",
      "23": "Then Israel came to Egypt.\nJacob lived as an alien in the land of Ham.",
      "24": "Then the Lord made his people very fruitful.\nHe made them too numerous for their foes.",
      "25": "He turned the Egyptians’ hearts so they hated his people.\nThey dealt deceitfully with his servants.",
      "26": "He sent Moses his servant,\nand Aaron, whom he had chosen.",
      "27": "They performed his signs among them,\nhis warning signs in the land of Ham.",
      "28": "He sent darkness, and it became extremely dark,\nbecause Israel did not rebel against his words.",
      "29": "He turned their waters into blood,\nand he caused their fish to die.",
      "30": "Their land swarmed with frogs,\neven in the rooms of their kings.",
      "31": "He spoke, and a swarm of flies came.\nThere were lice throughout their borders.",
      "32": "He gave them hail instead of rain,\nwith blazing lightning throughout their land.",
      "33": "Then he struck down their vines and fig trees,\nand he broke down the trees within their borders.",
      "34": "He spoke, and the locusts came,\nand grasshoppers without number.",
      "35": "They ate every green plant in their land.\nThey ate the produce of their soil.",
      "36": "Then he struck down all the firstborn in their land,\nthe first fruit of all their virility.",
      "37": "Then he brought Israel out with silver and gold.\nFrom among their tribes no one stumbled.",
      "38": "Egypt was glad when they went out,\nbecause fear of Israel had fallen on them.",
      "39": "He spread out a cloud as a canopy\nand fire to give light at night.",
      "40": "They asked, and he brought quail,\nand he satisfied them with bread from heaven.",
      "41": "He opened the rock, and water gushed out.\nIt flowed in the desert like a river.",
      "42": "Because he remembered his holy word to Abraham, his servant,",
      "43": "he brought out his people with rejoicing,\nhis chosen ones with a joyful shout.",
      "44": "He gave them the lands of the nations,\nand they took possession of the work of other peoples",
      "45": "so that they could keep his statutes and observe his laws.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "106": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nGive thanks to the Lord,\nfor he is good,\nfor his mercy endures forever.",
      "2": "Who can tell about the mighty deeds of the Lord?\nWho can cause all his praise to be heard?",
      "3": "Blessed are those who defend justice,\nwho do what is right all the time.",
      "4": "Remember me, O Lord,\nwhen you show favor to your people.\nVisit me with your salvation,",
      "5": "so that I may experience the good that belongs to your chosen ones,\nso that I may rejoice in the joy of your nation,\nso that I may join in praise with the people that belongs to you.",
      "6": "We have sinned along with our fathers.\nWe have become guilty. We have acted wickedly.",
      "7": "Our fathers in Egypt did not reflect on your wonders.\nThey did not remember your abundant mercies,\nso they rebelled beside the sea, by the Red Sea.",
      "8": "Nevertheless, he saved them for his name’s sake,\n    to make his might known.",
      "9": "Then he rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up.\nHe caused them to go through the deep sea as if it were a desert.",
      "10": "He saved them from the hand of the one who hated them.\nHe redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.",
      "11": "Then the waters covered their foes.\nNot one of them remained.",
      "12": "Then they believed his words. They sang his praise.",
      "13": "They quickly forgot his deeds.\nThey did not wait for his plan.",
      "14": "Because they were filled with craving in the wilderness,\nthey challenged God in the wasteland.",
      "15": "So he gave them what they asked for,\nbut he made them sick so they wasted away.",
      "16": "Then they grew jealous of Moses in the camp\nand of Aaron, who was holy to the Lord.",
      "17": "The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan,\nand it closed over the followers of Abiram.",
      "18": "Then fire burned up their followers.\nFlames consumed the wicked.",
      "19": "They made a calf at Horeb,\nand they bowed down to a thing cast from metal.",
      "20": "So they exchanged their Glory for a model of an ox that eats grass.",
      "21": "They forgot the God who saved them\n    by doing great things in Egypt,",
      "22": "wonders in the land of Ham,\n    awesome deeds beside the Red Sea.",
      "23": "So he said he would destroy them.\nBut Moses, his chosen one, stood between God and the people\n    to turn aside his wrath, so it did not destroy them.",
      "24": "Then they refused the pleasant land.\nThey did not believe his word.",
      "25": "They grumbled in their tents.\nThey did not listen to the voice of the Lord.",
      "26": "So he lifted up his hand and swore to them\n    that he would make them fall in the wilderness,",
      "27": "and make their descendants fall among the nations,\n    and he would scatter them throughout the lands.",
      "28": "Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor,\nand they ate sacrifices offered to dead gods.",
      "29": "They provoked the Lord by their actions,\nand a plague broke out among them.",
      "30": "But Phinehas stood up and interceded for them,\nand the plague was restrained.",
      "31": "So this was credited to him as righteousness\nfor generation after generation, to eternity.",
      "32": "Again by the waters of Meribah they provoked the Lord,\nand trouble came on Moses because of them.",
      "33": "Because they rebelled against his Spirit,\nMoses spoke recklessly with his lips.",
      "34": "They did not destroy the peoples\nas the Lord had commanded them,",
      "35": "but they mixed with the nations,\nand they learned to do what the nations did.",
      "36": "They also served their idols,\nand the idols became a snare for them.",
      "37": "They also sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.",
      "38": "They shed innocent blood,\nthe blood of their sons and daughters,\nwhom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.\nSo the land was polluted by their children’s blood,",
      "39": "and they made themselves unclean by what they did.\nThey prostituted themselves by their actions.",
      "40": "Therefore the Lord burned with anger against his people,\nand he loathed the people who belonged to him.",
      "41": "So he handed them over to the nations,\nand those who hated them ruled over them.",
      "42": "Then their enemies oppressed them,\nand they had to submit to their power.",
      "43": "Many times he delivered them,\nbut they deliberately rebelled,\nand they sank down in their guilt.",
      "44": "But he looked on them in their distress when he heard their outcry.",
      "45": "So for their sake he remembered his covenant.\nBecause of his great mercy, he changed his course.",
      "46": "Then he caused all their captors to have pity on them.",
      "47": "Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from the nations,\nso that we may give thanks to your holy name and praise you confidently.",
      "48": "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from eternity to eternity,\nand all the people say, “Amen!”\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "107": {
      "1": "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,\nfor his mercy endures forever.",
      "2": "Let the redeemed of the Lord say this,\nthose he redeemed from the hand of the foe,",
      "3": "those he gathered from the lands,\nfrom the east and from the west,\nfrom the north and from the south.",
      "4": "They wandered in the wilderness, in the wasteland.\nThey did not find the way to a city where they could live.",
      "5": "They were hungry and also thirsty,\nso their lives were draining away.",
      "6": "Then they cried out to the Lord in their distress.\nHe delivered them from their troubles.",
      "7": "He led them by a straight way to come to a city where they could live.",
      "8": "Let them give thanks to the Lord\nfor his mercy and his wonderful deeds for all people,",
      "9": "because he satisfies the desire of the thirsty,\nand he fills the desire of the hungry with good things.",
      "10": "They were sitting in darkness and the shadow of death,\nprisoners, bound in misery and chains,",
      "11": "because they had rebelled against the words of God,\nand they despised the plan of the Most High.",
      "12": "So he broke their hearts with hard labor.\nThey stumbled, and there was no helper.",
      "13": "Then they cried out to the Lord in their distress.\nHe saved them from their troubles.",
      "14": "He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,\nand he tore off their chains.",
      "15": "Let them give thanks to the Lord\nfor his mercy and his wonderful deeds for all people,",
      "16": "because he shatters bronze doors,\nand he cuts through iron bars.",
      "17": "They became fools through their rebellious way,\nand they brought affliction on themselves by their guilt.",
      "18": "They lost their appetite for food,\n    so they approached the gates of death.",
      "19": "Then they cried out to the Lord in their distress.\nHe saved them from their troubles.",
      "20": "He sent his word and healed them.\nHe rescued them from the pits that trapped them.",
      "21": "Let them give thanks to the Lord\nfor his mercy and his wonderful deeds for all people,",
      "22": "so let them sacrifice thank offerings\nand tell about his works with a joyful shout.",
      "23": "They went down to the sea in ships.\nThey conducted trade on many waters.",
      "24": "They saw the deeds of the Lord\nand his wonders on the deep.",
      "25": "For he spoke and stirred up a violent storm,\n    which produced large waves.",
      "26": "They were raised up to the sky.\nThey sank down into the depths.\nIn their danger their courage melted.",
      "27": "They reeled and staggered like a drunk.\nAll their skill disappeared.",
      "28": "Then they cried out to the Lord in their distress.\nHe brought them out of their troubles.",
      "29": "He calmed the storm. Its waves were hushed.",
      "30": "They were glad when it grew quiet,\nand he guided them to the port they desired.",
      "31": "Let them give thanks to the Lord\nfor his mercy and his wonderful deeds for all people.",
      "32": "Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people\nand praise him in the session of the elders.",
      "33": "He turned rivers into a wilderness\nand flowing springs into thirsty ground.",
      "34": "He turned fruitful land into a salt waste,\nbecause of the wickedness of those who lived in it.",
      "35": "He turned the wilderness into pools of water\nand the desert into flowing springs.",
      "36": "Then he let the hungry live there,\nand they founded a city where they could live.",
      "37": "Then they sowed fields, and they planted vineyards,\n    which produced abundant fruit.",
      "38": "Then he blessed them, so they increased greatly in number.\nHe did not let their herds of cattle decrease.",
      "39": "But then their numbers decreased,\nand they were humbled by oppression, disaster, and sorrow.",
      "40": "He who pours contempt on nobles made them wander in confusion\n    where there was no road.",
      "41": "But he lifted up the needy out of affliction\nand made their families like a flock.",
      "42": "The upright see and rejoice,\nbut all wickedness shuts its mouth.",
      "43": "Whoever is wise, let him keep these things.\nLet them take to heart the mercies of the Lord."
    },
    "108": {
      "1": "My heart is steadfast, O God.\nI will sing and I will make music.\nIndeed, I will sing with all my being.",
      "2": "Awake, harp and lyre!\nI will awaken the dawn.",
      "3": "I will give you thanks among the peoples, Lord,\nand I will make music to you among the nations,",
      "4": "because your great mercy reaches above the heavens,\nand your faithfulness to the skies.",
      "5": "Be exalted above the heavens, O God.\nLet your glory be over all the earth.",
      "6": "So that the ones you love may be rescued,\nbring salvation by your right hand and answer me.",
      "7": "God has spoken in his holiness.\nI will triumph. I will distribute Shechem,\nand I will measure off the Valley of Succoth.",
      "8": "Gilead is mine. Manasseh is mine.\nEphraim is my helmet. Judah is my scepter.",
      "9": "Moab is my washbasin. On Edom I toss my sandal.\nI shout aloud over Philistia.",
      "10": "Who will bring me into the fortified city?\nWho will lead me to Edom?",
      "11": "Is it not you, O God, who have rejected us?\nIs it not you, O God, who no longer go out with our armies?",
      "12": "Give us help against the foe,\nfor human help is worthless.",
      "13": "In God we will do mighty deeds.\nHe is the one who will trample our foes."
    },
    "109": {
      "1": "O God whom I praise, do not be silent,",
      "2": "because they have opened wicked, deceitful mouths against me.\nThey have spoken against me with lying tongues.",
      "3": "They surround me with hateful words.\nThey attack me without cause.",
      "4": "In return for my love they accuse me,\nbut I am a man of prayer.",
      "5": "They repay me with evil for good,\nwith hatred for my love.",
      "6": "Appoint an evil one to testify against him,\nand let an accuser stand at his right hand.",
      "7": "When he is tried, let him be found guilty,\nand let his prayer be sin.",
      "8": "Let his days be few.\nLet another take his office.",
      "9": "Let his children be fatherless\nand his wife a widow.",
      "10": "Let his children always wander and beg.\nLet them seek food far from their ruined homes.",
      "11": "Let a creditor confiscate all he has.\nLet strangers plunder everything he worked for.",
      "12": "Let there be no one to extend mercy to him.\nLet there be no one to show favor to his fatherless children.",
      "13": "Let his descendants be cut off.\nIn the next generation let their name be blotted out.",
      "14": "Let the guilt of his fathers be remembered before the Lord.\nLet the sin of his mother never be blotted out.",
      "15": "Let their sins remain before the Lord continually,\nand let the memory of these people be cut off from the earth.",
      "16": "Because he did not remember to show mercy,\nbut he pursued the poor man and the needy\n    and the brokenhearted to put them to death.",
      "17": "Since he loved cursing, so let it fall on him.\nHe found no pleasure in blessing, so let it be far from him.",
      "18": "Since he wore cursing as his clothing,\nlet it enter into his stomach like water\nand into his bones like oil.",
      "19": "Let it be like a garment wrapped around him,\nlike a belt tied around him forever.",
      "20": "May the Lord do all this to my accusers\nand to those who speak evil against my life.",
      "21": "But you, Lord God, deal with me for the sake of your name.\nBecause of the goodness of your mercy, deliver me.",
      "22": "For I am poor and needy,\nand my heart is wounded within me.",
      "23": "Like a shadow after it lengthens, I go away.\nI am shaken off like a locust.",
      "24": "My knees give way from fasting,\nand my flesh has become lean, without fat.",
      "25": "But I—I am scorned by them.\nThey see me. They shake their heads.",
      "26": "Help me, O Lord my God.\nSave me according to your mercy.",
      "27": "Let them know that this is your hand.\nYou, O Lord, have done it.",
      "28": "They may curse, but you will bless.\nThey rose up, but they will be put to shame.\nThen your servant will rejoice.",
      "29": "My accusers will be dressed with disgrace.\nTheir shame will wrap around them like a robe.",
      "30": "With my mouth I will keep on thanking the Lord.\nIn the midst of many people I will praise him.",
      "31": "For the Lord stands at the right hand of the needy,\n    to save his life from those who condemn him."
    },
    "110": {
      "1": "The decree of the Lord to my lord:\n“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies\n    a footstool under your feet.”",
      "2": "The Lord will stretch out your strong scepter from Zion.\nRule in the midst of your enemies.",
      "3": "Your people will be willing on the day of your power.\nIn majesty of holiness, from the womb of the dawn,\n    the dew of your youth will be yours.",
      "4": "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind:\n“You are a priest forever, in the manner of Melchizedek.”",
      "5": "The Lord is at your right hand.\nHe will crush kings on the day of his wrath.",
      "6": "He will judge the nations.\nHe will fill valleys with corpses.\nHe will crush heads over the wide world.",
      "7": "He will drink from a stream beside the way;\ntherefore, he will lift up his head."
    },
    "111": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nI will thank the Lord with all my heart\n    in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation.",
      "2": "Great are the deeds of the Lord.\nThey are studied by all who delight in them.",
      "3": "Glorious and majestic is his work,\nand his righteousness stands forever.",
      "4": "He has set up a memorial to his wonders.\nGracious and compassionate is the Lord.",
      "5": "He gives food to those who fear him.\nHe remembers his covenant forever.",
      "6": "He has declared the power of his deeds to his people,\n    to give them the nations as their possession.",
      "7": "The works of his hands are truth and justice.\nAll his precepts are trustworthy,",
      "8": "steadfast forever and ever,\ndone in truth and uprightness.",
      "9": "He sent redemption for his people.\nHe commanded his covenant forever.\nHoly and awesome is his name.",
      "10": "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.\nAll who do his precepts have good understanding.\nHis praise stands forever."
    },
    "112": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nHow blessed is a man who fears the Lord.\nIn his commands he delights greatly.",
      "2": "His descendants will be mighty in the land.\nThe circle of the upright will be blessed.",
      "3": "Wealth and riches are in his house,\nand his righteousness stands forever.",
      "4": "In darkness, light dawns for the upright.\nHe is gracious and compassionate and righteous.",
      "5": "Good things will come to the man\n    who is gracious and lends,\n    who conducts his business with justice.",
      "6": "Surely he will never fall.\nThe righteous will be remembered forever.",
      "7": "He will not fear bad news.\nHis heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.",
      "8": "His heart is secure.\nHe will have no fear, until he looks in triumph on his foes.",
      "9": "He scatters seed—he gives to the poor.\nHis righteousness stands forever.\nHis horn will be lifted high in glory.",
      "10": "The wicked person will see and be frustrated.\nHe will gnash his teeth and melt away.\nThe desire of the wicked will perish."
    },
    "113": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nPraise, you servants of the Lord,\npraise the name of the Lord.",
      "2": "Let the name of the Lord be blessed, from now to eternity.",
      "3": "From the rising of the sun to its setting,\n    the name of the Lord is to be praised.",
      "4": "High above all the nations is the Lord.\nHis glory towers above the heavens.",
      "5": "Who is like the Lord our God?\nHe is seated on high.",
      "6": "He bends down to look at the heavens and at the earth.",
      "7": "He raises the poor from the dust.\nHe lifts the needy from the garbage pile",
      "8": "to seat them with nobles,\n    with the nobles of his people.",
      "9": "He is the one who settles the barren woman in her home\n    as a joyful mother of children.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "114": {
      "1": "When Israel came out of Egypt\nand the house of Jacob from a people with a strange language,",
      "2": "Judah became his sanctuary,\nIsrael became his kingdom.",
      "3": "The sea saw and fled.\nThe Jordan turned back.",
      "4": "The mountains skipped like rams,\nthe hills like lambs.",
      "5": "What happened, O sea, that you fled,\nO Jordan, that you turned back,",
      "6": "O mountains, that you skipped like rams,\nyou hills, like lambs?",
      "7": "Tremble in the presence of the Lord, O earth.\nTremble in the presence of the God of Jacob.",
      "8": "He turned the rock into a pool of water.\nHe turned flint into springs of water."
    },
    "115": {
      "1": "Not to us, O Lord, not to us,\nbut to your name give glory,\nbecause of your mercy,\nbecause of your truth.",
      "2": "Why should the nations say,\n“So where is their God now?”",
      "3": "In fact, our God is in the heavens.\nHe does everything that pleases him.",
      "4": "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.",
      "5": "They have a mouth, but they do not speak.\nThey have eyes, but they do not see.",
      "6": "They have ears, but they do not hear.\nThey have a nose, but they do not smell.",
      "7": "Their hands—they do not even feel.\nTheir feet—they do not even walk around.\nThey do not even make a sound with their throats.",
      "8": "Those who make them will be like them,\nand so will all who trust in them.",
      "9": "Israel, trust in the Lord—\nhe is their help and their shield.",
      "10": "House of Aaron, trust in the Lord—\nhe is their help and their shield.",
      "11": "You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord—\nhe is their help and their shield.",
      "12": "The Lord remembers us. He will bless.\nHe will bless the house of Israel.\nHe will bless the house of Aaron.",
      "13": "He will bless those who fear the Lord—\nthe small with the great.",
      "14": "May the Lord add blessings to you,\nto you and to your children.",
      "15": "May you be blessed by the Lord,\nthe Maker of heaven and earth.",
      "16": "The heavens are heavens for the Lord,\nbut the earth he gave to the children of Adam.",
      "17": "It is not the dead who praise the Lord,\nnor any of those who go down to silence,",
      "18": "but we are the ones who bless the Lord,\n    from now to eternity.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "116": {
      "1": "I love the Lord, because he hears my voice.\nHe hears my cry for mercy.",
      "2": "Because he turned his ear to me,\nI will call to him all my days.",
      "3": "The ropes of death entangled me.\nThe walls of the grave hemmed me in.\nI found distress and sorrow.",
      "4": "Then I called on the name of the Lord:\n“Ah, Lord, please save my life!”",
      "5": "The Lord is gracious and righteous,\nand our God is compassionate.",
      "6": "The Lord protects the inexperienced.\nIn my weakness he saves me too.",
      "7": "Return, my soul, to your rest,\nfor the Lord has accomplished his purpose for you.",
      "8": "Indeed, you have delivered my soul from death,\nmy eye from weeping, my foot from stumbling,",
      "9": "so that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.",
      "10": "I believed. Therefore, I have spoken:\n“I am greatly afflicted.”",
      "11": "In my haste I said:\n“All people are deceptive.”",
      "12": "How can I repay the Lord for all his benefits to me?",
      "13": "I will lift up the cup of salvation,\nand I will call on the name of the Lord.",
      "14": "I will fulfill my vows to the Lord,\nnow in the presence of all his people.",
      "15": "Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his favored ones.",
      "16": "Ah, Lord, truly I am your servant.\nI am your servant, the son of your maidservant.\nYou opened my chains.",
      "17": "To you I will sacrifice a thank offering,\nand I will call on the name of the Lord.",
      "18": "I will fulfill my vows to the Lord\n    here in the presence of all his people,",
      "19": "in the courtyards of the house of the Lord,\n    in the middle of Jerusalem.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "117": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord, all you nations.\nWorship him, every race of people.",
      "2": "For his mercy overwhelms us,\nand the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "118": {
      "1": "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,\nfor his mercy endures forever.",
      "2": "Let Israel say now: Yes, his mercy endures forever.",
      "3": "Let the house of Aaron say now: Yes, his mercy endures forever.",
      "4": "Let those who fear the Lord say now: Yes, his mercy endures forever.",
      "5": "Under pressure I cried to the Lord.\nThe Lord answered me.\nHe set me in a wide-open space.",
      "6": "The Lord is with me.\nI will not be afraid.\nWhat can people do to me?",
      "7": "The Lord, who is with me, is my helper,\nso I will look in triumph on my enemies.",
      "8": "It is better to take refuge in the Lord\n    than to trust in people.",
      "9": "It is better to take refuge in the Lord\n    than to trust in human benefactors.",
      "10": "All the nations surrounded me,\nbut in the name of the Lord I cut them off.",
      "11": "They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me,\nbut in the name of the Lord I cut them off.",
      "12": "They surrounded me like bees,\nbut they were extinguished as quickly as a fire of thorns.\nIn the name of the Lord I cut them off.",
      "13": "You pushed me hard to make me fall,\nbut the Lord helped me.",
      "14": "My strength and song is the Lord,\nand he has become salvation for me.",
      "15": "Loud shouts of victory are heard in the tents of the righteous:\n“The right hand of the Lord has done a mighty deed!",
      "16": "The right hand of the Lord is lifted high!\nThe right hand of the Lord has done a mighty deed!”",
      "17": "I will not die. No, I will live,\nand I will proclaim the works of the Lord.",
      "18": "The Lord has chastened me severely,\nbut he has not handed me over to death.",
      "19": "Open for me the gates of righteousness.\nI will enter them. I will give thanks to the Lord.",
      "20": "This is the gate to the Lord.\nThe righteous enter it.",
      "21": "I will give you thanks,\nbecause you answered me,\nand you have become salvation for me.",
      "22": "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.",
      "23": "This is from the Lord.\nIt is marvelous in our eyes.",
      "24": "This is the day the Lord has made.\nLet us rejoice and be glad in it.",
      "25": "O Lord, please save us now.\nO Lord, grant us success.",
      "26": "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.\nWe bless you from the house of the Lord.",
      "27": "The Lord is God,\nand he makes light shine on us.\nBind the festival with branches as far as the horns of the altar.",
      "28": "You are my God, and I will give you thanks.\nYou are my God, and I will exalt you.",
      "29": "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,\nfor his mercy endures forever."
    },
    "119": {
      "1": "How blessed are those who are blameless in their way,\nwho walk in the law of the Lord.",
      "2": "How blessed are those who keep his testimonies.\nWith all their heart they seek him.",
      "3": "Indeed, they do no wrong.\nThey walk in his ways.",
      "4": "You have commanded that your precepts be kept completely.",
      "5": "If only my ways were unwavering in keeping your statutes!",
      "6": "Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.",
      "7": "I will thank you with an upright heart\n    as I learn your righteous judgments.",
      "8": "I will keep your statutes.\nDo not abandon me completely.",
      "9": "How can a young man keep his path pure?\nBy guarding it with your words.",
      "10": "With all my heart I seek you.\nDo not let me stray from your commands.",
      "11": "I have hidden your sayings in my heart,\n    so that I may not sin against you.",
      "12": "Blessed are you, O Lord!\nTeach me your statutes.",
      "13": "With my lips I tell about all the judgments\n    that come from your mouth.",
      "14": "I rejoice in the way that is taught by your testimonies\n    as much as I delight in all riches.",
      "15": "I will meditate on your precepts,\nand I will consider your paths.",
      "16": "In your statutes I delight.\nI will not forget your words.",
      "17": "Reward your servant.\nThen I will live, and I will keep your words.",
      "18": "Uncover my eyes, and I will behold wonders from your law.",
      "19": "I am an alien on earth.\nDo not hide your commandments from me.",
      "20": "My soul is overwhelmed by desire for your judgments at all times.",
      "21": "You rebuke the arrogant, who are cursed,\nthose who stray from your commandments.",
      "22": "Remove scorn and contempt from me,\nfor I guard your testimonies.",
      "23": "Though officials sit together and speak against me,\nyour servant will meditate on your statutes.",
      "24": "Yes, your testimonies are my delights.\nThey are my advisors.",
      "25": "My soul is stuck in the dust.\nRevive my life according to your words.",
      "26": "I told you about my ways and you answered me.\nTeach me your statutes.",
      "27": "Make me understand the meaning of your precepts.\nThen I will meditate on your wonders.",
      "28": "My soul melts with sorrow.\nBy your words make me stand firm.",
      "29": "Turn me away from false ways,\nand be gracious to me through your law.",
      "30": "I have chosen the way of truth.\nI accept your judgments.",
      "31": "I cling to your testimonies, O Lord.\nDo not let me be put to shame.",
      "32": "I run the way of your commandments,\nfor you have strengthened my heart.",
      "33": "Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes.\nThen I will guard it to the end.",
      "34": "Give me understanding, and I will guard your law.\nI will keep it with all my heart.",
      "35": "Make me walk on the path of your commandments,\nfor I take pleasure in it.",
      "36": "Direct my heart toward your testimonies\nand not toward material gain.",
      "37": "Keep my eyes from looking at worthless things.\nGive me life according to your ways.",
      "38": "Confirm your sayings to your servant,\nso that you may be feared.",
      "39": "Take away my disgrace which I dread,\nfor your judgments are good.",
      "40": "How I long for your precepts!\nGive me life in your righteousness.",
      "41": "So let your mercies come to me, O Lord,\nand let your salvation come according to your sayings.",
      "42": "Then I will give an answer to those who insult me,\n    because I trust in your words.",
      "43": "But do not tear away the word of truth from my mouth,\n    because I wait confidently for your judgments.",
      "44": "Then I will continually keep your law forever and ever.",
      "45": "Then I will walk around freely,\nbecause I have sought your precepts.",
      "46": "Then I will speak of your testimonies before kings,\nand I will not be put to shame.",
      "47": "For I delight in your commandments, which I love.",
      "48": "I lift up my hands to your commandments, which I love,\nand I meditate on your statutes.",
      "49": "Remember your word to your servant,\nbecause you have given me hope.",
      "50": "This is my comfort in my suffering:\nthat your saying gives me life.",
      "51": "The arrogant mock me constantly,\nbut I do not fall away from your law.",
      "52": "I remember your judgments from of old, Lord,\nand I comfort myself with them.",
      "53": "Indignation grips me because of the wicked, who forsake your laws.",
      "54": "Your statutes are songs for me in the house where I am staying.",
      "55": "I remember your name during the night, O Lord,\nand I will keep your laws.",
      "56": "This I have done: I guard your precepts.",
      "57": "You are my portion, O Lord.\nI said I would keep your words.",
      "58": "I have sought your favor with all my heart.\nBe gracious to me according to your sayings.",
      "59": "I have considered my ways,\nand I have turned my feet to your testimonies.",
      "60": "I will hurry. I will not delay.\nI will keep your commandments.",
      "61": "The ropes of the wicked bind me,\nbut I do not forget your law.",
      "62": "At midnight I rise to give you thanks for your righteous judgments.",
      "63": "I am a companion to all who fear you,\nthat is, to all who keep your precepts.",
      "64": "Your mercy, Lord, fills the earth.\nTeach me your statutes.",
      "65": "You have done good for your servant, O Lord,\n    according to your words.",
      "66": "Teach me good judgment and knowledge,\nfor I believe in your commandments.",
      "67": "Before I was afflicted I strayed,\nbut now I keep your saying.",
      "68": "You are good, and you do good.\nTeach me your statutes.",
      "69": "The arrogant have smeared me with lies.\nI guard your precepts with all my heart.",
      "70": "Their calloused hearts feel nothing,\nbut I delight in your law.",
      "71": "It was good for me that I was afflicted,\nso that I might learn your statutes.",
      "72": "Better for me is the law from your mouth\n    than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.",
      "73": "Your hands made me and established me.\nGive me understanding.\nThen I will learn your commandments.",
      "74": "May those who fear you see me and rejoice,\nbecause I wait confidently for your word.",
      "75": "I know, Lord, that your judgments are righteous.\nIn faithfulness you have afflicted me.",
      "76": "Please let your mercy be my comfort,\n    according to your saying to your servant.",
      "77": "Let your abundant compassion come to me that I may live,\nbecause your law is my delight.",
      "78": "Let the arrogant be put to shame,\nbecause they have wronged me with lies.\nAs for me, I will meditate on your precepts.",
      "79": "Let those who fear you turn to me,\nand those who know your testimonies.",
      "80": "Let my heart be blameless regarding your statutes,\nso that I may not be put to shame.",
      "81": "My soul is worn out, as I wait for your salvation.\nI wait confidently for your word.",
      "82": "My eyes are worn out, as I look for your sayings.\nI say, “When will you comfort me?”",
      "83": "Though I am like a wineskin in the smoke,\nI do not forget your statutes.",
      "84": "How many days does your servant have?\nWhen will you inflict judgment on my persecutors?",
      "85": "The arrogant dig pits for me.\nThis is against your laws.",
      "86": "All your commandments are trustworthy.\nThe arrogant persecute me wrongfully. Help me.",
      "87": "They almost put an end to me here on earth,\nbut I have not forsaken your precepts.",
      "88": "Give me life according to your mercy,\nand I will obey the testimony from your mouth.",
      "89": "To eternity, O Lord, your word is fixed firmly in the heavens.",
      "90": "For generation after generation, your faithfulness remains.\nYou established the earth, and it stands.",
      "91": "As for your judgments, they stand to this day,\nbecause all things are your servants.",
      "92": "Unless your law had been my delight,\nI would have perished in my affliction.",
      "93": "To eternity I will not forget your precepts,\nbecause by them you have given me life.",
      "94": "I am yours. Save me,\nbecause I have sought your precepts.",
      "95": "The wicked are lying in wait for me to kill me,\nbut I will ponder your testimonies.",
      "96": "I see a limit to all perfection,\nbut your commandment has no limits.",
      "97": "How I love your laws!\nI meditate on them all day long.",
      "98": "Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,\nbecause it is always with me.",
      "99": "I have more wisdom than all my teachers,\nbecause your testimonies are my meditation.",
      "100": "I have more understanding than the elders,\n    because I guard your precepts.",
      "101": "I have kept my feet off every evil path\n    in order to keep your words.",
      "102": "I have not turned from your judgments,\n    because you yourself have instructed me.",
      "103": "How sweet are your sayings to my taste,\n    sweeter than honey to my mouth!",
      "104": "From your precepts I gain understanding.\n    Therefore, I hate every false road.",
      "105": "Your words are a lamp for my feet\n    and a light for my path.",
      "106": "I have sworn and affirmed\n    that I will keep your righteous judgments.",
      "107": "I have suffered much.\n    Lord, give me life according to your words.",
      "108": "Lord, please accept the willing praise from my mouth,\n    and teach me your judgments.",
      "109": "I take my life in my hands constantly,\n    but I will not forget your law.",
      "110": "The wicked have set a snare for me,\n    but I have not wandered from your precepts.",
      "111": "I have inherited your testimonies forever.\n    Yes, they are the joy of my heart.",
      "112": "I turn my heart to do your statutes,\n    forever, right to the end.",
      "113": "I hate the doubleminded, but I love your law.",
      "114": "You are my hiding place and my shield.\n    I wait confidently for your word.",
      "115": "Get away from me, you evildoers,\n    so that I may guard the commandments of my God!",
      "116": "Sustain me according to your sayings, and I will live.\n    Do not let me be ashamed of my hope.",
      "117": "Hold me up, and I will be saved.\n    Then I will always have regard for your statutes.",
      "118": "You reject all who stray from your statutes,\n    because their deceitfulness is built on a lie.",
      "119": "You discard all the wicked of the earth like slag.\n    Therefore, I love your testimonies.",
      "120": "My flesh trembles because I am afraid of you,\n    because I fear your judgments.",
      "121": "I have carried out what is just and right.\n    Do not leave me to my oppressors.",
      "122": "Guarantee good for your servant.\n    Do not let the arrogant oppress me.",
      "123": "My eyes wear out,\n    as I watch for your salvation and your righteousness.",
      "124": "Deal with your servant according to your mercy,\n    and teach me your statutes.",
      "125": "I am your servant. Give me discernment,\n    so that I may know your testimonies.",
      "126": "Lord, it is time to do something!\n    They have broken your laws.",
      "127": "Because I love your commandments more than gold,\n    more than pure gold,",
      "128": "because I value everything in all your precepts,\n    I hate every wrong road.",
      "129": "Your testimonies are wonders.\n    That is why my soul guards them.",
      "130": "The doorway to your words lets in light.\n    It gives understanding to the inexperienced.",
      "131": "I open wide my mouth and I gasp,\n    because I long for your commandments.",
      "132": "Turn to me and give me grace.\n    This is your judgment for those who love your name.",
      "133": "Keep my footsteps steady by your sayings,\n    and do not let any evil rule over me.",
      "134": "Redeem me from oppressive people,\n    and I will keep your precepts.",
      "135": "Make your face shine on your servant,\n    and teach me your statutes.",
      "136": "Streams of water run down from my eyes,\n    because they do not keep your laws.",
      "137": "You are righteous, O Lord,\n    and your judgments are right.",
      "138": "You have commanded your testimonies.\n    They are righteous and very trustworthy.",
      "139": "My zeal wears me out,\n    because my foes forget your words.",
      "140": "Your saying has been thoroughly refined,\n    and your servant loves it.",
      "141": "I am insignificant and despised,\n    but I do not forget your precepts.",
      "142": "Your righteousness is righteous forever,\n    and your law is truth.",
      "143": "Distress and anguish have found me,\n    but your commandments are my delights.",
      "144": "Your testimonies are right forever.\n    Give me understanding, and I will live.",
      "145": "I call with all my heart.\n    Answer me, O Lord.\n    I will guard your statutes.",
      "146": "I call to you. Save me,\n    and I will keep your testimonies.",
      "147": "I get up before dawn, and I cry for help.\n    I wait confidently for your word.",
      "148": "My eyes look forward to the night watches\n    when I can meditate on your sayings.",
      "149": "Hear my voice according to your mercy.\n    Lord, give me life based on your judgments.",
      "150": "Those who pursue evil plans are near,\n    but they are far from your law.",
      "151": "You are near, O Lord,\n    and all your commandments are truth.",
      "152": "Long ago I knew from your testimonies\n    that you established them to endure forever.",
      "153": "See my affliction and deliver me,\n    because I have not forgotten your law.",
      "154": "Argue my case and redeem me.\n    Give me life according to your saying.",
      "155": "Salvation is far away from the wicked,\n    because they do not pursue your statutes.",
      "156": "Your compassions are many, O Lord.\n    Give me life according to your judgments.",
      "157": "Many are my persecutors and my foes,\n    but I have not turned from your testimonies.",
      "158": "I look at the hypocrites and I loathe them,\n    because they do not keep your saying.",
      "159": "See how I love your precepts.\n    Lord, according to your mercy, give me life.",
      "160": "The sum of your word is truth.\n    All your righteous judgment is eternal.",
      "161": "Officials persecute me without cause,\n    but my heart trembles at your word.",
      "162": "I rejoice over your sayings,\n    like one who finds much plunder.",
      "163": "I hate and detest falsehood,\n    but I love your law.",
      "164": "Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous judgments.",
      "165": "Great peace belongs to those who love your law,\n    and nothing is a stumbling block for them.",
      "166": "I wait for your salvation, O Lord,\n    and I obey your commandments.",
      "167": "My soul keeps your testimonies.\n    I love them greatly.",
      "168": "I keep your precepts and your testimonies,\n    because all my ways are before you.",
      "169": "May my loud cry come before you, Lord.\n    Give me understanding through your word.",
      "170": "May my plea for mercy come before you.\n    Deliver me according to your saying.",
      "171": "May my lips overflow with praise,\n    because you teach me your statutes.",
      "172": "May my tongue sing of your saying,\n    because all your commandments are righteousness.",
      "173": "May your hand be ready to help me,\n    because I have chosen your precepts.",
      "174": "I long for your salvation, O Lord,\n    and your law is my delight.",
      "175": "Let my soul live and praise you,\n    and may your judgments help me.",
      "176": "I have strayed like a perishing sheep.\n    Seek your servant,\n    because I have not forgotten your commandments."
    },
    "120": {
      "1": "A song of the ascents.",
      "2": "In my distress I called to the Lord,\nand he answered me.",
      "3": "Lord, save my life from lying lips.\nSave me from deceitful tongues.",
      "4": "What will he give to you?\nWhat more will he add to you, you deceitful tongue?",
      "5": "A warrior’s sharpened arrows with hot coals of the broom tree.",
      "6": "Woe to me that I am an alien in Meshek,\nthat I dwell among the tents of Kedar!",
      "7": "For too long my soul has dwelt with those who hate peace.",
      "8": "I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war."
    },
    "121": {
      "1": "I lift up my eyes to the mountains.\nWhere does my help come from?",
      "2": "My help comes from the Lord,\n    the Maker of heaven and earth.",
      "3": "He will not let your foot stumble.\nHe who watches over you will not slumber.",
      "4": "Yes, he who watches over Israel will not slumber.\nHe will not sleep.",
      "5": "The Lord watches over you.\nThe Lord is your shade at your right hand.",
      "6": "The sun will not strike you by day,\nnor the moon by night.",
      "7": "The Lord will watch to keep you from all harm.\nHe will watch over your life.",
      "8": "The Lord will watch over your going and your coming\n    from now to eternity."
    },
    "122": {
      "1": "I rejoiced with those who said to me,\n“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”",
      "2": "Our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem.",
      "3": "Jerusalem is a well-built city that is firmly joined together,",
      "4": "a city to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord,\n    as a testimony to Israel,\n    to give praise to the name of the Lord.",
      "5": "That is where the thrones for judgment sit,\nthe thrones of the house of David.",
      "6": "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:\n“May those who love you prosper.",
      "7": "May there be peace within your fortifications,\nprosperity within your citadels.”",
      "8": "For the sake of my brothers and my friends,\nnow I will say, “Peace be within you.”",
      "9": "For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,\nI will seek good for you."
    },
    "123": {
      "1": "To you I lift up my eyes,\nto you who are seated in heaven.",
      "2": "Indeed, as the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master,\nas the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress,\nso our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he shows us his grace.",
      "3": "Show grace to us, O Lord.\nShow grace to us,\nfor we have had our fill of contempt.",
      "4": "Our souls have had their fill of the scorn of the smug\nand of the contempt of the arrogant."
    },
    "124": {
      "1": "Unless it was the Lord who was for us—\nlet Israel say—",
      "2": "unless it was the Lord who was for us\nwhen people rose against us,",
      "3": "they would have swallowed us alive\nwhen their anger burned against us.",
      "4": "Then the waters would have submerged us.\nThe torrent would have swept our lives away.",
      "5": "Then the wild waters would have swept us away.",
      "6": "Blessed be the Lord,\n    who has not let us be prey for their teeth.",
      "7": "We have escaped with our lives\n    like a bird out of the fowlers’ snare.\nThe snare has been broken, and we have escaped.",
      "8": "Our help is in the name of the Lord,\n    the Maker of heaven and earth."
    },
    "125": {
      "1": "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion.\nIt cannot be shaken. It will stand forever.",
      "2": "As Jerusalem is surrounded by mountains,\nso the Lord surrounds his people from now to eternity.",
      "3": "No, the scepter of wickedness will not rest\n    on the land assigned to the righteous,\nso that the righteous do not reach out their hands toward evil.",
      "4": "Do good, O Lord, for the good\nand for those who are upright in their hearts.",
      "5": "But those who turn to their crooked ways—\nthe Lord will send them away with the evildoers.\nPeace be on Israel."
    },
    "126": {
      "1": "When the Lord restored the captives to Zion,\n    we were like dreamers.",
      "2": "Then our mouths were filled with laughter,\nand our tongues with shouts of joy.\nThen they said among the nations,\n“The Lord has done great things for them.”",
      "3": "The Lord has done great things for us.\nWe are glad.",
      "4": "Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the dry gulches of the Negev.",
      "5": "Those who sow with weeping will reap with joyful shouts.",
      "6": "The one who walks along weeping, carrying a bag of seed to sow,\n    will come back again with joyful shouts, carrying his sheaves."
    },
    "127": {
      "1": "If the Lord does not build the house,\n    it is useless for the builders to work hard over it.\nIf the Lord does not watch over the city,\n    it is useless for the watchman to stand guard.",
      "2": "It is useless for you to get up early and to work late,\nworrying about bread to eat,\nbecause God grants sleep to the one he loves.",
      "3": "Indeed, children are a heritage from the Lord.\nThe fruit of the womb is a reward from him.",
      "4": "Sons born during one’s youth are like arrows\n    in the hand of a warrior.",
      "5": "How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.\nThey will not be put to shame\n    when they dispute with enemies at the city gate."
    },
    "128": {
      "1": "How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,\neveryone who is walking in his ways.",
      "2": "Yes, you will eat the food you worked for.\nHow blessed you are! It will go well for you!",
      "3": "Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in the inner rooms of your house.\nYour children will be like olive shoots around your table.",
      "4": "Look! This is how blessed the man is who fears the Lord!",
      "5": "May the Lord bless you from Zion,\nso that you see the prosperity of Jerusalem,\nall the days of your life,",
      "6": "and you see your children’s children.\nPeace be on Israel."
    },
    "129": {
      "1": "Greatly they have afflicted me from my youth—\nlet Israel say—",
      "2": "greatly they have afflicted me from my youth,\nyet they have not been able to defeat me.",
      "3": "On my back plowmen have plowed.\nThey made their furrows long.",
      "4": "The Lord is righteous.\nHe has cut the ropes of the wicked to pieces.",
      "5": "Let all who hate Zion be ashamed and turned back.",
      "6": "Let them be like grass on the roof,\n    which withers even before it is pulled up.",
      "7": "The reaper cannot fill his hand with it.\nThe one who binds sheaves cannot fill his arms.",
      "8": "May those who pass by never say,\n“The blessing of the Lord be with you.\nWe bless you in the name of the Lord.”"
    },
    "130": {
      "1": "Out of the depths I have called to you, O Lord.",
      "2": "Lord, hear my voice.\nLet your ears be attentive to the sound of my cry for mercy.",
      "3": "If you, Lord, kept a record of guilt,\nO Lord, who could stand?",
      "4": "But with you there is pardon,\nso you are feared.",
      "5": "I wait for the Lord. My soul waits,\nand in his word I have put my hope.",
      "6": "My soul waits for the Lord\nmore than watchmen wait for the morning,\nmore than watchmen wait for the morning.",
      "7": "Israel, wait confidently for the Lord,\nbecause with the Lord there is mercy.\nWith him there is abundant redemption.",
      "8": "So he himself will redeem Israel from all its guilt."
    },
    "131": {
      "1": "Lord, my heart is not haughty,\nand my eyes are not proud.\nSo I do not intrude into great matters\nor into things too wonderful for me.",
      "2": "Instead I have soothed and quieted my soul.\nAs a nursed child rests with its mother,\nlike a nursed child my soul rests with me.",
      "3": "Wait confidently, O Israel, for the Lord\n    from now to eternity."
    },
    "132": {
      "1": "Remember for David’s sake, O Lord, all his afflictions.",
      "2": "Remember how he swore to the Lord.\nHe made a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:",
      "3": "“I will not enter my own house.\nI will not get into my own bed.",
      "4": "I will not allow my eyes to sleep\nor my eyelids to slumber,",
      "5": "until I find a place for the Lord,\na dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”",
      "6": "Yes, we heard about it in Ephrathah.\nWe found it in the fields of Ja’ar.",
      "7": "Let us go to his dwelling place.\nLet us bow down at his footstool.",
      "8": "Arise, O Lord, come to your resting place,\n    you and the ark of your strength.",
      "9": "May your priests be clothed with righteousness.\nMay your favored ones shout for joy.",
      "10": "For the sake of David your servant,\ndo not reject the face of your Anointed One.",
      "11": "The Lord swore to David\n    a truth from which he will not turn back:\n“From the fruit of your body\n    I will place kings on your throne.",
      "12": "If your sons keep my covenant\nand my testimonies that I teach them,\nthen their sons will sit on your throne forever.”",
      "13": "For the Lord has chosen Zion.\nHe has desired it for his dwelling.",
      "14": "“This is my resting place forever.\nHere I will live, for I have desired it.",
      "15": "I will bless her greatly with food.\nI will satisfy Zion’s poor with bread.",
      "16": "I will clothe her priests with salvation,\nand her favored ones will shout for joy.",
      "17": "There I will make a horn shoot up for David.\nI will set up a lamp for my Anointed One.",
      "18": "I will clothe his enemies with shame,\nbut on him his crown will be beautiful.”"
    },
    "133": {
      "1": "Look, how good and how pleasant it is\n    when brothers live together in unity!",
      "2": "It is like the precious oil poured on the head,\n    running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron,\n    running down on the collar of his robes.",
      "3": "It is like the dew from Hermon\n    running down on the mountains of Zion.\nFor there the Lord commands this blessing: life to eternity."
    },
    "134": {
      "1": "Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord,\n    who stand in the house of the Lord at night.",
      "2": "Lift up your hands toward the sanctuary\nand bless the Lord.",
      "3": "May the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion."
    },
    "135": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nPraise the name of the Lord.\nPraise him, you servants of the Lord,",
      "2": "who stand in the house of the Lord,\n    in the courtyards of the house of our God.",
      "3": "Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good.\nMake music to his name, for it is pleasant.",
      "4": "Yes, the Lord chose Jacob for himself.\nHe chose Israel as his special treasure.",
      "5": "Yes, I know that the Lord is great.\nOur Lord is greater than all gods.",
      "6": "The Lord does whatever he pleases\n    in the heavens and on the earth,\n    in the seas and in all the depths.",
      "7": "He makes clouds rise from the end of the earth.\nHe sends lightning for the rainstorm.\nHe releases the wind from his storehouses.",
      "8": "He is the one who struck down\n    the firstborn of Egypt, both men and animals.",
      "9": "Egypt! He sent warning signs into your midst,\n    against Pharaoh and against all his officials.",
      "10": "He is the one who struck down many nations.\nHe killed mighty kings—",
      "11": "Sihon king of the Amorites,\n    and Og king of Bashan,\n    and all the kingdoms of Canaan.",
      "12": "He gave their land as a possession,\na possession to Israel, his people.",
      "13": "Lord, your name stands forever.\nLord, your reputation remains through all generations.",
      "14": "For the Lord will judge in favor of his people.\nHe will have pity on his servants.",
      "15": "The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands.",
      "16": "They have a mouth, but they cannot speak.\nThey have eyes, but they cannot see.",
      "17": "They have ears, but cannot hear.\nThere is not even any breath in their mouths.",
      "18": "Those who make them will be like them.\nSo will all who trust in them.",
      "19": "House of Israel, bless the Lord.\nHouse of Aaron, bless the Lord.",
      "20": "House of Levi, bless the Lord.\nYou who fear the Lord, bless the Lord.",
      "21": "The Lord, who dwells in Jerusalem, will be blessed from Zion.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "136": {
      "1": "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "2": "Give thanks to the God of Gods.\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "3": "Give thanks to the Lord of Lords.\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "4": "To him who alone does great wonders—\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "5": "To him who by his understanding made the heavens—\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "6": "To him who spread out the earth on the waters—\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "7": "To him who made the great lights,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "8": "the sun to rule by day,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "9": "the moon and stars to rule by night—\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "10": "To him who struck Egypt by killing their firstborn,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "11": "and brought Israel out from their midst,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "12": "with a mighty hand and outstretched arm—\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "13": "To him who cut the Red Sea in two,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "14": "and brought Israel through the middle of it,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "15": "but brushed off Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea—\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "16": "To him who made his people travel through the wilderness—\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "17": "To him who struck down great kings,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "18": "and killed mighty kings,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "19": "Sihon king of the Amorites,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "20": "and Og king of Bashan,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "21": "and gave their land as a possession,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "22": "a possession to his servant Israel.\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "23": "Who remembered us in our low condition,\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "24": "and tore us out of the hands of our oppressors.\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "25": "He gives food to all living creatures.\n    For his mercy endures forever.",
      "26": "Give thanks to the God of the heavens.\n    For his mercy endures forever."
    },
    "137": {
      "1": "Beside the rivers of Babylon,\nthere we sat, and, yes, we wept as we remembered Zion.",
      "2": "There we hung up our lyres on the willows,",
      "3": "because there our captors asked us for words of a song,\nand our tormentors asked for a happy song:\n“Sing for us one of the songs of Zion!”",
      "4": "How can we sing a song of the Lord on foreign soil?",
      "5": "If I forget you, Jerusalem,\nmay my right hand forget how to play music.",
      "6": "May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth\nif I do not remember you,\nif I do not exalt Jerusalem above my highest joy.",
      "7": "Remember the day of Jerusalem, O Lord,\nagainst the descendants of Edom who said,\n“Tear it down, tear it down to its foundations!”",
      "8": "Daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,\nhow blessed is the one who repays you\n    with the same deeds you did against us.",
      "9": "How blessed is the one who seizes your children\nand dashes them against the cliff."
    },
    "138": {
      "1": "I will thank you with all my heart.\nBefore the gods I will make music for you.",
      "2": "I will bow down toward your holy temple.\nI will give thanks to your name\n    because of your mercy and because of your truth.\nYes, you made your word even greater than your name.",
      "3": "By day I called, and you answered me.\nYou have made my soul strong.",
      "4": "All the kings of the earth will thank you, Lord,\nwhen they have heard the message from your mouth.",
      "5": "Then they will sing about the ways of the Lord,\nbecause the glory of the Lord is great.",
      "6": "Indeed the Lord is exalted, but he sees the lowly,\nand he recognizes the proud from a distance.",
      "7": "If I walk surrounded by danger, you keep me alive\n    in spite of the anger of my enemies.\nYou stretch out your hand.\nYou save me with your right hand.",
      "8": "The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.\nLord, your mercy endures forever.\nDo not let go of the works of your hands."
    },
    "139": {
      "1": "Lord, you have investigated me,\nand you know.",
      "2": "You know when I sit down and when I get up.\nYou understand my thoughts from far off.",
      "3": "You keep track of when I travel and when I stay,\nand you are familiar with all my ways.",
      "4": "Before there is a word on my tongue,\n    you, Lord, already know it completely.",
      "5": "You put a fence behind me and in front of me,\nand you have placed your hand on me.",
      "6": "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.\nIt is too high—I cannot grasp it.",
      "7": "Where can I go from your Spirit?\nWhere can I flee from your Presence?",
      "8": "If I go up to heaven, you are there.\nIf I make my bed in hell—there you are!",
      "9": "I rise on the wings of dawn.\nI settle on the far side of the sea.",
      "10": "Even there your hand guides me,\nand your right hand holds on to me.",
      "11": "And if I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me\nand the light will become night around me,”",
      "12": "then even the darkness will not be too dark for you.\nThe night will be as light as the day.\nDarkness and light are the same to you.",
      "13": "For you created my inner organs.\nYou wove me together in my mother’s womb.",
      "14": "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.\nYour works are wonderful,\nand my soul knows that very well.",
      "15": "My bones were not hidden from you\nwhen I was made in the secret place,\nwhen I was woven together in the depths of the earth.",
      "16": "Your eyes saw my unfinished body.\nIn your book all of them were written.\nDays were determined, before any of them existed.",
      "17": "Your thoughts to me are so precious, O God!\nHow great is the sum of them!",
      "18": "If I would count them,\n    they would outnumber the grains of sand.\nI awake, and I am still with you.",
      "19": "If only you would slay the wicked, O God,\nso that bloody men would depart from me,",
      "20": "men who speak against you maliciously.\nYour adversaries misuse your name.",
      "21": "Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord,\nand detest those who rise up against you?",
      "22": "I absolutely hate them. To me they are enemies.",
      "23": "Investigate me, God, and know my heart.\nTest me and know my troubled thoughts.",
      "24": "See if there is any way in me that causes pain,\nand lead me in the way everlasting."
    },
    "140": {
      "1": "Keep me safe, Lord, from the evil man.\nProtect me from the violent man,",
      "2": "who plans evil in his heart.\nEvery day they gather for battle.",
      "3": "They sharpen their tongues like a snake. Interlude\nThe poison of vipers is under their lips.",
      "4": "Keep me safe, Lord, from the hands of the wicked.\nProtect me from the violent man, who plans to trip my feet.",
      "5": "The proud have hidden a snare for me, and ropes.\nThey have spread out a net along my route. Interlude\nThey have set traps for me.",
      "6": "I say to the Lord, “You are my God.”\nHear, O Lord, the sound of my cry for mercy.",
      "7": "O Lord, my Lord, the strength of my salvation,\nyou cover my head on the day for weapons.",
      "8": "Do not grant, O Lord, the desires of the wicked.\nDo not let their scheme succeed when they rise up. Interlude",
      "9": "May the trouble caused by their lips\n    fall on the heads of those who surround me.",
      "10": "Let burning coals fall on them.\nCause them to fall into the fire,\nor into pits from which they will never rise.",
      "11": "Do not let the slanderer be established in the land.\nAs for the man of violence—\nmay evil hunt him and beat him down.",
      "12": "I know that the Lord will provide justice for the oppressed,\n    judgment for the poor.",
      "13": "Surely the righteous will give thanks to your name.\nThe upright will live in your presence."
    },
    "141": {
      "1": "Lord, I call to you. Hurry to me.\nTurn your ear toward my voice when I call to you.",
      "2": "May my prayer linger before you like incense,\nthe lifting up of my hands like an evening offering.",
      "3": "Set a guard over my mouth, Lord.\nKeep watch over the door of my lips.",
      "4": "Do not let my heart turn toward anything evil,\nto take part in wicked deeds with men who do evil.\nLet me not taste their delicacies.",
      "5": "Let a righteous man strike me—it is mercy.\nLet him rebuke me—it is lotion on my head.\nMy head will not refuse it.\nBut my prayer is still against their evil deeds.",
      "6": "Their rulers will be thrown down by the sides of the cliff,\nand they will hear that my words were pleasant.",
      "7": "They will say, “As one splits and breaks up the earth,\nso our bones have been scattered at the mouth of the grave.”",
      "8": "But my eyes look to you, Lord God.\nIn you I take refuge. Do not take away my life.",
      "9": "Keep me from the snares they have set for me,\n    from the traps of the evildoers.",
      "10": "Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by safely."
    },
    "142": {
      "1": "A maskil by David. When he was in the cave. A prayer.",
      "2": "With my voice I cry out to the Lord.\nWith my voice I call to the Lord for mercy.",
      "3": "I pour out my complaint before him.\nI tell my distress before him.",
      "4": "When my spirit grows faint within me,\nyou are the one who knows my course.\nOn the path where I walk they have hidden a snare for me.",
      "5": "Look to my right and see.\nThere is no one who recognizes me.\nThere is no escape for me.\nNo one cares about my life.",
      "6": "I cry out to you, Lord.\nI say, “You are my refuge,\nmy portion in the land of the living.”",
      "7": "Pay attention to my loud cry,\nbecause I am very weak.\nRescue me from those who pursue me,\nbecause they are too strong for me.",
      "8": "Set me free from my prison,\nso I can give thanks to your name.\nThen the righteous will gather around me,\nbecause you have accomplished your purpose for me."
    },
    "143": {
      "1": "Lord, hear my prayer.\nGive ear to my cry for mercy.\nIn your faithfulness, answer me in your righteousness.",
      "2": "Do not bring charges against your servant,\nbecause no one living can be righteous before you.",
      "3": "For the enemy pursues my soul.\nHe crushes my life to the ground.\nHe makes me dwell in dark places like those long dead,",
      "4": "so my spirit grows faint inside me.\nWithin me my heart is devastated.",
      "5": "I remember the days of long ago.\nI meditate on all your works,\nand I consider what your hands have done.",
      "6": "I spread out my hands to you. Interlude\nMy soul thirsts for you like a weary land.",
      "7": "Hurry! Answer me, Lord.\nMy spirit fails.\nDo not hide your face from me,\nor I will be like those who go down to the pit.",
      "8": "Let me hear about your mercy in the morning,\n    for I trust in you.\nTeach me the way that I should go,\n    for I lift up my soul to you.",
      "9": "Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord,\n    for I hide myself in you.",
      "10": "Teach me to do your will,\n    for you are my God.\nMay your good Spirit lead me on level ground.",
      "11": "For the sake of your name, O Lord, preserve my life.\nIn your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.",
      "12": "In your mercy, wipe out my enemies,\nand destroy all who threaten my life,\nfor I am your servant."
    },
    "144": {
      "1": "Blessed be the Lord my Rock,\nwho trains my hands for battle,\nmy fingers for war.",
      "2": "He shows me mercy.\nHe is my stronghold, my high fortress.\nHe is my deliverer and my shield,\nso I take refuge in him.\nHe subdues peoples under me.",
      "3": "Lord, what is man that you notice him,\nthe son of man that you consider him?",
      "4": "Man is like a breath.\nHis days are like a passing shadow.",
      "5": "Lord, rip open your heavens and come down.\nTouch the mountains so that they smoke.",
      "6": "Send out lightning and scatter them.\nShoot your arrows and rout them.",
      "7": "Reach down your hand from on high.\nRescue me and snatch me from the mighty waters,\nfrom the hand of foreigners",
      "8": "whose mouths speak lies,\nwho raise their right hands to a false oath.",
      "9": "God, I will sing a new song to you.\nOn the ten-stringed harp I will make music to you,",
      "10": "to you who gives victory to kings,\n    to you who delivers David his servant from the evil sword.",
      "11": "Rescue me and snatch me from the hand of foreigners\n    whose mouths speak lies,\n    who raise their right hands to a false oath.",
      "12": "Then our sons in their youth will be like full-grown plants.\nOur daughters will be like corner pillars carved to decorate a palace.",
      "13": "Our storehouses will be filled with produce of every kind.\nOur flocks will increase by thousands,\nby tens of thousands in our countryside.",
      "14": "Our oxen will pull heavy loads.\nThere will be no breaking through our walls,\nno exile into captivity,\nno cry of distress in our city squares.",
      "15": "How blessed are the people for whom this is so.\nHow blessed are the people whose God is the Lord."
    },
    "145": {
      "1": "I will exalt you, my God, the King,\nand I will bless your name forever and ever.",
      "2": "Every day I will bless you,\nand I will praise your name forever and ever.",
      "3": "Great is the Lord and worthy of great praise,\nand there are no limits to the extent of his greatness.",
      "4": "One generation will praise your deeds to another,\nand they will declare your mighty acts.",
      "5": "I will contemplate the glorious splendor of your majesty\nand the accounts of your wonderful works.",
      "6": "Then they will speak about the power of your awesome works,\nand I will tell about your great deeds.",
      "7": "They will pour forth the memory of your abundant goodness\nand sing loudly about your righteousness.",
      "8": "The Lord is gracious and compassionate,\nslow to anger and great in mercy.",
      "9": "The Lord is good to all.\nHis compassion extends over all he has made.",
      "10": "Everyone you have made will thank you, O Lord,\nand the ones you favor will bless you.",
      "11": "They will tell about the glory of your kingdom,\nand they will speak about your might,",
      "12": "to make known his might to the children of Adam,\nto make known the glorious splendor of his kingdom.",
      "13": "Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,\nand your dominion endures through all generations.\nThe Lord is faithful to all his words\nand merciful toward all he has made.",
      "14": "The Lord lifts up all who fall,\nand he supports all who are bowed down.",
      "15": "The eyes of all look eagerly to you,\nand you give them their food at the proper time.",
      "16": "He opens his hand,\nand he satisfies the desire of every living thing.",
      "17": "The Lord is righteous in all his ways\nand merciful toward all that he has made.",
      "18": "The Lord is near to all who call on him,\nto all who call on him in truth.",
      "19": "He grants the desire of those who fear him.\nHe hears their cry and saves them.",
      "20": "The Lord watches over all who love him,\nbut he will destroy all the wicked.",
      "21": "My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord.\nLet all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever."
    },
    "146": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nPraise the Lord, O my soul.",
      "2": "I will praise the Lord as long as I live.\nI will make music to my God as long as I exist.",
      "3": "Do not trust in human helpers,\nin a mortal man who cannot save you.",
      "4": "His spirit departs.\nHe returns to the ground he came from.\nOn that day, his plans have perished.",
      "5": "Blessed is everyone who has the God of Jacob as his help.\nHis hope is in the Lord his God,",
      "6": "the Maker of heaven and earth,\n    the sea, and everything which is in them.\nHe is the one who stays faithful forever.",
      "7": "He obtains justice for the oppressed.\nHe gives food to the hungry.\nThe Lord releases prisoners.",
      "8": "The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.\nThe Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.\nThe Lord loves the righteous.",
      "9": "The Lord watches over the aliens.\nThe fatherless and the widow he sustains,\nbut he turns aside the way of the wicked.",
      "10": "The Lord reigns forever.\nYour God, O Zion, rules for all generations.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "147": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nHow good it is to make music to our God.\nYes, praise is pleasant and fitting!",
      "2": "The one who builds Jerusalem is the Lord.\nHe assembles the outcasts of Israel.",
      "3": "He is the one who heals the brokenhearted\nand who bandages their wounds.",
      "4": "He counts the number of the stars.\nHe calls them all by name.",
      "5": "Great is our Lord and mighty in power.\nTo his understanding there is no limit.",
      "6": "The one who sustains the humble is the Lord.\nHe pushes the wicked down to the ground.",
      "7": "Respond to the Lord with thanksgiving.\nMake music to our God on the lyre.",
      "8": "He is the one who covers the sky with clouds.\nHe determines rain for the earth.\nHe makes grass sprout on the mountains.",
      "9": "He gives their food to the cattle\nand to the young ravens when they call.",
      "10": "He is not impressed by the strength of the horse.\nHe is not pleased with the legs of a man.",
      "11": "The Lord is pleased with those who fear him,\nthose who wait for his mercy.",
      "12": "Worship the Lord, O Jerusalem.\nPraise your God, O Zion,",
      "13": "because he strengthens the bars on your gates.\nHe blesses your children within you.",
      "14": "He brings peace to your borders.\nHe satisfies you with the best wheat.",
      "15": "He sends his message to the earth.\nHis word runs swiftly.",
      "16": "He gives snow like wool.\nHe scatters frost like ashes.",
      "17": "He sends his hail like pieces of bread.\nWho can stand in the face of his cold winds?",
      "18": "He sends his word, and the ice melts.\nHe breathes on the snow. The waters flow.",
      "19": "He reveals his words to Jacob,\nhis statutes and his judgments to Israel.",
      "20": "He has not done this for any other nation.\nThey do not know his judgments.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "148": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nPraise the Lord from the heavens.\nPraise him in the heights.",
      "2": "Praise him, all his angels.\nPraise him, all his armies.",
      "3": "Praise him, sun and moon.\nPraise him, all you bright stars.",
      "4": "Praise him, you highest heavens\nand you waters which are above the heavens.",
      "5": "Let them praise the name of the Lord,\nbecause he commanded, and they were created.",
      "6": "He caused them to stand forever and ever.\nHe gave a decree, and it will not pass away.",
      "7": "Praise the Lord from the earth,\ngreat sea creatures and all the depths,",
      "8": "fire and hail, snow and fog,\nstorm winds that obey his word,",
      "9": "mountains and all hills,\nfruit trees and all cedars,",
      "10": "wild animals and all cattle,\ncrawling creatures and flying birds,",
      "11": "kings of the earth and all peoples,\nofficials and all judges on earth,",
      "12": "young men and also young women,\nold people with young people.",
      "13": "Let them praise the name of the Lord,\nfor his name alone is exalted.\nHis splendor is above the earth and the heavens.",
      "14": "He has raised up a horn for his people—\nthe praise of all his favored ones—\nfor the children of Israel, the people close to him.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "149": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nSing to the Lord a new song.\nSing his praise in the congregation of his favored ones.",
      "2": "Let Israel rejoice in its Maker.\nLet the people of Zion celebrate for their King.",
      "3": "Let them praise his name with dancing.\nWith hand drum and lyre let them make music to him.",
      "4": "For the Lord is pleased with his people.\nHe adorns the humble with salvation.",
      "5": "Let those he favors rejoice in honor.\nLet them shout for joy on their beds.",
      "6": "May high praise of God be in their throats,\nand a two-edged sword in their hands,",
      "7": "to inflict vengeance on the nations\nand punishments on the peoples,",
      "8": "to bind their kings with chains\nand their nobles with iron shackles,",
      "9": "to carry out the judgment written against them.\nThis is the glory of all his favored people.\nPraise the Lord."
    },
    "150": {
      "1": "Praise the Lord.\nPraise God in his sanctuary.\nPraise him in the expanse that shows his might.",
      "2": "Praise him for his acts of power.\nPraise him according to his abundant greatness.",
      "3": "Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn.\nPraise him with the harp and the lyre.",
      "4": "Praise him with hand drums and dancing.\nPraise him with the strings and the flute.",
      "5": "Praise him with the sounding cymbals.\nPraise him with loud cymbals.",
      "6": "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\nPraise the Lord."
    }
  },
  "Proverbs": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.",
      "2": "To learn wisdom and discipline,\nto understand sayings that give insight,",
      "3": "to acquire discipline to act sensibly,\nto acquire righteousness, justice, and fairness,",
      "4": "to give good judgment to the inexperienced,\nto give a young man knowledge and foresight.",
      "5": "A wise person should listen, and he will increase learning.\nA person with understanding should obtain guidance",
      "6": "so he will understand proverbs, puzzling statements,\nand the thought-provoking words of the wise.",
      "7": "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,\nbut stubborn fools despise wisdom and discipline.",
      "8": "Listen, my son, to your father’s discipline,\nand do not forsake your mother’s teaching,",
      "9": "because they are a garland of grace for your head.\nThey are jewelry for your neck.",
      "10": "My son, if sinners lure you,\ndo not go along with them.",
      "11": "If they say,\n“Come with us.\nLet’s lie in wait to shed blood.\nLet’s hide and ambush an innocent person for no reason.",
      "12": "We will swallow them alive like the grave.\nWe will swallow them whole\n    like those who go down to the pit.",
      "13": "We will find all kinds of wealth and treasure.\n    We will fill our houses with loot.",
      "14": "Cast your lot with us.\n    We will all share one bag of money.”",
      "15": "My son, do not walk along the road with them.\nDo not set foot on their path,",
      "16": "because their feet run to do evil,\n    and they hurry to shed blood.",
      "17": "How useless to spread a net in the sight of any bird!",
      "18": "Yet they set up an ambush for their own blood.\nThey hide in ambush to take their own lives.",
      "19": "This is where the path leads for everyone\n    who is greedy for stolen property:\nIt takes away the life of those who possess it.",
      "20": "Wisdom calls out loudly in the street.\nIn the public squares she raises her voice.",
      "21": "At the noisy street corners she calls out.\nAt the entrances to the city gates she speaks her words:",
      "22": "“How long will you gullible people love being gullible?\nHow long will scoffers delight in their scoffing?\nHow long will fools hate knowledge?",
      "23": "If you respond to my warning,\nI will pour out my spirit for you.\nI will make my words known to you.",
      "24": "Because I called, but you refused to listen,\nbecause I stretched out my hand, but no one paid attention,",
      "25": "because you ignored all my advice,\nand you did not accept my warning,",
      "26": "therefore I will laugh at your calamity.\nI will jeer when terror strikes you,",
      "27": "when terror strikes you like a violent storm,\nwhen calamity strikes you like a windstorm,\nwhen trouble and distress come upon you.",
      "28": "Then they will call to me, but I will not answer.\nThey will look for me, but they will not find me,",
      "29": "because they hated knowledge,\nand they did not choose the fear of the Lord.",
      "30": "They would not accept my advice,\nand they despised all my warnings.",
      "31": "So they will eat the fruit of their own way,\nand they will be stuffed with their own schemes.",
      "32": "Therefore the wandering ways of the gullible kill them,\nand the complacency of fools destroys them.",
      "33": "But whoever listens to me will live in safety.\nHe will be secure, without fear of evil.”"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "My son, if you accept my words,\nif you store up my commands within you,",
      "2": "by paying attention to wisdom with your ear,\n    by reaching out for understanding with your heart,",
      "3": "if indeed you call out for intelligence,\nif you raise your voice for understanding,",
      "4": "if you search for it like silver,\nif you hunt for it like hidden treasure,",
      "5": "then you will understand the fear of the Lord,\nthen you will find the knowledge of God,",
      "6": "because the Lord gives wisdom.\nKnowledge and understanding come from his mouth.",
      "7": "He stores up sound judgment for upright people.\nHe is a shield for those who walk in integrity.",
      "8": "He protects those who walk on paths of justice.\nHe guards the way of his favored ones.",
      "9": "Then you will understand righteousness, justice,\n    and fairness—every good path,",
      "10": "because wisdom will come into your heart,\nand knowledge will be pleasant for your soul.",
      "11": "Foresight will stand guard over you.\nUnderstanding will protect you.",
      "12": "It will save you from the evil way,\nfrom the man who speaks perverse things,",
      "13": "from those who abandon upright paths\n    in order to walk in the ways of darkness.",
      "14": "It will save you from those who enjoy doing evil,\nfrom those who celebrate the twisted ways of evil,",
      "15": "from those whose paths are crooked,\nand from those whose ways are devious.",
      "16": "Wisdom will save you from the immoral woman,\nfrom the unfaithful woman with her seductive words,",
      "17": "who abandons the husband of her youth\nand forgets the covenant of her God.",
      "18": "So she sinks down to death, which becomes her house.\nHer way of life leads down to the spirits of the dead.",
      "19": "All who enter her house never return.\nThey never reach the paths of life.",
      "20": "This is how to walk in the way of good people,\nhow to stay on the paths of the righteous.",
      "21": "Yes, the upright will live in the land,\nand people with integrity will remain in it,",
      "22": "but wicked people will be cut off from the land,\nand treacherous people will be torn out of it."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "My son, do not forget my teaching.\nLet your heart keep my commands,",
      "2": "because they will add long days and many years to your life,\nand peace and prosperity will come to you.",
      "3": "Do not allow mercy and truth to leave you.\nFasten them around your neck.\nWrite them on the tablet of your heart.",
      "4": "Then you will find favor and approval\n    in the eyes of God and man.",
      "5": "Trust in the Lord with all your heart,\nand do not rely on your own understanding.",
      "6": "In all your ways acknowledge him,\nand he will make your paths straight.",
      "7": "Do not consider yourself wise.\nFear the Lord, and turn away from evil.",
      "8": "Then your body will be healed,\nand your bones will be refreshed.",
      "9": "Honor the Lord with your wealth,\nwith the firstfruits from your entire harvest.",
      "10": "Then your barns will be filled to capacity,\nand your wine vats will overflow with fresh wine.",
      "11": "Do not reject the Lord’s discipline, my son,\nand do not despise his warning,",
      "12": "because the Lord warns the one he loves\n    as a father warns a son with whom he is pleased.",
      "13": "How blessed is the person who finds wisdom,\nthe person who acquires understanding,",
      "14": "because the profit it gives is better than the profit from silver,\nand its yield is better than gold!",
      "15": "It is more valuable than gems,\nand nothing you desire can equal it.",
      "16": "In its right hand are the days of a long life.\nIn its left hand are riches and honor.",
      "17": "Its ways are pleasant ways,\nand all its paths are peace.",
      "18": "It is a tree of life for those who hold on to it.\nThose who cling to it are blessed.",
      "19": "The Lord founded the earth by wisdom.\nHe established the heavens by understanding.",
      "20": "By his knowledge the deep waters were divided,\nand the clouds drip dew.",
      "21": "My son, do not take your eyes off these things.\nGuard sound judgment and insight.",
      "22": "They will be life for your soul\nand grace to adorn your neck.",
      "23": "Then you will walk safely on your way,\nand your foot will not stumble.",
      "24": "When you lie down, you will not be afraid.\nWhen you lie down, your sleep will be pleasant.",
      "25": "Do not be afraid of sudden terror,\nnor of the destruction of the wicked when it comes,",
      "26": "because the Lord will be your confidence.\nHe will keep your foot from being caught.",
      "27": "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due\n    when it is within your power to give it.",
      "28": "Do not say to your neighbor,\n“Go away! Come back some other time.\nI will give something to you tomorrow,”\nwhen in fact it is already with you right now.",
      "29": "Do not plan harm against your neighbor\n    when he is living with you peacefully.",
      "30": "Do not quarrel with a person for no good reason\n    when he has done nothing to harm you.",
      "31": "Do not envy a violent person.\nDo not choose any of his ways,",
      "32": "because a crooked person is an abomination to the Lord,\nbut God’s friendly guidance leads the upright.",
      "33": "The Lord’s curse rests on the house of the wicked,\nbut he blesses the home of the righteous.",
      "34": "Although he scorns the scornful,\nhe gives grace to the humble.",
      "35": "Wise people inherit honor,\nbut proud fools receive disgrace."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Listen, you sons, to a father’s discipline.\nPay attention so that you will gain discernment,",
      "2": "because I have given you good instruction.\nDo not abandon my teaching.",
      "3": "When I was a son living with my father,\na tender and only child with my mother,",
      "4": "he used to instruct me and say to me,\n“Cling to my words with all your heart.\nObey my commands so that you may live.",
      "5": "Acquire wisdom. Acquire understanding.\nDo not forget,\nand do not turn away from the words of my mouth.",
      "6": "Do not abandon it, and it will watch over you.\nLove it and it will guard you.”",
      "7": "The beginning of wisdom is to obtain Wisdom.\nGive up everything you have, in order to gain Understanding.",
      "8": "Cherish her, and she will exalt you.\nShe will honor you when you embrace her.",
      "9": "She will set a garland of grace on your head.\nShe will present you with a beautiful crown.",
      "10": "Listen, my son, and accept my words,\nso that the years of your life will be many.",
      "11": "I have instructed you in the way of wisdom.\nI have led you along straight paths.",
      "12": "When you walk, your stride will not be hindered.\nEven if you run, you will not stumble.",
      "13": "Hold on to discipline. Do not let go.\nGuard it, because it is your life.",
      "14": "Do not travel on the path of the wicked.\nDo not walk in the way of evil people.",
      "15": "Avoid it! Do not travel on it!\nTurn away from it. Pass it by.",
      "16": "For they cannot sleep\n    unless they have been doing wrong,\nand they are robbed of sleep\n    unless they are making someone stumble,",
      "17": "because wickedness is the food they eat,\nand violence is the wine they drink.",
      "18": "But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,\nshining brighter and brighter until it is day.",
      "19": "The way of the wicked is like gloomy darkness.\nThey never know where they will stumble.",
      "20": "My son, pay attention to my words.\nOpen your ears to what I say.",
      "21": "Do not let them escape from your sight.\nKeep them deep in your heart,",
      "22": "because they are life for those who find them\nand healing for the entire body.",
      "23": "Above all else, guard your heart carefully,\nbecause your life flows from it.",
      "24": "Turn your mouth away from perverted speech,\nand keep devious lips far away from you.",
      "25": "Let your eyes look straight ahead.\nLet your gaze be directly in front of you.",
      "26": "Make a level pathway for your feet,\nand all your ways will be secure.",
      "27": "Do not swerve to the right or the left.\nTurn your feet away from evil."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "My son, pay attention to my wisdom.\nOpen your ears to my understanding,",
      "2": "so that you may hold on to insight,\nso your lips may guard knowledge,",
      "3": "because the lips of an immoral woman drip with honey,\nand her words are as smooth as olive oil,",
      "4": "but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood\nand as sharp as a double-edged sword.",
      "5": "Her feet go down to death.\nHer steps lead to hell.",
      "6": "She gives no thought to the path of life.\nHer ways wander, but she doesn’t realize it.",
      "7": "Now, you sons, listen to me.\nDo not turn away from the words of my mouth.",
      "8": "Keep your way far from her.\nDo not go near the doorway of her house.",
      "9": "If you do, you will give your wealth to others\nand your years to a cruel person.",
      "10": "If you do, your work will satisfy strangers,\nand the results of your labor will end up in another man’s house.",
      "11": "You will groan when your end comes,\nwhen your body and flesh are consumed.",
      "12": "Then you will say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,\nand my heart despised warnings!",
      "13": "I did not listen to my teachers’ voices,\nand I did not open my ears to hear my instructors.",
      "14": "I soon reached total ruin\nin the midst of the assembly of the community.”",
      "15": "Drink water from your own cistern.\nDrink running water from your own well.",
      "16": "Why should the water from your springs flow out into the street,\nyour streams of water into the public squares?",
      "17": "They should be yours, yours alone.\nThey are not for strangers to share with you.",
      "18": "Let your fountain be blessed.\nObtain your joy from the wife you married in your youth,",
      "19": "who is a loving doe and a graceful deer.\nLet her breasts satisfy you at all times.\nAlways be intoxicated with her love.",
      "20": "Why should you be led astray, my son, by an immoral woman?\nWhy embrace a woman who is not your wife?",
      "21": "For the ways of a man are in front of the eyes of the Lord,\nand he weighs all of his paths.",
      "22": "The evil deeds of the wicked man will capture him,\nand he will be bound by the ropes of his sin.",
      "23": "He will die for lack of discipline,\nand he will go astray because of his great stupidity."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "My son, if you have guaranteed your neighbor’s debts,\nif you have shaken hands for a stranger,",
      "2": "you are trapped by the promises from your mouth;\nyou are captured by the promises from your mouth.",
      "3": "Because you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands,\ngo, humble yourself, and plead with your neighbor.",
      "4": "Do not allow your eyes to sleep,\nor your eyelids to slumber.",
      "5": "Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of a hunter,\nor like a bird from the hand of a trapper.",
      "6": "Go to the ant, you slacker!\nObserve its ways and become wise.",
      "7": "Although it has no overseer, officer, or ruler,",
      "8": "it stores its food in summer.\nIt gathers its provisions at harvest time.",
      "9": "How long will you lie there, you slacker?\nWhen will you get up from your sleep?",
      "10": "A little sleep, a little slumber,\na little folding of your hands to rest,",
      "11": "and poverty will come on you like a prowler,\nand scarcity will come on you like a warrior.",
      "12": "A worthless, wicked scoundrel,\nwho goes around with a corrupt mouth,",
      "13": "who winks with his eye, signals with his foot,\nand gestures with his fingers,",
      "14": "who plots evil with a deceitful heart—\nhe always spreads conflict.",
      "15": "Therefore his disaster will come upon him suddenly.\nAll at once he will be broken, and there will be no remedy.",
      "16": "These are six things the Lord hates,\nseven things that really disgust him:",
      "17": "arrogant eyes, a lying tongue,\nhands that shed innocent blood,",
      "18": "a heart that devises wicked plans,\nfeet that run quickly to do evil,",
      "19": "a false witness who breathes lies,\nand a person who spreads conflict between brothers.",
      "20": "My son, keep your father’s commands,\nand do not forsake your mother’s teachings.",
      "21": "Fasten them permanently to your heart,\nand tie them around your neck.",
      "22": "When you walk around, they will lead you.\nWhen you lie down, they will stand guard over you.\nWhen you wake up, they will converse with you,",
      "23": "because a command is a lamp, teaching is a light,\nand the warnings given by discipline are a road to life.",
      "24": "They guard you from an evil woman,\nfrom the smooth tongue of a woman who is not your wife.",
      "25": "Do not desire her beauty in your heart.\nDo not let her captivate you with her eyes.",
      "26": "A prostitute costs you a loaf of bread,\nbut a married woman stalks your precious life.",
      "27": "Can a man place fire on his lap\n    without burning his clothes?",
      "28": "Can a man walk on hot coals\n    without scorching his feet?",
      "29": "So it is with the man who goes to his neighbor’s wife.\nNo one who touches her will be forgiven.",
      "30": "No one despises a thief when he steals\n    to satisfy his hunger when he is starving,",
      "31": "but when he is caught, he will have to repay seven times as much.\nHe will have to give up all the wealth of his house.",
      "32": "Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks sense.\nHe who does it destroys himself.",
      "33": "He will find disease and dishonor,\nand his disgrace will never be wiped out,",
      "34": "because jealousy ignites a husband’s anger,\nand he will show no mercy when he takes revenge.",
      "35": "He will not accept any amount as a payment.\nHe will not relent, even if you increase your offer."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "My son, guard what I say.\nKeep my commands with you.",
      "2": "Obey my commands so that you may live.\nProtect my teachings like the pupil of your eye.",
      "3": "Tie them to your fingers.\nWrite them on the tablet of your heart.",
      "4": "Say to Wisdom, “You are my sister,”\nand call Understanding your relative.",
      "5": "She will keep you safe from an immoral woman,\nfrom an unfaithful woman and her seductive words.",
      "6": "At a window of my house, I looked out through the lattice.",
      "7": "I was watching the gullible people.\nAmong the young men I noticed a youth without sense.",
      "8": "He was crossing the street near her corner,\nstrolling along the road to her house,",
      "9": "in the twilight, in the evening of the day,\nwhen the darkness of the night was coming.",
      "10": "Suddenly a woman meets him.\nShe is dressed like a prostitute with a scheming heart!",
      "11": "She is loud and rebellious.\nHer feet will not stay home.",
      "12": "One moment she is in the street.\nThe next moment she is in the public square.\nShe is on the prowl near every corner.",
      "13": "She grabs him and kisses him.\nWith a brazen face she says,",
      "14": "“I have food from fellowship offerings.\nToday I fulfilled my vows.",
      "15": "That is why I came out to meet you.\nI came eagerly to seek you,\nand now I have found you!",
      "16": "I have covered my couch with a bedspread,\nwith colored cloth made of Egyptian yarn.",
      "17": "I have perfumed my bed\n    with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.",
      "18": "Come, let’s drink our fill of love until morning.\nLet’s enjoy making love.",
      "19": "Look, my husband isn’t home.\nHe has gone on a long trip.",
      "20": "He took a bag of silver with him.\nHe will not come home till the next full moon.”",
      "21": "She deceives him with enticing words.\nWith smooth lips she seduces him.",
      "22": "He follows right after her,\nlike a steer going to slaughter,\nlike a deer prancing into a noose,",
      "23": "until an arrow pierces its liver,\nlike a bird darting into a trap.\nHe does not realize this will cost him his life.",
      "24": "Now, you sons, listen to me.\nPay attention to the words from my mouth.",
      "25": "Do not let your heart turn in her direction.\nDo not wander on her pathways,",
      "26": "because she has brought down many victims.\nThose she has killed are countless.",
      "27": "Her house is on the road to the grave.\nIt goes down to the chambers of death."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Do you hear Wisdom calling out?\nDo you hear Understanding raising her voice?",
      "2": "On the hills above the roads,\nshe takes her stand at the crossroads.",
      "3": "Beside the gates leading into the city,\nat the entrance to the doorways, she cries out:",
      "4": "I call to you men,\nand I raise my voice to the people.",
      "5": "You gullible people, get good judgment.\nYou fools, take this to heart.",
      "6": "Listen, because I am speaking noble thoughts.\nI open my lips to speak upright things,",
      "7": "for my mouth declares truth,\nbut wickedness is disgusting to my lips.",
      "8": "All the words from my mouth are righteous.\nThere is nothing twisted or crooked in them.",
      "9": "All of them are clear to those who have understanding,\nand they are upright to those who find knowledge.",
      "10": "Accept my discipline instead of silver.\nAccept knowledge rather than fine gold,",
      "11": "because Wisdom is better than gems,\nand anything you may desire cannot equal her.",
      "12": "I, Wisdom, dwell with good judgment.\nI discover knowledge and foresight.",
      "13": "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.\nI hate haughtiness, arrogance, an evil way, and a perverse mouth.",
      "14": "Good advice and sound judgment are mine.\nI, Understanding, have strength.",
      "15": "By me kings reign,\nand rulers administer justice.",
      "16": "By me officials govern,\nas well as nobles and all just judges.",
      "17": "I certainly love those who love me,\nand those who eagerly look for me find me.",
      "18": "Riches and honor are with me,\nas well as enduring wealth and righteousness.",
      "19": "My fruit is better than gold, better than pure gold,\nand what I produce is better than fine silver.",
      "20": "I walk on the path of righteousness,\ndown the middle of the pathways of justice,",
      "21": "so I can provide a rich inheritance to those who love me,\nand I can fill their treasuries.",
      "22": "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way,\nbefore his works of long ago.",
      "23": "From eternity I was appointed,\nfrom the beginning, from before the origin of the earth.",
      "24": "When there were no deep waters, I was brought forth,\nwhen there were no springs filled with water.",
      "25": "Before the mountains were settled in place,\nbefore the hills, I was brought forth,",
      "26": "when he had not yet made land or fields\nor the first dust of the world.",
      "27": "When he established the heavens, I was there.\nWhen he drew the horizon around the surface of the deep,",
      "28": "when he placed the clouds in the sky above,\nwhen the fountains of the deep gushed out,",
      "29": "when he established his decree for the sea,\nso that the waters could not go beyond the limit set by his command,\nwhen he marked out the foundations of the earth,",
      "30": "I was beside him as a master craftsman.\nI was his joy day after day.\nI rejoiced in his presence at all times.",
      "31": "I rejoiced in his inhabited world.\nI was delighted with the children of Adam.",
      "32": "So now, you children, listen to me,\nbecause those who keep my ways are blessed.",
      "33": "Listen to discipline and become wise.\nDo not neglect it.",
      "34": "How blessed is the person who listens to me,\nso that he can watch at my doors day after day,\nso that he can stand guard beside my front door,",
      "35": "because whoever finds me finds life,\nand he obtains favor from the Lord,",
      "36": "but whoever sins against me harms himself.\nAll who hate me love death."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Wisdom has built her house.\nShe has carved out her seven pillars.",
      "2": "She has prepared her meat.\nShe has mixed her wine.\nShe has already set her table.",
      "3": "She has sent out her servant girls.\nShe calls from the highest point in the city,",
      "4": "“Whoever is naïve, let him turn in here.”\nTo someone who lacks sense she says,",
      "5": "“Come, eat my food,\nand drink the wine that I have mixed.",
      "6": "Abandon your naïve ways and live.\nTravel the road to understanding.”",
      "7": "Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults,\nand whoever warns a wicked person invites abuse.",
      "8": "Do not warn a mocker, or he will hate you.\nWarn a wise person, and he will love you.",
      "9": "Give advice to a wise person, and he will become even wiser.\nTeach a righteous person, and he will add to his learning.",
      "10": "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,\nand the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding,",
      "11": "because through me your days will be multiplied,\nand years will be added to your life.",
      "12": "If you are wise, you are wise to your own advantage.\nBut if you scoff, you alone will bear the consequences.",
      "13": "The woman Folly is boisterous.\nShe is deluded. She knows nothing.",
      "14": "She sits at the doorway of her house,\non a throne on the heights of the city,",
      "15": "in order to call to those who pass by on the street,\nthose who are simply going along on their way,",
      "16": "“Whoever is gullible, let him turn in here.”\nTo someone who lacks sense she says,",
      "17": "“Stolen waters are sweet,\nand food eaten in secret is delicious.”",
      "18": "But he does not know that the souls of the dead are there,\nthat her guests are in the depths of hell."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "The proverbs of Solomon.\nA wise son brings joy to his father,\nbut a foolish son brings grief to his mother.",
      "2": "Treasures gained by wickedness produce no profit,\nbut righteousness saves from death.",
      "3": "The Lord will not allow the righteous to starve,\nbut he frustrates the greed of the wicked.",
      "4": "Lazy hands produce poverty,\nbut hardworking hands bring riches.",
      "5": "Whoever gathers crops in summer is a sensible son.\nWhoever sleeps at harvest time is a disgraceful son.",
      "6": "Blessings crown the head of a righteous person,\nbut violence covers the mouth of the wicked.",
      "7": "To remember a righteous person is a blessing,\nbut the name of the wicked will rot.",
      "8": "A wise heart accepts commands,\nbut a babbling fool will be ruined.",
      "9": "Whoever walks with integrity walks safely,\nbut whoever follows crooked ways will be found out.",
      "10": "Whoever winks at evil causes trouble,\nand a babbling fool will be ruined.",
      "11": "The mouth of a righteous person is a fountain of life,\nbut violence covers the mouth of the wicked.",
      "12": "Hatred stirs up a quarrel,\nbut love covers all sins.",
      "13": "Wisdom is found on the lips of a discerning person,\nbut a rod is appropriate for the back of one who lacks sense.",
      "14": "Wise people store up knowledge,\nbut the mouth of a stubborn fool brings ruin.",
      "15": "A rich person’s wealth is his strong city.\nPoverty is the ruin of poor people.",
      "16": "The work of a righteous person leads to life.\nThe income of a wicked person leads to sin.",
      "17": "Whoever practices discipline is on the path to life,\nbut whoever rejects a warning goes astray.",
      "18": "Whoever conceals hatred has lying lips,\nand whoever spreads gossip is a fool.",
      "19": "When there are many words, sin never stops,\nbut a person who restrains his lips acts wisely.",
      "20": "The tongue of a righteous person is fine silver.\nThe heart of a wicked person has little value.",
      "21": "The lips of a righteous person shepherd many,\nbut stubborn fools die for lack of sense.",
      "22": "The blessing of the Lord makes a person wealthy,\nand he adds no sorrow to it.",
      "23": "Carrying out a wicked scheme is a game for the fool,\nbut wisdom gives pleasure to a person with understanding.",
      "24": "What the wicked person dreads will come upon him,\nbut the Lord will grant what the righteous desire.",
      "25": "When the storm has passed, the wicked person is no more,\nbut the righteous person has an everlasting foundation.",
      "26": "Like vinegar to the teeth and like smoke to the eyes,\nso is a lazy person to those who send him.",
      "27": "The fear of the Lord will add days to a person’s life,\nbut the years of wicked people will be cut short.",
      "28": "The confident hope of the righteous is joy,\nbut the ambitions of the wicked will perish.",
      "29": "The way of the Lord is a fortress for a person who has integrity,\nbut it brings destruction for evildoers.",
      "30": "A righteous person will never be toppled,\nbut wicked people will not dwell on earth.",
      "31": "The mouth of a righteous person produces the fruit of wisdom,\nbut a perverse tongue will be cut off.",
      "32": "The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,\nbut the mouth of the wicked produces depraved words."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Dishonest scales are disgusting to the Lord\nbut an accurate weight wins his approval.",
      "2": "When arrogance comes, shame follows,\nbut with humility comes wisdom.",
      "3": "The integrity of the upright guides them,\nbut the dishonesty of the treacherous destroys them.",
      "4": "Riches are of no help on the day of fury,\nbut righteousness saves from death.",
      "5": "The righteousness of honest people makes their way smooth,\nbut because of his wickedness a wicked person falls.",
      "6": "The righteousness of upright people rescues them,\nbut treacherous people are trapped by their own desire.",
      "7": "At the death of a wicked man, his hope will perish,\nand his confidence in his strength perishes.",
      "8": "A righteous person is rescued from trouble,\nand a wicked person takes his place.",
      "9": "With his mouth the godless person destroys his neighbor,\nbut righteous people are rescued by knowledge.",
      "10": "When the righteous prosper, a city rejoices,\nand when the wicked perish, there is a shout of joy.",
      "11": "Through the blessing of upright citizens, a city is raised up,\nbut by the mouth of the wicked, it is torn down.",
      "12": "A person who lacks sense despises his neighbor,\nbut an understanding person keeps silent.",
      "13": "A gossip goes around betraying secrets,\nbut a trustworthy spirit keeps a matter confidential.",
      "14": "Without guidance people fall,\nbut in many advisors there is safety.",
      "15": "Guaranteeing a loan for a stranger leads to trouble,\nbut one who hates to shake hands remains secure.",
      "16": "A gracious woman takes hold of honor,\nbut ruthless men take hold of riches.",
      "17": "A merciful man benefits his own soul,\nbut a cruel man brings trouble on his own flesh.",
      "18": "A wicked person earns deceptive wages,\nbut one who sows righteousness reaps a true reward.",
      "19": "Just as righteousness leads to life,\npursuing evil leads to death.",
      "20": "Perverted hearts are disgusting to the Lord,\nbut his favor rests on those whose way has integrity.",
      "21": "Be sure of this: An evil person will not go unpunished,\nbut the children of the righteous will escape.",
      "22": "The beauty of a woman who lacks moral judgment\n    is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout.",
      "23": "The desire of the righteous leads only to good.\nThe hope of the wicked leads to fury.",
      "24": "One person scatters his wealth, but it still increases.\nAnother hoards it unjustly, but this leads only to poverty.",
      "25": "A person who spreads blessings will be enriched.\nOne who gives a refreshing drink will be refreshed.",
      "26": "People curse the person who hoards grain,\nbut a blessing rests on the head of one who sells it.",
      "27": "Whoever searches for good seeks favor,\nbut whoever pursues evil will find it.",
      "28": "Whoever trusts his wealth will fall,\nbut righteous people will flourish like green plants.",
      "29": "Whoever troubles his household will inherit the wind,\nand a stubborn fool will be a slave to a person with a wise heart.",
      "30": "The fruit of a righteous person is a tree of life,\nand one who harvests souls is wise.",
      "31": "If a righteous person is paid back on earth,\nhow much more a wicked person or a sinner!"
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "A person who loves discipline loves knowledge,\nbut one who hates correction is stupid.",
      "2": "A good person will obtain favor from the Lord,\nbut he will condemn a schemer.",
      "3": "A person cannot be made secure by wickedness,\nbut the roots of the righteous will never be uprooted.",
      "4": "A wife with strong character is a crown to her husband,\nbut one who brings shame is like rot in his bones.",
      "5": "The plans of the righteous are just,\nbut the advice of the wicked is deceitful.",
      "6": "The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood,\nbut the mouths of the upright will save them.",
      "7": "Wicked people are overthrown, and they are no more,\nbut the house of the righteous continues to stand.",
      "8": "A person is praised for the good sense that he speaks,\nbut a person with a twisted heart will be despised.",
      "9": "Better to be underestimated and have a servant\nthan to pretend to be wealthy and lack bread.",
      "10": "A righteous person understands the needs of his livestock,\nbut the compassion of the wicked is cruel.",
      "11": "A person who works his land will have enough food,\nbut whoever pursues fantasies lacks sense.",
      "12": "A wicked man covets the fortress of evil people,\nbut the root of the righteous bears fruit.",
      "13": "The rebellion on his lips is a trap for an evil person,\nbut a righteous person gets out of trouble.",
      "14": "From the fruit of his lips a person is filled with good,\nand the labor of a person’s hands returns to him.",
      "15": "The way of a stubborn fool seems correct to him,\nbut whoever listens to advice is wise.",
      "16": "A stubborn fool immediately lets his annoyance be known,\nbut a sensible person overlooks an insult.",
      "17": "Whoever breathes the truth proclaims righteousness,\nbut a lying witness is deceitful.",
      "18": "Some people wield reckless words like the thrusts of a sword,\nbut the tongue of the wise brings healing.",
      "19": "Truthful lips are established forever,\nbut a lying tongue lasts only a moment.",
      "20": "Deceit lies in the heart of those who plot evil,\nbut for those who promote peace there will be joy.",
      "21": "No disaster will strike a righteous person,\nbut wicked people are filled with trouble.",
      "22": "Lying lips are disgusting to the Lord,\nbut those who act truthfully gain his favor.",
      "23": "A man who is shrewd conceals his knowledge,\nbut the hearts of fools broadcast stupidity.",
      "24": "Hardworking hands will rule,\nbut laziness results in forced labor.",
      "25": "Anxiety in a person’s heart weighs him down,\nbut a good word brings him joy.",
      "26": "A righteous person guides his neighbor,\nbut the way of the wicked leads them astray.",
      "27": "A lazy person does not roast his game,\nbut a diligent person uses his wealth wisely.",
      "28": "In the path of righteousness there is life,\nand there is no death in following this path."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "A wise son accepts his father’s discipline,\nbut a scornful son does not listen to a reprimand.",
      "2": "From the fruit of his mouth a person eats well,\nbut treacherous people have an appetite for violence.",
      "3": "Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life.\nWhoever opens his lips carelessly ruins himself.",
      "4": "The appetite of a lazy person craves things, but he gets nothing.\nThe appetite of hardworking people is fully satisfied.",
      "5": "A righteous person hates everything false,\nbut a wicked person causes disgrace and shame.",
      "6": "Righteousness guards a person who has integrity,\nbut wickedness perverts a sinner.",
      "7": "One person pretends to be rich but has nothing.\nAnother pretends to be poor but has great wealth.",
      "8": "A man’s riches may ransom his life,\nbut a poor man does not hear a threat.",
      "9": "The light of the righteous brings joy,\nbut the lamp of the wicked will be put out.",
      "10": "Insolence produces only strife,\nbut wisdom resides with those who take advice.",
      "11": "Wealth gained out of thin air shrinks,\nbut wealth accumulated by steady work grows.",
      "12": "Hope delayed makes a heart sick,\nbut a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.",
      "13": "The person who despises a word of instruction will pay the price,\nbut the person who respects a command will be rewarded.",
      "14": "The teaching of a wise person is a fountain of life.\nIt can turn someone away from the snares of death.",
      "15": "Good sense yields grace,\nbut the way of the treacherous is unchanging.",
      "16": "Every sensible person acts with knowledge,\nbut a fool displays stupidity.",
      "17": "A wicked messenger falls into trouble,\nbut a trustworthy envoy brings healing.",
      "18": "A person who ignores discipline ends up with poverty and shame,\nbut one who conforms to correction will be honored.",
      "19": "A desire that is fulfilled tastes sweet to the soul,\nbut to fools it is disgusting to turn from evil.",
      "20": "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,\nbut a companion of fools suffers harm.",
      "21": "Trouble pursues sinners,\nbut goodness repays the righteous.",
      "22": "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children,\nbut a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.",
      "23": "The farmland of the poor may produce much food,\nbut it may be swept away by injustice.",
      "24": "A person who withholds his rod hates his son,\nbut one who loves him administers discipline promptly.",
      "25": "A righteous person eats until his appetite is satisfied,\nbut the stomach of the wicked is always empty."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "A wise woman builds her house,\nbut a foolish one tears it down with her own hands.",
      "2": "Whoever walks in the right way fears the Lord,\nbut a person who is devious in his ways despises him.",
      "3": "In the mouth of a stubborn fool there is a proud rod,\nbut the lips of the wise protect them.",
      "4": "Without cattle the manger is empty,\nbut a great harvest is gained by the strength of an ox.",
      "5": "A faithful witness does not lie,\nbut a false witness breathes lies.",
      "6": "A scoffer seeks wisdom yet finds none,\nbut knowledge comes easily to a discerning person.",
      "7": "Keep away from a foolish person,\nsince you will not learn anything from his lips.",
      "8": "The wisdom of a sensible person is that he understands his way,\nbut the stupidity of fools is deceptive.",
      "9": "Fools scoff at the idea of guilt,\nbut favor is found among the upright.",
      "10": "A heart knows its own bitterness,\nand no stranger can share its joy.",
      "11": "The house of the wicked will be destroyed,\nbut the tent of the upright will thrive.",
      "12": "There is a way that seems right to a man,\nbut in the end it is the road to death.",
      "13": "Even in laughter a heart can ache,\nand the end of joy may be grief.",
      "14": "A backslider will be satisfied with his ways,\nand a good man will be satisfied with his.",
      "15": "A gullible person trusts anything,\nbut a sensible person considers his steps.",
      "16": "A wise person fears and turns from evil,\nbut a fool is rash and overconfident.",
      "17": "A short-tempered person acts foolishly,\nand a schemer is hated.",
      "18": "Gullible people inherit stupidity,\nbut sensible people embrace knowledge.",
      "19": "Evil people will bow down to good people,\nand wicked people will bow at the gates of the righteous.",
      "20": "A poor person is hated even by his neighbor,\nbut those who love a rich person are many.",
      "21": "A person who despises his neighbor is sinning,\nbut one who is kind to the oppressed is blessed.",
      "22": "Don’t those who plan evil go astray?\nBut those who plan to do good find mercy and truth.",
      "23": "In all hard work there is gain,\nbut empty talk leads only to poverty.",
      "24": "Their wealth is a crown for the wise,\nbut the stupidity of fools is just stupidity.",
      "25": "A truthful witness saves lives,\nbut a liar breathes deceit.",
      "26": "In the fear of the Lord a person gains strong confidence,\nand his children will have a refuge.",
      "27": "The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.\nIt turns a person away from the snares of death.",
      "28": "A large population brings glory to a king.\nWithout people a ruler is ruined.",
      "29": "A patient person has great understanding,\nbut an impatient person exalts foolishness.",
      "30": "A contented heart gives life to the flesh,\nbut envy rots the bones.",
      "31": "A person who oppresses the poor insults his Maker,\nbut one who is gracious to the needy honors him.",
      "32": "A wicked person is brought down by his own evil,\nbut a righteous person finds refuge even at his death.",
      "33": "Wisdom rests in the heart of the discerning.\nIt can be recognized even among fools.",
      "34": "Righteousness lifts up a nation,\nbut sin brings shame to a people.",
      "35": "A king favors a servant who acts wisely,\nbut he is furious with one who acts shamefully."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "A gentle answer turns away wrath,\nbut a harsh word stirs up anger.",
      "2": "The tongue of the wise enhances knowledge,\nbut the mouths of fools spout stupidity.",
      "3": "The eyes of the Lord are everywhere,\n    watching evil people as well as the good.",
      "4": "A healing tongue is a tree of life,\nbut a perverse tongue shatters the spirit.",
      "5": "A stubborn fool despises his father’s discipline,\nbut whoever heeds correction is sensible.",
      "6": "The house of the righteous contains great wealth,\nbut the income of the wicked brings trouble.",
      "7": "The lips of the wise spread knowledge,\nbut the heart of fools—not so.",
      "8": "A sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord,\nbut a prayer of the upright gains his favor.",
      "9": "The way of a wicked person is repulsive to the Lord,\nbut he loves those who pursue righteousness.",
      "10": "Harsh discipline waits for anyone who leaves the path,\nand a person who hates correction will die.",
      "11": "Death and Destruction lie open before the Lord—\nhow much more human hearts!",
      "12": "A scoffer does not love anyone who corrects him.\nHe will not go to wise people.",
      "13": "A joyful heart makes a cheerful face,\nbut a sorrowful heart crushes the spirit.",
      "14": "The heart of a discerning person seeks knowledge,\nbut the mouths of fools feed on stupidity.",
      "15": "All the days of an oppressed person are evil,\nbut a cheerful heart enjoys a continuous celebration.",
      "16": "Better a little with the fear of the Lord\n    than great wealth with turmoil.",
      "17": "Better a meal of vegetables where there is love\n    than a fattened calf with hatred.",
      "18": "A hothead stirs up a fight,\nbut a patient person calms a dispute.",
      "19": "The way of a lazy person is like a thorny hedge,\nbut the path of upright people is a highway.",
      "20": "A wise son brings joy to his father,\nbut a foolish person despises his mother.",
      "21": "Stupidity delights a person who lacks sense,\nbut one who has understanding stays on course.",
      "22": "Plans fail without advice,\nbut where there are many advisors they succeed.",
      "23": "Giving an apt response with his own mouth makes a person happy,\nand a word at the right time—oh how good!",
      "24": "The path of life leads upward for a person with insight,\nso that he may turn away from hell below.",
      "25": "The Lord tears down the house of the arrogant,\nbut he maintains the property line of a widow.",
      "26": "The plans of the wicked are disgusting to the Lord,\nbut pleasant words are pure to him.",
      "27": "Someone who is greedy for gain brings trouble to his own household,\nbut a person who hates bribes will live.",
      "28": "The heart of a righteous person ponders his answer,\nbut the mouth of a wicked person gushes evil.",
      "29": "The Lord is far away from the wicked,\nbut he hears the prayer of the righteous.",
      "30": "A twinkle in the eyes delights the heart,\nand good news gives health to the bones.",
      "31": "An ear that listens to a life-giving warning\n    will find a home among the wise.",
      "32": "A person who ignores discipline despises himself,\nbut a person who listens to a warning acquires good sense.",
      "33": "The fear of the Lord gives discipline and wisdom,\nand humility comes before honor."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "A person may have thought things through in his heart,\nbut an apt answer from his tongue comes from the Lord.",
      "2": "All of a person’s ways are pure in his own eyes,\nbut the Lord weighs motives.",
      "3": "Commit what you do to the Lord,\nand your plans will be established.",
      "4": "The Lord has made everything for his own purpose,\neven a wicked person for a day of trouble.",
      "5": "Anyone with an arrogant attitude is disgusting to the Lord.\nBe sure of this: That person will not go unpunished.",
      "6": "Through mercy and truth, guilt is atoned for,\nand through the fear of the Lord, one turns away from evil.",
      "7": "When the Lord is pleased with a man’s ways,\nhe causes even his enemies to live at peace with him.",
      "8": "Better a little with righteousness\n    than a large income without justice.",
      "9": "A person’s heart plans his way,\nbut the Lord makes his steps secure.",
      "10": "The king’s lips speak for God,\nso his mouth should not betray justice.",
      "11": "An accurate balance and scales belong to the Lord.\nHe has made all the weights in the bag.",
      "12": "It is disgusting for kings to commit wickedness,\nbecause a throne is established by righteousness.",
      "13": "Kings approve of righteous lips.\nThey love a person who speaks upright things.",
      "14": "The king’s anger is a messenger of death,\nbut a wise person can appease it.",
      "15": "There is life in the light from a king’s face,\nand his favor is like a cloud that brings spring rain.",
      "16": "How much better to acquire wisdom rather than gold,\nand to acquire understanding is more desirable than silver.",
      "17": "The highway followed by upright people turns away from evil.\nThe person who guards his way preserves his life.",
      "18": "Pride goes before destruction,\nand a haughty spirit precedes a fall.",
      "19": "Better to share a humble spirit with the oppressed\n    than to share stolen goods with the haughty.",
      "20": "Whoever gives careful consideration to a matter will succeed,\nand the person who trusts the Lord will be blessed.",
      "21": "A wise heart will be called discerning,\nand appealing speech increases learning.",
      "22": "Good sense is a fountain of life for the person who possesses it,\nbut the instruction given by stubborn fools is stupidity.",
      "23": "A wise heart produces edifying speech.\nIt makes a person’s lips more persuasive.",
      "24": "Pleasant speech is honey from a honeycomb,\nsweet to the spirit and healing for the bones.",
      "25": "There is a way that seems right to a man,\nbut it ends up being the road to death.",
      "26": "A laborer’s appetite labors for him,\nbecause the hunger of his mouth drives him on.",
      "27": "A worthless scoundrel constantly plots evil,\nand from his lips comes a scorching fire.",
      "28": "A perverse man spreads conflict,\nand a gossip separates intimate friends.",
      "29": "A violent man entices his neighbor.\nHe leads him on a way that is not good.",
      "30": "A person who squints his eyes is plotting something perverse.\nOne who purses his lips has completed some evil plot.",
      "31": "Gray hair is a beautiful crown.\nIt is found on the way to righteousness.",
      "32": "Better to be patient than to be a hero,\nbetter to control your temper than to capture a city.",
      "33": "Lots are cast into the pouch,\nbut the Lord determines all their decisions."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Better a piece of dry bread with peace\nthan a house full of feasting with quarreling.",
      "2": "A wise slave will rule over a shameful son.\nHe will share the inheritance with the brothers.",
      "3": "There is a crucible for refining silver and a smelter for gold.\nIn the same way the Lord examines hearts.",
      "4": "An evildoer pays attention to wicked lips.\nA liar feeds upon a destructive tongue.",
      "5": "Whoever mocks a poor person insults his Maker.\nA person who rejoices over calamity will not escape.",
      "6": "Grandchildren are a crown for the elderly,\nand parents are a source of pride for their children.",
      "7": "Eloquent lips are not fitting for a fool.\nHow much less lying lips for a ruler!",
      "8": "A bribe works like a charm for the person who gives it.\nWherever he turns, he prospers.",
      "9": "A person who covers an offense pursues love,\nbut one who repeats the matter separates friends.",
      "10": "A reprimand impresses a discerning person\n    more than receiving a hundred lashes impresses a fool.",
      "11": "An evil person promotes only rebellion,\nand a cruel messenger will be sent against him.",
      "12": "Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs\n    than to meet a fool in his stupidity.",
      "13": "A person who repays evil for good—\nevil will never leave his house.",
      "14": "Starting a quarrel is like opening a floodgate,\nso stop the dispute before it gets started.",
      "15": "Acquitting a guilty person\nand convicting an innocent person—\nboth of these are disgusting to the Lord.",
      "16": "Why hand a fool money to buy wisdom,\nsince he has no aptitude for using it?",
      "17": "A friend loves at all times,\nand a brother is born for a time of trouble.",
      "18": "A person without sense shakes hands\n    to guarantee a loan for his neighbor.",
      "19": "A person who loves sin loves conflict.\nA person who builds his gate high invites destruction.",
      "20": "A crooked mind does not find good.\nA perverted tongue will fall into disaster.",
      "21": "The man who fathers a fool has grief,\nand the father of an arrogant fool will have no joy.",
      "22": "A cheerful heart is good medicine,\nbut a crushed spirit dries up the bones.",
      "23": "A wicked person secretly accepts a bribe\nto pervert the ways of justice.",
      "24": "Wisdom is right in front of a discerning person,\nbut a fool’s eyes wander to the end of the earth.",
      "25": "A foolish son is an aggravation to his father\nand bitterness to the woman who bore him.",
      "26": "It is not good to impose a fine on a righteous person\nnor to flog officials because of their uprightness.",
      "27": "A person with knowledge restrains his words.\nA person with understanding is even-tempered.",
      "28": "Even a stubborn fool who keeps silent will be considered wise.\nHe is considered to be perceptive if he keeps his lips shut."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "A person who is a loner seeks his own desires.\nHe fights against all sound judgment.",
      "2": "A fool finds no pleasure in understanding,\nbut only in revealing his own opinions.",
      "3": "When a wicked person comes, contempt comes with him,\nand with dishonor comes disgrace.",
      "4": "The words from a man’s mouth are deep waters.\nThe fountain of wisdom is a flowing stream.",
      "5": "It is not good to show favoritism to a wicked person\n    in order to deprive a righteous person of justice.",
      "6": "A fool’s lips enter a fight,\nand his mouth invites a beating.",
      "7": "A fool’s mouth is his destruction,\nand his lips are a trap for his soul.",
      "8": "The words of a gossip are like delicious food.\nPeople gobble them right down.",
      "9": "A person who fails to do his work\n    is a brother to a vandal.",
      "10": "The name of the Lord is a strong tower.\nA righteous person runs inside and is protected.",
      "11": "A rich person’s wealth is his strong city.\nIn his imagination it is like a high wall.",
      "12": "Before destruction a man’s heart is proud,\nbut humility comes before honor.",
      "13": "If a person answers before he listens,\nthat is foolishness that brings disgrace.",
      "14": "A man’s spirit can endure illness,\nbut who can bear a broken spirit?",
      "15": "A discerning heart acquires knowledge,\nand the ears of the wise seek knowledge.",
      "16": "A person’s gift opens doors for him.\nIt leads him into the presence of great people.",
      "17": "The first person to state his case appears to be right.\nThen his neighbor comes and cross-examines him.",
      "18": "Casting lots ends disputes and decides between powerful people.",
      "19": "A brother who has been wronged is harder to regain than a strong city,\nand disputes are like a bar across the gate of a citadel.",
      "20": "From the fruit of a man’s mouth, his stomach is satisfied.\nHe is satisfied with the harvest of his lips.",
      "21": "Life and death lie in the power of a tongue,\nand those who love to use it will eat its fruit.",
      "22": "The man who finds a wife finds a good thing,\nand he obtains favor from the Lord.",
      "23": "A poor man pleads for mercy,\nbut a rich man answers harshly.",
      "24": "A man with many acquaintances may suffer harm,\nbut there is a loving friend who sticks closer than a brother."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Better to be a poor person who walks in his integrity\nthan one with perverse lips who is a fool.",
      "2": "Zeal without knowledge is certainly not good,\nand a person who acts hastily sins.",
      "3": "A person’s own foolishness undermines his way,\nbut his heart rages against the Lord.",
      "4": "Wealth adds many friends,\nbut a poor person is deserted by his friend.",
      "5": "A false witness will not go unpunished.\nHe breathes lies and will not escape.",
      "6": "Many seek the goodwill of a ruler,\nand everyone is a friend to a person who gives gifts.",
      "7": "A poor person’s brothers all hate him.\nEven his friends keep their distance from him!\nThough he pursues them with words, they are not there.",
      "8": "A person who acquires intelligence loves his life.\nA person who guards understanding finds a good thing.",
      "9": "A false witness will not go unpunished.\nHe breathes lies, and he will perish.",
      "10": "A life of luxury is not appropriate for a fool.\nHow much less appropriate for a slave to rule over princes.",
      "11": "Good sense makes a person slow to anger,\nand it is to his credit when he overlooks an offense.",
      "12": "The king’s anger is like a lion’s growl,\nbut his favor is refreshing like dew on the grass.",
      "13": "A foolish son is a disaster to his father,\nand a nagging wife is like constantly dripping water.",
      "14": "Home and wealth are an inheritance from fathers,\nbut a wife with good sense is from the Lord.",
      "15": "Laziness makes a person fall into a deep sleep,\nand an idle person will go hungry.",
      "16": "A person who keeps a command preserves his life.\nOne who despises his ways will die.",
      "17": "A person who is gracious to the poor lends to the Lord.\nHe will repay him in full.",
      "18": "Discipline your son while there is hope.\nDo not make yourself responsible for his death.",
      "19": "Someone who has a lot of anger pays the penalty.\nIf you rescue him, you will have to do it again.",
      "20": "Listen to advice and accept discipline,\nso that you will be wise in the future.",
      "21": "There are many plans in a man’s heart,\nbut it is the Lord’s purpose that will prevail.",
      "22": "A desirable trait in a person is loyalty.\nIt is better to be poor than a liar.",
      "23": "The fear of the Lord leads to life.\nOne who has it rests content.\nHe will not be disturbed by trouble.",
      "24": "A lazy person buries his hand in the dish,\nbut he does not even bring the food up to his mouth.",
      "25": "Strike a scoffer, and an undisciplined person may learn caution.\nWarn a person with understanding, and he will gain knowledge.",
      "26": "A son who attacks his father and chases away his mother\nbrings shame and disgrace.",
      "27": "If you stop listening to discipline, my son,\nyou will stray from the sayings that give knowledge.",
      "28": "A malicious witness mocks justice,\nand the mouth of the wicked swallows evil.",
      "29": "Punishments have been prepared for scoffers\nand beatings for the backs of fools."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Wine is a mocker, and beer is a brawler.\nWhoever is intoxicated by them is not wise.",
      "2": "The king’s rage is like a lion’s growl.\nWhoever intrudes on him endangers his life.",
      "3": "Avoiding strife brings honor to a man,\nbut every stubborn fool is always fighting.",
      "4": "A lazy person fails to plow when it is the season for planting.\nHe expects something in the harvest, but nothing will be there.",
      "5": "The intentions in a person’s heart are deep water,\nbut a person with understanding can draw them out.",
      "6": "Many people claim to be loyal,\nbut who can find a trustworthy man?",
      "7": "A righteous person walks in his integrity.\nHow blessed are his children after him!",
      "8": "When a king sits on his throne as judge,\nhe winnows out all evil with his eyes.",
      "9": "Who can say, “I have purified my heart.\nI am cleansed from my sinfulness”?",
      "10": "Differing weights and differing measures—\nboth of them are disgusting to the Lord.",
      "11": "Even a youth makes himself known by his acts,\nby whether his conduct is pure and upright.",
      "12": "An ear that hears and an eye that sees—\nthe Lord has made both of them.",
      "13": "Do not love sleep, or you will become poor.\nKeep your eyes open, and you will have enough to eat.",
      "14": "“It’s no good! It’s no good!” says the buyer,\nbut then he goes away and brags.",
      "15": "There is gold, and there are many gems,\nbut lips that have knowledge are a precious vessel.",
      "16": "Take the garment from someone who guarantees a loan for a stranger.\nHold on to it when he offers it as collateral for a foreigner.",
      "17": "Food gained dishonestly tastes sweet to a person,\nbut afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel.",
      "18": "Plans are strengthened by obtaining advice,\nso do not wage war without consultation.",
      "19": "A person who goes around spreading gossip reveals secrets,\nso do not associate with anyone whose lips are always open.",
      "20": "The person who curses his father and his mother—\nhis lamp will be snuffed out in total darkness.",
      "21": "An inheritance easily obtained in the beginning\n    will not be blessed in the end.",
      "22": "Do not say, “I’ll get even with you!”\nWait for the Lord, and he will rescue you.",
      "23": "Differing weights are disgusting to the Lord,\nand dishonest scales are not good.",
      "24": "The steps a man takes come from the Lord,\nso how can anyone understand his own way?",
      "25": "A person falls into a trap if he pledges something to God impulsively\nand considers his pledge only later.",
      "26": "A wise king winnows out the wicked.\nHe rolls the threshing wheel over them.",
      "27": "A man’s spirit is the lamp of the Lord.\nIt illuminates the depths of his heart.",
      "28": "Mercy and truth protect a king,\nand he maintains his throne with mercy.",
      "29": "The splendor of young men is their strength,\nbut the majesty of old men is their gray hair.",
      "30": "Wounds and bruises scrub away evil,\nand a beating scrubs the depths of the heart."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "A king’s heart is like streams of water in the hand of the Lord.\nHe directs it wherever he desires.",
      "2": "In a person’s own eyes all his ways are right,\nbut the Lord weighs the motives of the heart.",
      "3": "Practicing righteousness and justice\n    is more acceptable to the Lord than a sacrifice.",
      "4": "Haughty eyes and an arrogant heart,\nthe unplowed field of the wicked, produce sin.",
      "5": "The plans of a hard worker lead to abundance,\nbut everyone in a hurry rushes toward scarcity.",
      "6": "Piling up treasure by a lying tongue\n    is a vanishing vapor for those who seek death.",
      "7": "The violence of the wicked will drag them away,\nbecause they refuse to do what is just.",
      "8": "A guilty person’s way is very crooked,\nbut the conduct of a pure person is straight.",
      "9": "Better to live on the corner of a roof\n    than in a house shared with a nagging wife.",
      "10": "The soul of a wicked person craves evil.\nHe does not look on his neighbor with mercy.",
      "11": "When a scoffer is punished, an undisciplined person becomes wise,\nand when a wise person is instructed, he gains knowledge.",
      "12": "The Righteous One carefully watches the house of the wicked.\nHe throws the wicked down to ruin.",
      "13": "Whoever shuts his ear to the cries of the poor—\nhe too will cry out and not be answered.",
      "14": "A gift given in secret soothes anger,\nand a bribe slipped into the pocket soothes fury.",
      "15": "It is a joy for a righteous person to practice justice,\nbut destruction waits for those who practice evil.",
      "16": "A person who wanders from the way of understanding\n    will rest in the company of departed spirits.",
      "17": "Whoever loves pleasure will be poor.\nWhoever loves wine and olive oil will never be rich.",
      "18": "The wicked become a ransom for the righteous,\nand the treacherous make a payment for the upright.",
      "19": "Better to live in an arid region\n    than with a nagging, ill-tempered wife.",
      "20": "Good food and olive oil are stored up in the dwellings of the wise,\nbut a foolish person devours everything he has.",
      "21": "A person who pursues righteousness and mercy\n    will find life, righteousness, and honor.",
      "22": "A wise man can climb up to a city full of warriors\nand pull down the strong defenses in which they trust.",
      "23": "The person who guards his mouth and his tongue\n    guards himself from troubles.",
      "24": "The contemptuous, insolent person—“Scoffer” is his name—\n    behaves with overflowing arrogance.",
      "25": "A lazy person’s craving will kill him,\nbecause his hands refuse to work.",
      "26": "All day long he craves something more,\nbut a righteous person gives and does not hold back.",
      "27": "A sacrifice offered by wicked people is an abomination.\nHow much more when they bring it with evil intent!",
      "28": "A lying witness will perish,\nbut a man who listens will keep speaking forever.",
      "29": "A wicked person puts on a bold front,\nbut an upright person gives thought to his way.",
      "30": "There is no wisdom, no cleverness, and no advice\n    that can stand up against the Lord.",
      "31": "A horse is made ready for a day of battle,\nbut the victory belongs to the Lord."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "A good name is worth more than great wealth.\nRespect is worth more than silver and gold.",
      "2": "Rich and poor have this in common:\nThe Lord is the maker of them all.",
      "3": "A sensible person sees trouble and hides,\nbut the naïve keep going and pay the penalty.",
      "4": "The outcome of humility and of the fear of the Lord\n    is wealth, honor, and life.",
      "5": "Thorns and traps are on the road followed by the crooked.\nWhoever guards his soul will stay far away from them.",
      "6": "Dedicate a child to the way he should go,\nand even when he becomes old, he will not turn away from it.",
      "7": "A rich person rules over poor people,\nand a borrower is a slave to a lender.",
      "8": "Whoever sows injustice reaps trouble,\nand the rod that inflicts his fury will be destroyed.",
      "9": "A generous person will be blessed,\nbecause he gives some of his food to the poor.",
      "10": "Drive away a scoffer, and conflict leaves.\nQuarrels and insults cease.",
      "11": "A person who loves a pure heart and whose lips are gracious\n    will have a king as his friend.",
      "12": "The eyes of the Lord watch over knowledge.\nHe overturns the words of a treacherous person.",
      "13": "A lazy person says, “There’s a lion outside!\nI’ll be murdered in the streets!”",
      "14": "The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit.\nThe man who is under the Lord’s wrath will fall there.",
      "15": "Foolishness is bound tightly to a child’s heart.\nA rod of discipline will drive it far from him.",
      "16": "Whoever oppresses the poor to become great,\nand whoever gives gifts to the rich—\nboth are sure to suffer loss.",
      "17": "Open your ears and listen to the words of the wise,\nand set your heart on the knowledge that I offer,",
      "18": "for it is pleasant when you keep my words deep within you,\nand you have them ready on your lips.",
      "19": "Today I make my words known to you—yes, to you,\nso that your trust will be in the Lord.",
      "20": "Have I not written to you already with advice and knowledge,",
      "21": "in order to make accurate, true words known to you,\nso that you may reply with true words to those who sent you?",
      "22": "Do not rob a poor person because he is poor,\nand do not crush an oppressed person in court,",
      "23": "because the Lord will defend their cause,\nand he will rob those who rob them of their lives.",
      "24": "Do not be friends with a hothead.\nDo not go along with someone who has a hot temper.",
      "25": "If you do, you will learn his ways\nand set a trap for yourself.",
      "26": "Do not be among those who shake hands to guarantee debts.",
      "27": "If you do not have enough to repay,\nwhy should your bed be taken out from under you?",
      "28": "Do not move an ancient boundary marker\n    that your ancestors made.",
      "29": "Do you see a person who is efficient in his work?\nHe will serve kings.\nHe will not serve nobodies."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "When you sit down to eat with a ruler,\npay close attention to what is put in front of you,",
      "2": "and put a knife to your throat if you have a big appetite.",
      "3": "Do not crave his delicious food.\nThat food is deceptive.",
      "4": "Do not wear yourself out getting rich.\nHave the good judgment to know when to stop.",
      "5": "Will your eyes get a glimpse of wealth before it is gone?\nNo, it will sprout wings for itself.\nLike an eagle it will fly away into the sky.",
      "6": "Do not eat the food of a miser.\nDo not crave his delicious food,",
      "7": "because he is calculating how much things cost him.\nSo when he says to you, “Eat and drink,”\nhe does not mean it.",
      "8": "You will vomit up the little bit you ate\nand spoil your pleasant conversation.",
      "9": "Do not speak within earshot of a fool,\nbecause he will despise your sensible words.",
      "10": "Do not move an ancient boundary marker,\nand do not enter the fields of the fatherless,",
      "11": "because their Redeemer is strong.\nHe will defend their cause against you.",
      "12": "Apply your heart to discipline\nand your ear to words that give knowledge.",
      "13": "Do not withhold discipline from a child,\nfor if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.",
      "14": "Strike him yourself with a rod,\nand you will rescue his soul from death.",
      "15": "My son, if your mind is wise,\nmy mind will rejoice as well.",
      "16": "My heart will celebrate\nwhen your lips speak upright things.",
      "17": "Do not allow your heart to envy sinners.\nInstead, always fear the Lord.",
      "18": "Indeed, there is a future,\nand your hope will never be cut off.",
      "19": "Listen, my son, and be wise,\nand keep your heart on the straight way.",
      "20": "Do not be among those who drink too much wine,\nor those who eat too much meat,",
      "21": "because a drunk and a glutton will become poor,\nand drunken stupor dresses a person in rags.",
      "22": "Listen to your father, who gave you life,\nand do not despise your mother when she is old.",
      "23": "Buy truth and do not sell it.\nBuy wisdom, discipline, and knowledge.",
      "24": "The father of a righteous child will celebrate greatly.\nOne who fathers a wise son will find joy in him.",
      "25": "Your father and your mother will find joy,\nand she who gave birth to you will celebrate.",
      "26": "My son, give me your heart,\nand let your eyes be pleased with my ways,",
      "27": "because a prostitute is a deep pit,\nand an immoral woman is a narrow well.",
      "28": "She is also like a robber waiting to ambush someone,\nand she multiplies unfaithful men among the people.",
      "29": "Who has trouble? Who has misery?\nWho has quarrels? Who has complaints?\nWho has wounds for no reason? Who has glazed eyes?",
      "30": "Those who linger over wine,\nthose who go to search for mixed wine.",
      "31": "Do not look at wine when it is red,\nwhen it sparkles in the cup,\nwhen it goes down smoothly.",
      "32": "Later it bites like a snake,\nand it strikes like a venomous viper.",
      "33": "Your eyes will see strange things,\nand your mind will say senseless things.",
      "34": "You will be like someone who tries to sleep in the middle of the sea,\nlike someone who tries to sleep at the top of a ship’s mast.",
      "35": "“They struck me, but I felt no pain.\nThey beat me, but I was not aware of it.\nWhen will I wake up, so that I can try it again?”"
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "Do not envy evil people,\nand do not wish to be with them,",
      "2": "because their hearts plan violence,\nand their lips speak trouble.",
      "3": "With wisdom a house is built.\nWith understanding it is established.",
      "4": "With knowledge its rooms are filled with every kind of riches,\nboth valuable and appealing.",
      "5": "A wise person grows strong,\nand a knowledgeable man becomes more powerful,",
      "6": "because advice prepares you for battle,\nand many advisors bring victory.",
      "7": "Wise decisions are out of reach for a stubborn fool.\nIn court he cannot open his mouth.",
      "8": "Whoever plans evil will be called a master schemer.",
      "9": "A foolish scheme is a sin,\nand a mocker is disgusting to people.",
      "10": "If you fail to act in the day of trouble,\nyour strength is too little.",
      "11": "Rescue captives condemned to death,\nand spare those staggering toward slaughter.",
      "12": "If you say, “We did not know about this,”\nwon’t the one who weighs motives notice?\nWon’t the one who guards your life know about it,\nand won’t he repay people according to what each one has done?",
      "13": "My son, eat honey, because it is good.\nFlowing honey is sweet on your palate.",
      "14": "Know also that wisdom is sweet for your soul.\nIf you find it, then there is a future for you,\nand your hope will never be cut off.",
      "15": "Do not be like the wicked who attack the home of the righteous.\nDo not destroy his resting place,",
      "16": "because a righteous person may fall seven times, but he will get up,\nwhile wicked people will stumble into misfortune.",
      "17": "Do not be happy when your enemy falls.\nDo not let your heart celebrate when he stumbles.",
      "18": "If you do, the Lord will see it and consider it evil,\nand he will turn his anger away from him.",
      "19": "Do not fret about evildoers.\nDo not be jealous of wicked people,",
      "20": "because an evil person has no future.\nThe lamp of the wicked will be put out.",
      "21": "Fear the Lord, my son, and also the king.\nDo not associate with those who are rebellious,",
      "22": "because their disaster will take place suddenly.\nWho knows what ruin the Lord and the king will cause?",
      "23": "These sayings also are by the wise:\nTo show partiality when administering justice is not good.",
      "24": "If anyone says to a guilty person, “You are innocent,”\npeople will curse him. Nations will denounce him.",
      "25": "However, it will be pleasant for those who convict the guilty.\nA wonderful blessing will come upon them.",
      "26": "Someone who gives a straight answer gives a kiss on the lips.",
      "27": "Prepare your work outside,\nand get things ready for yourself in the fields.\nAfterward, build your house.",
      "28": "Do not be a witness against your neighbor without cause.\nDo not practice deception with your lips.",
      "29": "Do not think, “I will do to him what he did to me.\nI will pay the man back for what he did.”",
      "30": "I passed by a lazy man’s field\nand by a vineyard that belonged to a senseless man.",
      "31": "It was overgrown with thistles\nand covered with weeds.\nIts stone wall was broken down.",
      "32": "When I saw this, I took it to heart.\nI observed and learned a lesson:",
      "33": "A little sleep, a little slumber,\na little folding of the hands to rest—",
      "34": "and poverty will come on you like a prowler,\nand scarcity will come like a warrior."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "These also are the proverbs of Solomon,\nwhich the men of King Hezekiah of Judah compiled.",
      "2": "It brings glory to God to hide a matter,\nbut it brings glory to kings to investigate a matter.",
      "3": "As heaven is high and earth is deep,\nso there is no searching the heart of kings.",
      "4": "Remove impurities from silver,\nand a vessel can be cast by a silversmith.",
      "5": "Remove a wicked person from a king’s presence,\nand his throne will be established with righteousness.",
      "6": "Do not honor yourself in a king’s presence.\nDo not stand in a place reserved for great people,",
      "7": "because it is better to be told, “Come up here,”\nthan for you to be humiliated before a ruler\n    whom your eyes have seen.",
      "8": "Do not be in a hurry to go to court.\nOtherwise, what will you do afterward,\nwhen your neighbor humiliates you?",
      "9": "Argue your case with your neighbor,\nbut do not reveal someone else’s secret.",
      "10": "If you do, the person who hears it will shame you,\nand your bad reputation will never leave you.",
      "11": "A word spoken at the right time\n    is like golden apples in silver settings.",
      "12": "To ears that listen, a wise person’s correction\n    is like a gold ring or like jewelry made of pure gold.",
      "13": "To those who send him, a trustworthy messenger\n    is like cooling snow on a warm day during harvest.\nHe refreshes his masters’ spirits.",
      "14": "A person who brags about a gift that is never given\n    is like clouds and wind that bring no rain.",
      "15": "By patience a ruler can be persuaded,\nand a soft tongue can break a bone.",
      "16": "When you find honey, eat only what you need.\nOtherwise you will be filled with it and vomit it up.",
      "17": "Do not set foot in your neighbor’s house too often.\nIf you do, he will have too much of you and hate you.",
      "18": "A person who gives false testimony against his neighbor\n    is a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow.",
      "19": "Confidence in an unfaithful person during a time of crisis\n    is like a broken tooth or a lame foot.",
      "20": "Singing songs to a despondent heart\n    is like taking off a coat on a cold day\n    or like vinegar on baking soda.",
      "21": "If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat.\nIf he is thirsty, give him something to drink,",
      "22": "because you will heap burning coals on his head,\nand the Lord will repay you.",
      "23": "A north wind gives birth to rain,\nand a whispering tongue gives birth to angry faces.",
      "24": "Better to live on the corner of a roof\nthan in a home shared with a nagging wife.",
      "25": "Good news from a distant country is\nlike cold water for a weary soul.",
      "26": "A righteous person who is swayed by the wicked\nis a muddied spring or a polluted fountain.",
      "27": "Eating too much honey is not good,\nand people seeking their own glory is not glorious.",
      "28": "A person who lacks self-control\nis like a broken-down city without a wall."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "Like snow during summer and rain during the harvest,\nso honor is not appropriate for a fool.",
      "2": "Like a migrating bird or a flying swallow,\nso an undeserved curse does not come to rest.",
      "3": "A whip is for horses, a bridle for donkeys,\nand a rod for the backs of fools.",
      "4": "Do not answer a fool according to his folly.\nIf you do, you yourself will become like him.",
      "5": "Answer a fool according to his folly.\nIf you do not, he will consider himself wise.",
      "6": "It is like cutting off your own feet or drinking violence\nwhen a person sends messages in the hand of a fool.",
      "7": "The legs of a lame person dangle.\nSo does a proverb in the mouth of fools.",
      "8": "Giving honor to a fool is\n    like tying a stone in a slingshot.",
      "9": "A proverb in the mouth of a fool\n    is like a thorn in a drunkard’s hand.",
      "10": "One who hires a fool or someone just passing by\n    is like an archer who wounds at random.",
      "11": "As a dog returns to his vomit,\nso a fool repeats his stupidity.",
      "12": "Have you seen a person who is wise in his own eyes?\nThere is more hope for a fool than for him.",
      "13": "A lazy person says, “There’s a ferocious lion in the street.\nThere’s a lion in the public square!”",
      "14": "A door turns on its hinges,\nand a lazy person turns on his bed.",
      "15": "A lazy person buries his hand in a dish,\nbut he is too tired to return it to his mouth.",
      "16": "A lazy person considers himself wiser\nthan seven people who answer sensibly.",
      "17": "A passerby who meddles in a quarrel that is not his\nis like a person who grabs a dog by the ears.",
      "18": "A person who deceives his neighbor and then says, “I was only joking,”",
      "19": "is like a madman who shoots firebrands and deadly arrows.",
      "20": "When there is no more wood, a fire goes out,\nand without gossip, a quarrel dies down.",
      "21": "As charcoal is to hot embers and as wood is to fire,\nso a quarrelsome person is to igniting a fight.",
      "22": "Words of a gossip are like food that is easy to swallow.\nThey go down to the depths of one’s heart.",
      "23": "Fervent lips and an evil heart\nare like a glaze covering a clay pot.",
      "24": "With his lips a person hides his hatred,\nbut he hides deceit inside.",
      "25": "When his voice sounds gracious, do not believe him,\nbecause seven abominations are in his heart.",
      "26": "His hatred covers itself with deceit,\nbut his evil will be revealed in the assembly.",
      "27": "The person who digs a pit will fall into it.\nThe person who rolls away a stone—it will roll back over him.",
      "28": "A lying tongue hates those it crushes,\nand a smooth mouth causes ruin."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "Do not boast about tomorrow,\nbecause you do not know what a day may produce.",
      "2": "Let someone else praise you, not your own mouth—\na stranger, not your own lips.",
      "3": "A stone is heavy and sand is a burden,\nbut aggravation from a stubborn fool is heavier than both.",
      "4": "Cruel wrath and a flood of anger are devastating,\nbut who can stand up against jealousy?",
      "5": "Open correction is better than concealed love.",
      "6": "Wounds from someone who loves you can be trusted,\nbut the kisses of someone who hates you are too much.",
      "7": "A satisfied appetite refuses honey,\nbut to a hungry appetite, everything bitter tastes sweet.",
      "8": "A person who wanders from his place\n    is like a bird that wanders from its nest.",
      "9": "Olive oil and incense bring joy to a heart,\nand the sweetness of a friend comes from his sincere advice.",
      "10": "Do not abandon your friend or your father’s friend,\nand do not go to your brother’s house when disaster strikes you.\nA neighbor who is near is better than a brother who is far away.",
      "11": "Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart,\nso that I may answer anyone who taunts me.",
      "12": "A sensible person sees trouble and hides,\nbut naïve people keep going and pay the penalty.",
      "13": "Take the garment of someone who guarantees a loan for a stranger.\nKeep it when someone pledges it on behalf of an immoral woman.",
      "14": "When someone blesses his neighbor in a loud voice early in the morning,\n    it will be regarded as a curse.",
      "15": "Constantly dripping water on a rainy day\nand a nagging wife are alike.",
      "16": "Trying to hold her back is like holding back the wind,\nlike grasping oil with your right hand.",
      "17": "Iron sharpens iron,\nand a man sharpens the insight of his friend.",
      "18": "A person who tends a fig tree eats its fruit,\nand a person who takes care of his master will be honored.",
      "19": "As water reflects a person’s face,\nso a person’s heart reflects the person.",
      "20": "Death and Destruction are never satisfied,\nand a person’s eyes are never satisfied.",
      "21": "A crucible is for refining silver and a smelter is for gold,\nand a person is tested by his praise.",
      "22": "Even if you grind a stubborn fool\n    like grain with a mortar and pestle,\nhis stupidity will not leave him.",
      "23": "Be certain that you know the condition of your flock very well.\nPay attention to your herds,",
      "24": "because wealth is not forever,\nnor does a crown pass from generation to generation.",
      "25": "The hay is removed and new growth appears,\nand grass from the mountains is gathered in.",
      "26": "Lambs provide wool for your clothing,\nand the price of the field can be earned from the goats.",
      "27": "What’s more, there will be enough goats’ milk for your food,\nfor your household’s food,\nand to maintain the life of your servant girls."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "The wicked flee even though no one is pursuing them,\nbut the righteous are bold like a lion.",
      "2": "A rebellious land has many rulers,\nbut one man with understanding and knowledge provides stability.",
      "3": "A poor man who oppresses the poor\n    is a driving rain that leaves no food.",
      "4": "Those who abandon the law praise the wicked,\nbut those who keep the law oppose them.",
      "5": "Evil men do not understand justice,\nbut those who seek the Lord understand everything.",
      "6": "Better a poor person who walks in his integrity\n    than a rich person who is hypocritical.",
      "7": "The son who keeps the law has understanding,\nbut a companion of gluttons brings shame upon his father.",
      "8": "A person who increases his wealth by piling up interest\n    gathers it for someone who is generous to the needy.",
      "9": "A person who turns his ear away from the law—\n    even his prayer is an abomination.",
      "10": "A person who leads the upright along an evil way\nwill fall into his own pit,\nbut people of integrity will inherit good.",
      "11": "A wealthy person is wise in his own eyes,\nbut a needy person with understanding will expose him.",
      "12": "When the righteous triumph, there is much celebration,\nbut when the wicked rise to power, people hide.",
      "13": "A person who conceals his sins will not prosper,\nbut one who confesses and abandons them will receive mercy.",
      "14": "Blessed is the person who always is afraid of sin,\nbut one who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.",
      "15": "A wicked ruler over a poor people\n    is a growling lion or a charging bear.",
      "16": "When a ruler lacks understanding, there will be much oppression,\nbut one who hates ill-gotten gain prolongs his days.",
      "17": "A person haunted by the guilt of bloodshed\n    will be a fugitive until he goes down to the pit.\nNo one should offer him support.",
      "18": "A person who walks with integrity will be saved,\nbut a person whose ways are crooked will fall all at once.",
      "19": "A person who works his land will have plenty of food,\nbut whoever pursues fantasies will have plenty of poverty.",
      "20": "A trustworthy person has many blessings,\nbut a person in a hurry to get rich will not go unpunished.",
      "21": "Showing favoritism is not good,\nbut a man may sin for a piece of bread.",
      "22": "A tightfisted person is in a hurry to get rich,\nbut he does not know that poverty is coming his way.",
      "23": "In the end a person who corrects someone will find more favor\n    than a person with a flattering tongue.",
      "24": "A person who robs his father and his mother\nand says, “It’s not a sin,” is no better than a vandal.",
      "25": "A greedy person stirs up strife,\nbut a person who trusts in the Lord will prosper.",
      "26": "A person who trusts in his own ideas is a fool,\nbut a person who walks in wisdom will be kept safe.",
      "27": "A person who gives to the poor will lack nothing,\nbut a person who closes his eyes to them will receive many curses.",
      "28": "When the wicked rise to power, people go into hiding,\nbut when the wicked perish, the righteous increase."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "A person who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes\n    will be broken suddenly, and there will be no cure.",
      "2": "When the righteous increase, the people rejoice,\nbut when a wicked man rules, the people groan.",
      "3": "A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father,\nbut one who visits prostitutes destroys his wealth.",
      "4": "A king brings stability to a land by justice,\nbut one who accepts bribes tears it down.",
      "5": "A man who flatters his neighbor\n    is spreading a net for his steps.",
      "6": "An evil man sets a trap with his sin,\nbut a righteous person sings and rejoices.",
      "7": "A righteous person acknowledges the rights of the poor,\nbut a wicked person does not understand such knowledge.",
      "8": "Scoffers stir up a city,\nbut wise people turn away anger.",
      "9": "When a wise person seeks justice from a stubborn fool,\nthe fool rants and laughs, and there is no peace.",
      "10": "Bloodthirsty people hate anyone with integrity,\nbut upright people seek to save his life.",
      "11": "A fool vents all his emotions,\nbut a wise person calmly restrains them.",
      "12": "If a ruler listens to lies,\nall his officials become wicked.",
      "13": "A poor person and an oppressor have this in common:\nThe Lord gives light to the eyes of both.",
      "14": "If a king judges poor people with truth,\nhis throne will be established permanently.",
      "15": "A rod used for discipline gives wisdom,\nbut an undisciplined child disgraces his mother.",
      "16": "When the wicked increase, sin increases,\nbut the righteous will see their downfall.",
      "17": "Discipline your son, and he will give you rest.\nHe will give delight to your soul.",
      "18": "Without prophetic vision, a people is unrestrained,\nbut a people which follows the law is blessed.",
      "19": "A servant cannot be disciplined with words.\nAlthough he understands, he shows no response.",
      "20": "Have you seen a person who is hasty with his words?\nThere is more hope for a fool than for him.",
      "21": "If someone pampers his servant from the time he is young,\nlater on he will have grief.",
      "22": "A hothead stirs up a fight,\nand a quick-tempered person commits many sins.",
      "23": "A person’s arrogance will humble him,\nbut a humble spirit will attain honor.",
      "24": "The partner of a thief hates his own life.\nHe hears the oath, but he does not reveal anything.",
      "25": "Being afraid of a man sets a trap,\nbut a person who trusts in the Lord will be secure.",
      "26": "Many people seek a ruler’s favor,\nbut a person gets justice from the Lord.",
      "27": "An unjust person is disgusting to righteous people,\nbut one whose way is upright is disgusting to the wicked."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "The words of Agur son of Jakeh. An oracle.\nThis man declares:\nI am weary, God. I am weary, God, and worn out,",
      "2": "because I am too unreasoning to be a man.\nI do not even possess human understanding.",
      "3": "I have not learned wisdom.\nI do not have knowledge of the Holy One.",
      "4": "Who has gone up to heaven and come down?\nWho has gathered the wind in the palms of his hands?\nWho has wrapped the water in a garment?\nWho has set up all the ends of the earth?\nWhat is his name and the name of his son?\nTell me if you know!",
      "5": "Every word of God has been refined.\nHe is a shield to those who take refuge in him.",
      "6": "Do not add to his words.\nIf you do, he will correct you,\nand you will be shown to be a liar.",
      "7": "Two things I have asked from you.\nDo not keep them from me before I die:",
      "8": "Keep worthless speech and lies far from me.\nDo not give me poverty or riches.\nGive me food in the amount that is right for me.",
      "9": "Too much, and I may feel satisfied and deny you\nand say, “Who is the Lord?”\nToo little, and I may become poor and steal\nand profane the name of my God.",
      "10": "Do not slander a servant to his master.\nIf you do, he will curse you,\nand you will be found guilty.",
      "11": "There is a type of person who curses his father\nand does not bless his mother.",
      "12": "This person is pure in his own eyes,\nbut he is not washed from his filth.",
      "13": "This person—how lofty his eyes, how high his eyelids!",
      "14": "This person—his teeth are swords,\nand his fangs are knives.\nHe uses them to devour oppressed people from the earth\nand poor people from among humanity.",
      "15": "The leech has two daughters: Give! Give!\nThree things are never satisfied.\nFour never say, “Enough!”:",
      "16": "the grave,\n    a closed womb,\n    land that is never satisfied with water,\n    and fire that never says, “Enough!”",
      "17": "An eye that mocks its father\nand despises the obedience due its mother—\nravens of the valley will peck it out,\nand young vultures will eat it.",
      "18": "Three things are too wonderful for me,\nand four I cannot understand:",
      "19": "the way of an eagle in the sky,\n    the way of a snake on a rock,\n    the way of a ship on the high seas,\n    and the way of a man with a virgin.",
      "20": "This is the way of a woman who commits adultery:\nShe eats and wipes her mouth,\nand she says, “I haven’t done anything wrong.”",
      "21": "Three things make the earth tremble.\nThere are four things it cannot endure:",
      "22": "a servant when he becomes king,\n    an arrogant fool when he is filled with food,",
      "23": "a woman who is hated when she is married,\n    and a slave girl when she replaces her master’s wife.",
      "24": "Four things are small on the earth,\nyet they are wiser than the wisest people:",
      "25": "Ants are a species without strength,\n    but they store their food in summer.",
      "26": "Rock badgers are a species without power,\n    but they make their home in a cliff.",
      "27": "Locusts have no king,\n    but they all march ahead in ranks.",
      "28": "Lizards can be caught in your hands,\n    but they live in kings’ palaces.",
      "29": "Three things strut impressively.\nFour walk with dignity:",
      "30": "a lion, which is the mightiest among the animals,\n    does not turn away from anything,",
      "31": "a strutting rooster,\n    a male goat,\n    and a king reviewing his troops.",
      "32": "If you have acted like a fool by exalting yourself,\nor if you have been scheming,\nput your hand over your mouth,",
      "33": "because just as pressing milk produces cheese,\nand pressing a nose brings forth blood,\nso pressing one’s anger produces a fight."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "The words of Lemuel, a king.\nAn oracle that his mother used, to teach him discipline:",
      "2": "What are you doing, my son!\nWhat are you doing, son from my womb!\nWhat are you doing, son of my vows!",
      "3": "Do not give your strength to women.\nDo not give your ways to those who destroy kings.",
      "4": "It is not for kings, Lemuel,\nit is not for kings to drink wine,\nnor for rulers to crave beer.",
      "5": "If he does, he will drink and forget what is decreed.\nHe will change the legal rights of all the oppressed.",
      "6": "Give beer to someone who is perishing\nand wine to one whose soul is bitter.",
      "7": "He will drink and forget his poverty,\nand he will no longer remember his trouble.",
      "8": "Speak up for those who cannot speak.\nSpeak for the rights of all those who are defenseless.",
      "9": "Speak up, judge fairly,\nand defend the oppressed and needy.",
      "10": "Who can find a wife with strong character?\nHer value is greater than that of gems.",
      "11": "Her husband’s heart trusts her,\nand he never lacks wealth.",
      "12": "She does good for him and not evil\n    all the days of her life.",
      "13": "She obtains wool and flax.\nShe eagerly works it with her hands.",
      "14": "She is like merchant ships.\nShe brings her food from far away.",
      "15": "She rises while it is still night.\nShe gives food to her household.\nShe gives their share to her female servants.",
      "16": "She considers a field and acquires it.\nFrom her own income, she plants a vineyard.",
      "17": "She wraps strength around her waist like a belt,\nand she makes her arms strong.",
      "18": "She realizes that she makes a good profit.\nHer lamp does not go out at night.",
      "19": "She stretches out her hands for the distaff,\nand the palms of her hands grasp the spindle.",
      "20": "She opens the palm of her hand to the oppressed,\nand she stretches out her hands to the needy.",
      "21": "She does not fear for her household on account of snow,\nbecause her entire household is clothed in scarlet clothing.",
      "22": "She makes bedspreads for herself.\nFine linen and purple cloth are her clothing.",
      "23": "Her husband is known at the city gates,\nwhere he sits with the elders of the land.",
      "24": "She makes linen garments and sells them,\nand she delivers belts to the merchants.",
      "25": "Strength and honor are her clothing,\nand she laughs at the days to come.",
      "26": "She opens her mouth with wisdom,\nand kind instruction is on her tongue.",
      "27": "She keeps a close eye on the conduct of her household,\nand she does not eat bread that she did not work for.",
      "28": "Her children rise up and bless her.\nHer husband rises up and praises her:",
      "29": "“Many daughters show strong character,\nbut you have surpassed all of them.”",
      "30": "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is vapor that vanishes,\nbut a woman who fears the Lord should be praised.",
      "31": "Give her credit for the fruit of her hands,\nand let her accomplishments praise her in the city gates."
    }
  },
  "Ecclesiastes": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The words of Ecclesiastes, David’s son, king in Jerusalem.",
      "2": "“Nothing but vapor,” Ecclesiastes said. “Totally vapor. Everything is just vapor that vanishes.”",
      "3": "What does anyone gain by all his hard work, at which he works hard under the sun?",
      "4": "A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth keeps standing forever.",
      "5": "The sun rises and the sun sets. It hurries back, panting and out of breath, to its starting point, where it rises again.",
      "6": "The wind goes round and round. Blowing south, then blowing north, the wind keeps going around in circles.",
      "7": "All streams keep flowing to the sea, but the sea is never full. The streams keep coming back to the same place, and then they flow out again.",
      "8": "Everything is tedious and tiresome, more than one can tell. No eye ever sees enough, and no ear ever gets its fill of hearing.",
      "9": "Whatever has been is what will be again, and whatever has already been done is what will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.",
      "10": "Is there a single thing about which one can say, “Look, this is new”? It was already here ages ago, long before us.",
      "11": "No one remembers the people who came before us, and as for those who are coming—after they are gone, no one will remember them either.",
      "12": "I, Ecclesiastes, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.",
      "13": "I applied my heart to seek out and explore with wisdom everything done under the sky. (What a burdensome task God has given the children of Adam to keep them busy!)",
      "14": "I have seen all the actions done under the sun, and, look, it is all nothing but vapor. It is all chasing the wind.",
      "15": "Whatever is crooked cannot be straightened. Whatever is not there cannot be counted.",
      "16": "I thought in my heart, “Look, I have become great and accumulated more wisdom than anyone ruling over Jerusalem before me. My mind has absorbed so much wisdom and knowledge.”",
      "17": "I applied my heart to understand wisdom and knowledge, madness and stupidity. I realized that this too is chasing the wind.",
      "18": "In fact, with much wisdom comes much frustration. The more knowledge, the more pain!"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "I thought in my heart, “Go ahead, test yourself with pleasure to see what is good.” But, oh, that too is vapor.",
      "2": "About laughter, I said, “Madness!” About pleasure, “What good is it?”",
      "3": "As my heart kept guiding me with wisdom, I put it to work researching how to relax my body with wine and how to grasp why people do stupid things. My goal was to see what was good for people to do under the sky, during the few days of their lives.",
      "4": "I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself.",
      "5": "I made gardens and parks for myself, and I planted every kind of fruit tree in them.",
      "6": "I made reservoirs of water for myself to irrigate a forest of sprouting trees.",
      "7": "I acquired male and female servants. I also had slaves that were born in my own house. Livestock too! I had more herds and flocks than anyone before me in Jerusalem.",
      "8": "I piled up silver and gold for myself, as well as treasures from kings and provinces. I acquired male singers and female singers for myself, and what gives great pleasure to men—one concubine after another.",
      "9": "So I became great, and I surpassed all who were in Jerusalem before me. Nevertheless, my wisdom still stayed with me.",
      "10": "Whatever my eyes desired I did not withhold from them. I did not hold my heart back from any pleasure. My heart even took pleasure in all my hard work. This was what I got from all my hard work.",
      "11": "But when I turned my attention to everything that my hands had done and to how hard I had worked for it—note this—it was all vapor, all chasing the wind. There was no benefit under the sun.",
      "12": "I turned my attention to consider wisdom, madness, and stupidity—for what will the man do who will succeed the king? Only what has already been done.",
      "13": "I saw wisdom is better than stupidity, as light is better than darkness.",
      "14": "The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I also knew that one fate meets them all.",
      "15": "So I said in my heart, “The same fate that meets the fool will also meet me. So why then have I been overly wise?” So I said in my heart, “This too is just vapor.”",
      "16": "No one will remember the wise man or the fool for long. In days to come, all of them will already be forgotten. How does the wise man die? Just like the fool.",
      "17": "So I hated life, because the work done under the sun was so frustrating for me, because everything is vapor and chasing the wind.",
      "18": "I also hated all the results of my hard work, for which I worked so hard under the sun, since I must leave it all to the man who comes after me.",
      "19": "And who knows—will he be wise, or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the results of my hard work, for which I worked so hard and so wisely, under the sun. This too is vapor that vanishes.",
      "20": "So I changed my course, and my heart began to despair over all my hard work at which I worked so hard under the sun.",
      "21": "Sure, there may be a man who has worked hard—wisely, aptly, and skillfully. But he must hand over whatever he accumulated by all his hard work to a man who has not worked hard for it. This too is vapor. It’s so unfair!",
      "22": "For what does a man gain through all his hard work, through all the turmoil in his heart, as he works so hard under the sun?",
      "23": "Pain fills all his days. His occupation is frustration. Even at night his heart does not rest. This too is vapor.",
      "24": "There is nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink and to find joy in his work. This too, I saw, is from God’s hand.",
      "25": "For who can eat or enjoy himself apart from him?",
      "26": "Yes, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness to the man whom he considers good, but to the person who goes on sinning God gives the task of gathering and collecting, but only so that he can give it all to a person whom God considers good. This too is vapor, nothing but chasing wind."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "For everything there is an appointed time.\nThere is an appropriate time for every activity under heaven:",
      "2": "a time to give birth and a time to die,\na time to plant and a time to uproot plants,",
      "3": "a time to kill and a time to heal,\na time to tear down and a time to build,",
      "4": "a time to weep and a time to laugh,\na time to mourn and a time to dance,",
      "5": "a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones,\na time to embrace and a time not to embrace,",
      "6": "a time to search and a time to stop searching,\na time to keep and a time to throw away,",
      "7": "a time to rip and a time to sew,\na time to be silent and a time to speak,",
      "8": "a time to love and a time to hate,\na time for war and a time for peace.",
      "9": "What does the worker gain from his hard work?",
      "10": "I have seen the task which God has given the children of Adam to keep them busy.",
      "11": "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Yes, he has also put eternity in their hearts, yet it is not possible for man to understand the work that God has done from beginning to end.",
      "12": "I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy good things while they live.",
      "13": "Also, when anyone eats, drinks, and experiences the good things that his hard work leads to—this is God’s gift.",
      "14": "I know that everything God does will last forever. Nothing can be added to it or taken away from it. God acts so that people will fear him.",
      "15": "Whatever exists now has already been, and whatever will be has already been. God makes whatever has already passed come again.",
      "16": "I saw something else under the sun: In the place where justice should be, there was wickedness, and in the place for righteousness, there was wickedness.",
      "17": "I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked. Yes, there will be a time for every case to be settled before God.”",
      "18": "So I said in my heart, “This is done so that God can test the children of Adam, so that they can see what animals they are if left to themselves.”",
      "19": "For the outcome for the children of Adam and the outcome for animals is the same. One dies just like the other. All have the same breath. Mankind has no advantage over animals, because everything is vapor.",
      "20": "All go to the same place. All were from the dust, and to the dust all return.",
      "21": "Who knows whether the spirit of the man goes upward, and the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?",
      "22": "So I saw that there is nothing better for man than to be happy in his activities, since that is his reward. For who will show him what there will be after him?"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "I looked again, and I saw all the acts of oppression being done under the sun. Just look at the tears of the oppressed, who have no one to comfort them! Their violent oppressors had the upper hand, and there was no one to comfort them.",
      "2": "So I congratulate the dead, who already have died, more than the living, who are still alive.",
      "3": "But better than either of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil done under the sun.",
      "4": "I also saw that all hard work and all accomplishment are the result of a person’s envy of his neighbor. This too is vapor and chasing the wind.",
      "5": "The fool idly folds his hands and eats his own flesh.",
      "6": "Better one handful with relaxation, than two handfuls with hard work and chasing the wind.",
      "7": "I looked again and saw another example of meaningless vapor under the sun:",
      "8": "There was a single person all alone, without even a son or a brother, and there was no end to all his hard work. His eyes also were not satisfied with wealth. “So for whom am I working so hard,” he asks, “and depriving myself of enjoyment?” This too is vapor and a miserable task.",
      "9": "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their hard work.",
      "10": "If one of them falls, his companion can lift him up. Pity the person who falls and has no one else to lift him up.",
      "11": "What’s more, if two lie down, they can keep warm, but how can one person keep warm alone?",
      "12": "Though an attacker can overpower one person, two people together can stand up against him. A rope with three strands is not quickly snapped.",
      "13": "Better a poor but wise child than an old but foolish king, who no longer knows enough to pay attention to a warning,",
      "14": "for he came out of prison to rule as king, even though he had been born poor in the land that became his kingdom.",
      "15": "I saw that all the living, all those people walking under the sun, sided with the king’s successor, the child who took his place.",
      "16": "There was no end to all the people who were before them. Yet people who come later will not be pleased with him. This too is vapor and chasing the wind."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Watch your step when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen, rather than to give the kind of sacrifice fools give, for they do not know that they are doing wrong.",
      "2": "Do not be hasty with your mouth, and in your heart do not be in a hurry to bring a matter before God, because God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.",
      "3": "As too much busyness leads to dreams, too many words lead to foolish talk.",
      "4": "When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it, for he takes no delight in fools. Fulfill whatever you have vowed.",
      "5": "Better that you do not vow, than that you do make a vow and do not fulfill it.",
      "6": "Do not let your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say to the temple official that the vow was a mistake. Why should God be angry because of what you say and ruin the work your hands have done?",
      "7": "A lot of dreaming produces a lot of vapor. So does a lot of words. Instead, fear God.",
      "8": "If you see the poor being oppressed, and you see the province being robbed of justice and fairness, do not be shocked about the situation, because one high official is watched by a higher one, and higher ones are over them!",
      "9": "All officials take their cut of the profit from the land; even the king benefits from the fields.",
      "10": "Anyone who loves money is never satisfied with money, and anyone who loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is vanishing vapor.",
      "11": "When goods increase, so do those who eat them. What profit, then, does the owner get, except to see these things with his eyes?",
      "12": "The worker’s sleep is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but a rich person’s abundant possessions allow him no sleep.",
      "13": "I have seen a sickening evil under the sun—wealth hoarded by its owner to his own harm,",
      "14": "or wealth that is lost in a bad investment. Or a man fathers a son, but he has nothing left in his hand to give him.",
      "15": "As he came out from his mother’s womb, so he will go again, naked as he came. From his hard work he can pick up nothing that he can carry away in his hand.",
      "16": "This too is a sickening evil: Just as he came, so he will go. So what does he gain, he who works for the wind?",
      "17": "Besides this, during all his days he eats in darkness, with great frustration, sickness, and anger.",
      "18": "So then, here is what I have seen to be good: It is beautiful to eat, to drink, and to look for good in all a person’s hard work which he has done under the sun, during the few days of his life that God has given him, for that is his reward.",
      "19": "Likewise, for everyone to whom God has given wealth and riches, if God has also given him ability to eat from it, to enjoy his reward, and to rejoice in the results of his hard work—this is a gift of God,",
      "20": "for the man seldom reflects on the days of his life, since God keeps him busy with the joy in his heart."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, a common burden that people bear:",
      "2": "God gives somebody wealth, riches, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of everything that he craves, but God does not give him the opportunity to eat it. Instead, a stranger eats it. This is vapor, and a sickening evil.",
      "3": "A man may father a hundred children and live many years, but if his soul is not satisfied with good things and he does not even have a proper burial, no matter how many days he lives, I say, “A stillborn baby is better off than he is.”",
      "4": "Why? Because that baby comes like a vapor and leaves in darkness, and its name gets covered in darkness.",
      "5": "The baby does not see the sun or know it, but it enjoys more peaceful rest than that man does,",
      "6": "even if that man would live a thousand years two times without enjoying good things. They all go to the same place, don’t they?",
      "7": "All of a man’s hard work is to feed his mouth, but his appetite never feels satisfied.",
      "8": "So what advantage does a wise man have over a fool? What advantage does a poor man gain, who knows how to keep walking among the living?",
      "9": "Better to have eyes that look at what is actually there than desires that roam. This too is vapor and chasing the wind.",
      "10": "Whatever exists already has its name, and it is already known what man is. He is not able to win in court against one who is stronger than he is.",
      "11": "Yes, the more words, the more vapor. What advantage does a man have?",
      "12": "For who knows what is good for a man in life, in the few days of his life, that vanishes like vapor, that passes like a shadow? Who will tell the man what will be after him, under the sun?"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "A good reputation is better than the best perfume, and the day of one’s death is better than the day of his birth.",
      "2": "Better to go to a funeral than to a feast, since death is the final destination for all mankind. The living must take this to heart!",
      "3": "Grief is better than laughter, because a sad face does a heart good.",
      "4": "The hearts of the wise think about the funeral, but the hearts of fools think about the feast.",
      "5": "It is better to hear a rebuke from a wise man than to listen to a happy song from fools,",
      "6": "for the fool’s laughter sounds like thorns crackling under a cooking pot. This too is vapor.",
      "7": "To be sure, oppressing others turns a wise man into a fool, and a bribe corrupts his heart.",
      "8": "It is better to finish something than to begin something. A patient spirit is better than a proud spirit.",
      "9": "Do not be quick to lose your temper, for outrage is embraced by fools.",
      "10": "Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” Wisdom would not lead you to ask such a question.",
      "11": "Wisdom along with an inheritance is good. It is an advantage for those who see the sun,",
      "12": "because wisdom gives shade as money gives shade, but the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom keeps its owner alive.",
      "13": "Look at the work of God. Indeed, who can straighten what he has bent?",
      "14": "On a good day, enjoy the good, but on a bad day, consider carefully. God has made the one as well as the other, so no man can find out about anything that will come later.",
      "15": "During my days that vanish like vapor, I have seen it all. For instance, a righteous man perishes despite being righteous, while an evil man lives for a long time in spite of his evil.",
      "16": "Do not be overly righteous. Do not trust too much in wisdom. Why ruin yourself?",
      "17": "Do not be overly wicked, either, and do not be a fool. Why die before your time?",
      "18": "It is good that you hang on to one alternative, but do not let go of the other, for one who fears God will avoid both extremes.",
      "19": "Wisdom makes one wise man stronger than ten rulers who are in the city.",
      "20": "There is surely not a righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin.",
      "21": "Furthermore, do not take to heart all the words people say, so that you do not hear your servant cursing you.",
      "22": "Yes, you know in your heart that many times you too have cursed others.",
      "23": "All this I tested with wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was out of reach for me.",
      "24": "What has already happened is out of reach, and deeper than deep. Who can find it?",
      "25": "I turned my heart to know, to investigate, and to seek wisdom, and to find out how things fit together, and to know that wickedness is foolishness and stupidity is madness.",
      "26": "I kept finding out that a woman whose heart is a trap is more bitter than death. Her heart is a hunter’s net. Her hands are chains. The man whom God recognizes as good will escape from her, but the sinner gets trapped by her.",
      "27": "“Look,” says Ecclesiastes, “this is what I found by adding one thing to another in my attempts to find how things fit together—",
      "28": "this is something my soul keeps seeking but has not found. One man out of a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found.",
      "29": "“Look, I have found only this: I have found that God made mankind upright, but they have gone off looking for many schemes.”"
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Who is such a wise man? And who knows how to explain a situation? A man’s wisdom makes his face shine and softens the hard look on his face.",
      "2": "Obey the king’s command because of your oath before God.",
      "3": "Do not quickly leave his presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases.",
      "4": "For a king’s word is supreme, and who will say to him, “What are you doing?”",
      "5": "Whoever obeys a command will experience no harm, and a wise heart will know the right time and the right way to act,",
      "6": "because for each situation there is a right time and a right way to act, although evil may weigh a man down.",
      "7": "But no one knows what will be. Indeed, who can tell him what will be?",
      "8": "As no one has power to restrain the wind, there is no power over the day of death. No discharge is granted during war, and wickedness will not deliver those who practice it.",
      "9": "All this I saw while I was applying my heart to every work done under the sun, during this time when one man has power over another to harm him.",
      "10": "While doing this, I have seen wicked people buried. They had come and gone from the holy place, and they were praised in the city where they had done so! This too is vapor.",
      "11": "When the sentence for a crime is not carried out quickly, people’s hearts are emboldened to do evil.",
      "12": "Though a sinner commits a hundred crimes and lives for a long time, I nevertheless know that it will turn out well for those who fear God, who stand in awe before him.",
      "13": "But it will not be good for the wicked. Such a man will not lengthen his days like a shadow, since he does not stand in fear before God.",
      "14": "Another example of vapor that appears on the earth is when righteous people get what the wicked deserve for their actions, and wicked people get what the righteous deserve for their actions. I said, “This too is vapor.”",
      "15": "So I sang the praises of pleasure, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. Such joy will stay with him during his hard work, throughout the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.",
      "16": "When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to observe the tiresome business done on the earth (even though it keeps a person from sleeping day or night),",
      "17": "I saw everything that God has done, but no man can grasp all the work that is done under the sun. No matter how hard a man works to explore it, he cannot discover it all. Even if the wise man claims to know it, he cannot find it."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Nevertheless, as I pondered all this in my heart, I wanted to make all this clear—that the righteous, the wise, and their works are in God’s hand. Will there be love or hate? No one knows anything that is ahead of him.",
      "2": "Everything turns out the same for everyone. One destination waits for the righteous and the wicked, and the good, the ceremonially clean and the unclean, the one who brings sacrifices and the one who does not. As it will be for the good, so it will be for the sinner. As it will be for the one who swears an oath, so it will be for the one who is afraid to take an oath.",
      "3": "This is an evil that infects everything done under the sun. Yes, they all share one fate. What’s more, people’s hearts are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts as long as they live. After that they go to the dead.",
      "4": "Now, whoever is still joined to all the living has hope, because a living dog is better than a dead lion.",
      "5": "At least the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, because all memory of them is forgotten.",
      "6": "Their love, their hate, and their envy have already perished, and they will never again take part in anything done under the sun.",
      "7": "Go ahead, eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God is already pleased with what you do.",
      "8": "Wear white clothes all the time. Always put lotion on your head.",
      "9": "Enjoy life with the wife you love all the days of your life, that vanishes like vapor, the life which God has given you under the sun, all the days that vanish like vapor, for that is your portion in life and your reward from all the hard work at which you worked so hard under the sun.",
      "10": "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your strength, for there is no work, planning, knowledge, or wisdom in the grave, where you are heading.",
      "11": "I looked again and saw that under the sun the race is not won by the swift, nor the battle by the strong. Food is not given to the wise, nor is wealth given to those who have good judgment, nor is success given to those who have knowledge, because time and chance come upon all of them.",
      "12": "Certainly, no man knows his time. Like fish caught in a deadly net and like birds caught in a trap, people are trapped at an evil time which falls on them suddenly.",
      "13": "I also saw this example of wisdom under the sun, and it impressed me.",
      "14": "There was a small city that had few men in it. A great king came against it, surrounded it, and built great siege works against it.",
      "15": "A poor man who was wise was found in it, and he saved the city by his wisdom, but no one remembered that poor man.",
      "16": "So I said, “Wisdom is better than might, but the wisdom of the poor man gets despised, and his words are not heeded.”",
      "17": "Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heeded more than the rant of a ruler among fools.",
      "18": "Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Dead flies make perfumed oil ferment and stink, just as a little stupidity outweighs wisdom and honor.",
      "2": "A wise man’s heart heads right, but a fool’s heart heads left.",
      "3": "Even when a fool is walking down the road, he does not know where he is going, and he advertises to everyone that he is a fool.",
      "4": "If a ruler’s anger rises against you, do not abandon your post, because keeping calm puts serious sins to rest.",
      "5": "There is an evil I have seen under the sun. What a mistake rulers make!",
      "6": "Stupidity is placed in many high places, but the rich are seated in low positions.",
      "7": "I have seen slaves on horses, while princes walk on the ground like slaves.",
      "8": "A person who digs a pit might fall into it, and one who breaks through a wall might be bitten by a snake.",
      "9": "A person who quarries stones may be hurt by them. Someone who splits logs may be endangered by them.",
      "10": "If the ax is dull and no one sharpens its edge, the person chopping must apply more strength, but an advantage of wisdom is that it gives success.",
      "11": "If the snake bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage to having a charmer.",
      "12": "Words from a wise man’s mouth bring favor, but a fool’s lips swallow him up.",
      "13": "The fool starts out by saying stupid things, but he ends up speaking wicked madness.",
      "14": "The fool multiplies words.\nNo one knows what will be in the future, and who can tell him what will come after him?",
      "15": "The hard work of fools wears them out so much that they no longer know their way to town.",
      "16": "How unfortunate you are, O land, when your king once was a servant, and your officials overeat in the morning.",
      "17": "How blessed you are, O land, when your king is a son of nobles, and your officials eat at the right time—to get stronger, not to get drunk.",
      "18": "Because of laziness, roof beams sag. Because of idle hands, the house leaks.",
      "19": "Food is made for pleasure. Wine makes life happy, but money is the answer for everything.",
      "20": "Do not curse the king even in your thoughts, and do not curse a rich person in your bedroom, for a bird in the skies might carry your voice, or a bird in flight might reveal the matter."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Cast your bread on the surface of the water. Then, after many days you will find it again.",
      "2": "Put part of your investment into seven or even into eight ventures, for you do not know what disaster might come upon the land.",
      "3": "If the clouds are full, they pour out rain on the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, wherever it falls, there it will lie.",
      "4": "Whoever keeps watching the wind will never sow, and anyone who keeps looking at the clouds will never reap.",
      "5": "Just as you do not know the path of the wind, or how bones form in the womb of a pregnant woman, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything.",
      "6": "In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hand rest, for you do not know which effort will succeed, this one or that, or if both of them will be equally good.",
      "7": "Light is sweet, and it is good for eyes to see the sun.",
      "8": "Yes, even if a man lives many years, in all of them let him find joy, but let him keep in mind the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come is vapor.",
      "9": "Young man, be happy while you are a child, and let your heart make you glad during the days of your youth. Walk down the roads on which your heart leads you and on the way your eyes see—but know that for all these, God will bring you into judgment.",
      "10": "Put frustration out of your mind, and ignore the troubles of your body, because youth and the dawn of life are vapor."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "So remember your Creator in the days of your youth,\nbefore the bad days come and the years arrive when you will say,\n    “I have no delight in them,”",
      "2": "before the sun and the light of the moon and the stars are darkened,\nbefore the clouds return after the rain,",
      "3": "before the day when the watchmen of the house tremble,\nand the strong men are bent over,\nand the women who grind grain cease because they are few,\nand those watching through the windows can barely see.",
      "4": "Then the double doors to the street are shut,\n    as the grinding of the mill grows quiet.\nA person wakes up at the sound of a bird,\nbut all the sounds of music are muffled.",
      "5": "Then they fear heights and terrors along the road.\nThe almond blossoms become white.\nThe grasshopper drags himself along,\nand the caperberry has no effect.\nWhy? Because the man is heading to his eternal home.\nThen the wailing mourners will go around in the street.",
      "6": "Remember your Creator\n    before the silver cord is snapped,\n    and the golden bowl is broken,\n    before the jar is shattered by the spring,\n    and the waterwheel is broken by the well,",
      "7": "and the dust goes back into the ground—just as it was before,\n    and the spirit goes back to God who gave it.",
      "8": "“Nothing but vapor,” said Ecclesiastes, the speaker. “It is all vapor.”",
      "9": "Besides being wise, Ecclesiastes taught the people knowledge, and he weighed, collected, and arranged many proverbs.",
      "10": "Ecclesiastes searched to find just the right words. What was written was honest—they were true words.",
      "11": "Sayings of wise men are like cattle prods, and those sayings collected by experts are like firmly fixed nails, given by one Shepherd.",
      "12": "My son, beware of anything in addition to these. There is no end of making many books, and much study wears out the body.",
      "13": "This is the conclusion of the matter. Everything has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments. For mankind, this is everything.",
      "14": "Yes, God will bring everything that is done into judgment, including everything that is hidden, whether good or evil."
    }
  },
  "Isaiah": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.",
      "2": "Hear this, O heavens,\nand listen, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.\n    I have raised children and brought them up,\n    but they have rebelled against me.",
      "3": "The ox knows its owner,\n    and the donkey knows its owner’s manger,\n    but Israel does not know.\n    My people do not understand.",
      "4": "How terrible it will be for that sinful nation,\nfor a people loaded with guilt,\noffspring who act wickedly,\nchildren who are corrupt!\nThey have forsaken the Lord.\nThey have despised the Holy One of Israel.\nThey have deserted him and turned back.",
      "5": "Why do you keep earning more beatings?\nWhy do you continue to rebel?\nYour whole head is wounded.\nYour whole heart is weak.",
      "6": "From the sole of your foot to the top of your head\n    there is nothing healthy,\n    but only wounds, welts, and open sores.\nYour wounds have not been cleaned or bandaged\n    or soothed with olive oil.",
      "7": "Your country is desolate.\nYour cities are burned with fire.\nForeigners devour your farmland right in front of your eyes,\nand it is desolate, overthrown by foreigners.",
      "8": "The daughter of Zion is left\n    like a shelter in a vineyard,\n    like a hut in a melon field,\n    like a besieged city.",
      "9": "Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a small surviving remnant,\nwe would have been like Sodom;\nwe would have become just like Gomorrah.",
      "10": "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!\nListen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!",
      "11": "What do your many sacrifices mean to me? says the Lord.\n    I have more than enough rams as burnt offerings\n    and enough fat from well-fed animals.\n    I am not pleased with the blood of bulls\n    or the blood of lambs and male goats.",
      "12": "When you come to appear before me,\n    who has asked for this from your hands:\n        this trampling on my courts?",
      "13": "Stop bringing worthless offerings!\n    Your incense is an abomination to me.\n    I cannot stand your sinful assemblies\n    on the new moons, Sabbaths, and holy days.",
      "14": "Deep in my soul I hate your new moons and your appointed feasts.\n    They have become a burden to me.\n    I am tired of putting up with them.",
      "15": "When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.\n    Indeed, even though you make many prayers, I will not hear.\n    Your hands are full of blood.",
      "16": "Wash yourselves. Purify yourselves.\n    Remove your evil deeds from my sight.\n    Stop doing evil.",
      "17": "Learn to do good.\n    Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed.\n    Seek justice for the fatherless. Plead for the widow.",
      "18": "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord.\n    Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow.\n    Though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool.",
      "19": "If you are willing and obedient, you will eat good things\n        from the land,",
      "20": "but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.\n    Yes, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.",
      "21": "Look how the faithful city has become a prostitute!\nShe was full of justice. Righteousness once lived in her,\nbut now murderers live there.",
      "22": "Your silver has become slag.\nYour drinks are mixed with water.",
      "23": "Your officials are rebellious.\nThey are partners with thieves.\nEveryone loves bribes and chases payoffs.\nThey do not obtain justice for the fatherless,\nand they do not take up the cause of the widow.",
      "24": "Therefore the Lord, the Lord of Armies,\nthe Mighty One of Israel, says:\n    I must certainly get relief from my adversaries.\n    I will avenge myself on my enemies.",
      "25": "I will turn my hand against you.\n    I will smelt away all your slag.\n    I will take away all your impurities.",
      "26": "I will restore your judges as they were at first,\n    and your advisors as they were in the beginning.\nAfterward you will be called a righteous city, a faithful town.",
      "27": "Zion will be redeemed with justice,\nand those who return to her will be redeemed with righteousness.",
      "28": "But the rebels and sinners will be destroyed all together,\nand those who forsake the Lord will come to an end.",
      "29": "For you will be ashamed of the oaks that you have desired,\nand you will be embarrassed by the groves that you have chosen.",
      "30": "For you will be like an oak whose leaves wilt,\nand like a grove that has no water.",
      "31": "The strong will be like tinder,\nand their work will be like a spark.\nBoth will burn together,\nand no one will put out the fire."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "This is the message that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.",
      "2": "This will take place in the latter days:\nThe mountain of the Lord’s house will be established\nas the chief of the mountains.\nIt will be raised above the hills,\nand all nations will stream to it like a river.",
      "3": "Many peoples will come and say,\n“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,\nto the house of the God of Jacob.\nThen he will instruct us about his ways,\nand we will walk in his paths.”\nFor from Zion the law will go out,\nand the Lord’s word will go out from Jerusalem.",
      "4": "He will judge between the nations,\nand he will mediate for many peoples.\nThen they will beat their swords into plowshares,\nand their spears into blades for trimming vines.\nNation will not lift up sword against nation,\nnor will they learn war anymore.",
      "5": "O house of Jacob, come,\nand let us walk in the light of the Lord.",
      "6": "But you, Lord, have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob,\nbecause they are filled up with practices from the East\nand with fortune tellers like the Philistines,\nand they join themselves to the heathen.",
      "7": "Their land is full of silver and gold,\nand there is no end to their treasures.\nTheir land is also full of horses,\nand there is no end to their chariots.",
      "8": "Their land is full of gods that are not gods.\nThey worship the work made by their own hands,\nthings that their own fingers have made.",
      "9": "Mankind is humbled,\nand man is brought low.\nDo not forgive them.",
      "10": "Go into the rocks,\nand hide in the dust,\nfrom the terror of the Lord\nand from the glory of his majesty.",
      "11": "The proud eyes of mankind will be brought low,\nthe arrogance of man will be humbled,\nand the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.",
      "12": "There is a day coming for the Lord of Armies,\na day against everyone who is proud and arrogant,\nagainst everyone who is lifted up—\nhe will be pressed down—",
      "13": "against all the cedars of Lebanon, that are so tall and lofty,\nagainst all the oaks of Bashan,",
      "14": "against all the high mountains,\nagainst all the hills that are lifted up,",
      "15": "against every tall tower,\nagainst every fortified wall,",
      "16": "against all the ships of Tarshish,\nand against all the beautiful ships.",
      "17": "The pride of mankind will be humbled,\nand the arrogance of man will be brought low.\nThen the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.",
      "18": "Those gods that are not gods will disappear completely.",
      "19": "People will flee into caves in the rocks\nand into holes in the ground,\nto hide from the terror of the Lord\nand from the glory of his majesty,\nwhen he arises to make the earth tremble.",
      "20": "In that day people will throw away to the moles and bats\n    their worthless gods of silver\n    and their worthless gods of gold,\n    that they made for themselves to worship.",
      "21": "They will go into the clefts in the rocks\nand into the crevices in the cliffs,\nto hide from the terror of the Lord\nand from the glory of his majesty,\nwhen he arises to make the earth tremble.",
      "22": "Give up trusting in mankind.\nAll they have is breath in their nostrils.\nWhat are they worth anyway?"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Pay attention to this.\n    The Lord, the Lord of Armies, is about to remove from Jerusalem\n    and Judah\nevery kind of support:\nthe entire supply of bread,\nand the entire supply of water,",
      "2": "the hero and the warrior,\nthe judge and the prophet,\nthe omen reader and the elder,",
      "3": "the commander of fifty and the respected leader,\nthe adviser and the clever practitioner of occult arts,\nand the skillful caster of spells.",
      "4": "I will give them young men as their officials,\nand immature children will rule over them.",
      "5": "The people will tyrannize each other,\nman against man, neighbor against neighbor.\nThe young man will behave arrogantly against the elder,\nand the dishonorable against the honorable.",
      "6": "Then a man will take hold of his brother in his father’s house and say, “You have fine clothing. You be our ruler. You take charge of these ruins.”",
      "7": "But in that day his brother will cry out, “I am not a healer. In my house I have neither bread nor fine clothing. Don’t make me ruler of this people.”",
      "8": "Yes, Jerusalem has stumbled,\nand Judah has fallen,\nbecause their speech and their actions are against the Lord.\nThey defy his glorious presence.",
      "9": "The look on their faces testifies against them.\nThey parade their sin like Sodom.\nThey do not bother to hide it.\nHow terrible it will be for them!\nLook, they have brought disaster upon themselves.",
      "10": "Tell the righteous that it will go well for them,\nand they will eat the fruit of their labors.",
      "11": "How terrible it will be for the wicked!\nDisaster is coming upon them.\nYes, whatever they have done with their hands will be paid back to them.",
      "12": "As for my people, children will oppress them,\nand women will rule over them.\nMy people, your guides are leading you astray.\nThey are confusing you about the way you should go.",
      "13": "The Lord stands up to make his case.\nHe stands to judge the peoples.",
      "14": "The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and with their officials. He says, “It is you who have devoured the vineyard. The things you have stolen from the poor are in your houses.",
      "15": "What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor? declares the Lord, the Lord of Armies.”",
      "16": "The Lord also says this. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and they walk with their heads held high, flirting with their eyes, walking seductively with quick little steps, with ornaments jingling on their ankles,",
      "17": "the Lord will crown the heads of the daughters of Zion with scabs. The Lord will make their scalps bald.",
      "18": "In that day the Lord will take away the beautiful anklets, the headbands, the crescent ornaments,",
      "19": "the earrings, the bracelets, the veils,",
      "20": "the headdresses, the ankle chains, the sashes, the perfume bottles, the magic charms,",
      "21": "the signet rings, the nose rings,",
      "22": "the elegant dresses, the capes, the shawls, the purses,",
      "23": "the hand mirrors, the fine linen wraps, the tiaras, and the gowns.",
      "24": "This is what will take place:\n    Instead of fragrant perfumes, there will be a stench,\n    instead of styled hair, baldness,\n    instead of a robe, a garment made of sackcloth,\n    and there will be branding instead of beauty.",
      "25": "Your men will fall by the sword,\nand your mighty warriors in battle.",
      "26": "Her gates will groan and grieve,\nand she will sit on the ground, deserted.\n\nOn that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothing. Just let us be called by your name. Take away our shame.”"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "On that day, the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the beauty and glory of the survivors of Israel.",
      "2": "Then whoever is left in Zion and whoever remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, that is, everyone who is registered for life in Jerusalem.",
      "3": "The Lord will wash away the disgusting filth of the daughters of Zion and cleanse the blood of Jerusalem from its midst by the Spirit of judgment and by the Spirit of burning.",
      "4": "Then over the entire site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies, the Lord will create a cloud of smoke by day and a bright flaming fire by night, so there will be a canopy over all the glory.",
      "5": "In the daytime there will be a shelter to provide shade from the heat and to provide refuge and a hiding place from the storm and the rain."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Let me sing for my loved one a song about my loved one’s vineyard.\nMy loved one had a vineyard on a fertile ridge.",
      "2": "He dug it up and gathered the stones out of it.\nHe planted it with the best vines.\nHe built a tower in the middle of it.\nHe also cut a winepress into it.\nHe expected it to produce clusters of sweet grapes,\nbut it produced only sour grapes.",
      "3": "So now, you residents of Jerusalem and you men of Judah,\njudge between me and my vineyard.",
      "4": "What more could have been done for my vineyard\nthat I have not already done for it?\nWhen I expected it to produce clusters of sweet grapes,\nwhy did it produce sour grapes?",
      "5": "Now, let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard.\nI will take away its hedge, and it will become a pasture.\nI will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down.",
      "6": "I will make it a wasteland.\nIt will not be pruned or hoed.\nSo briers and thorns will shoot up.\nI will also command the clouds not to pour rain on it.",
      "7": "Yes, the vineyard of the Lord of Armies is the house of Israel,\nand the men of Judah are the planting that was pleasing to him.\nHe expected justice, but instead there was oppression.\nHe expected righteousness, but there was an outcry.",
      "8": "Woe to you who join house to house,\nwho connect field to field, until there is no room left,\nexcept room for you alone to live in the middle of the land!",
      "9": "The Lord of Armies announces this in my hearing:\n    I swear that many houses will be deserted.\n    Even the large and beautiful houses will be unoccupied.",
      "10": "Then ten acres of vineyard will yield only six gallons of wine,\n    and six bushels of seed will yield less than a bushel.",
      "11": "Woe to those who rise up early in the morning to chase after beer,\nwho stay up late into the night until wine inflames them.",
      "12": "Harp, lyre, drum, flute, and wine are at their drinking parties,\nbut they have no regard for the work of the Lord,\nnor have they paid attention to what his hands are doing.",
      "13": "This is why my people go into captivity—lack of knowledge.\nTheir dignitaries starve to death,\nand the whole crowd is parched with thirst.",
      "14": "That is why the grave has increased its appetite,\nand its mouth is wide open.\nTheir splendor and their noisy crowds, their loud revelry,\n    and their celebration will go down into the grave.",
      "15": "So mankind is humbled,\nman is brought low,\nand the eyes of the arrogant are brought low,",
      "16": "but the Lord of Armies is exalted by justice,\nand God, the Holy One, reveals his holiness by righteousness.",
      "17": "Then lambs will graze there as their pasture,\nand aliens will eat among the ruins of the rich.",
      "18": "Woe to those who drag their guilt behind them with cords of lies\nand their wickedness with cart ropes.",
      "19": "They say, “Let him hurry, let him speed up his work,\nso that we may see it,\nand let the plan of the Holy One of Israel draw near.\nLet it come, so that we may know it!”",
      "20": "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil,\nwho substitute darkness for light, and light for darkness,\nwho substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!",
      "21": "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes\nand clever in their own sight!",
      "22": "Woe to those who are champions at drinking wine\nand heroes at mixing drinks,",
      "23": "who acquit the guilty for a bribe,\nbut deny justice for the innocent!",
      "24": "Therefore, as the flames of a fire devour stubble,\nand as dry grass sinks down into the flames,\nin the same way their roots will rot,\nand their blossoms will dry up like dust,\nbecause they have rejected the law of the Lord of Armies,\nand they have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.",
      "25": "Therefore, the Lord’s anger burns against his people,\nand he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them.\nThe mountains tremble,\nand their dead bodies will lie like garbage in the middle of the streets.\nIn spite of all this, his anger is not turned away,\nand his hand is still stretched out, ready to strike.",
      "26": "He will raise a signal flag for the nations from far away,\nand he will whistle for them to come from the end of the earth.\nWatch, they will come quickly and swiftly.",
      "27": "No one among them will be weary or stumble.\nNo one will slumber or sleep.\nThe belt around their waist will not be unbuckled.\nThe straps of their sandals will not be broken.",
      "28": "Their arrows are sharp,\nand all their bows bent.\nTheir horses’ hoofs will be like flint,\nand their wheels like a whirlwind.",
      "29": "Their roar will sound like a lioness.\nThey will roar like young lions.\nYes, they will growl.\nThey will seize their prey and carry it off,\nand there will be no one to rescue anyone from them.",
      "30": "In that day the roar against them will be like the roaring of the sea.\nIf anyone looks at the land, he sees only darkness and distress.\nThe light is darkened by clouds."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.",
      "2": "Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two they covered their faces. With two they covered their feet. With two they flew.",
      "3": "One called to another and said,\nHoly, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies!\nThe whole earth is full of his glory!",
      "4": "The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of the one who called, and the temple was filled with smoke.",
      "5": "Then I said, “I am doomed! I am ruined, because I am a man with unclean lips, and I dwell among a people with unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies!”",
      "6": "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, carrying a glowing coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.",
      "7": "He touched my mouth with the coal and said, “Look, this has touched your lips, so your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.”",
      "8": "Then I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”\nThen I said, “Here I am. Send me!”",
      "9": "He said:\nGo! You are to tell this people,\n“Keep listening, but you will never understand.\nKeep looking, but you will never get it.”",
      "10": "Make the heart of this people calloused.\nMake their ears deaf and blind their eyes,\nso that they do not see with their eyes,\nor hear with their ears,\nor understand with their hearts,\nand turn again and be healed.",
      "11": "Then I said, “Lord, how long?”\nHe answered:\nUntil the cities are a wasteland without a single inhabitant,\nuntil the houses are totally deserted,\nand the farmland is completely devastated,",
      "12": "until the Lord has removed the people far away,\nand the abandoned places within the land are many.",
      "13": "If there is only a tenth left in it, that too will be burned in its turn.\nLike a terebinth or an oak,\nwhose stump remains when it is cut down,\nso the holy seed is its stump."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "This took place in the days when Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah. Rezin king of Aram, and Pekah son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, marched up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but they could not capture it.",
      "2": "The house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with Ephraim.” The heart of Ahaz trembled, and the heart of his people trembled as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind.",
      "3": "Then the Lord said to Isaiah:\nGo out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear Jashub. Meet him at the end of the water channel from the upper pool, on the road that goes to the launderers field.",
      "4": "Tell Ahaz, “Get control of yourself, and remain calm. Do not be afraid. Do not lose your courage because of these two stubs of smoldering torches. Do not be afraid because of the fierce anger of Rezin, Aram, and the son of Remaliah,",
      "5": "even though Aram, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted evil against you and said,",
      "6": "‘Let’s go up against Judah and tear it apart. Let’s divide it among ourselves and set up a king over it, namely, this son of Tabe’el.’”",
      "7": "This is what the Lord God says.\nTheir plan shall not succeed.\nIt shall not take place.",
      "8": "Yes, the head of Aram is Damascus,\nand the head of Damascus is Rezin,\nbut within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken into pieces,\nso that it will no longer be a people.",
      "9": "The head of Ephraim is only Samaria,\nand the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son.\nIf you do not stand firm in faith,\nyou will not stand at all.",
      "10": "The Lord spoke to Ahaz again. He said,",
      "11": "“Ask for a sign from the Lord your God. Ask for it either in the depths below or in the heights above.”",
      "12": "But Ahaz responded, “I will not ask. I will not test the Lord.”",
      "13": "So Isaiah said:\nListen now, you house of David. Is it not enough for you to test the patience of men? Will you test the patience of my God as well?",
      "14": "Therefore the Lord himself will give a sign for all of you. Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and name him Immanuel.",
      "15": "He will eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse evil and choose good,",
      "16": "because even before the child knows how to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.",
      "17": "The Lord will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days worse than any since the day that Ephraim broke away from Judah. The Lord will bring the king of Assyria.",
      "18": "This is what will take place in that day: The Lord will whistle for the fly that is at the farthest end of Egypt’s rivers and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.",
      "19": "They will come and settle in the deep ravines, in the clefts in the rocks, among all the thorn hedges, and in all the pastures.",
      "20": "In that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired from the regions beyond the River Euphrates, namely, the king of Assyria. This razor will shave their head and the hair on their legs, and it will also scrape away their beard.",
      "21": "In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep,",
      "22": "and because of the abundant milk they give, he will eat curds. So everyone left in the land will eat curds and honey.",
      "23": "In that day, in every place where a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels were growing, there will be only briers and thorns.",
      "24": "Hunters will go there with a bow and arrow, because all that land will be briers and thorns.",
      "25": "You will no longer venture into all the hills that once were cultivated with the hoe, because you will be afraid of the briers and thorns, and the hills will be a pasture for grazing oxen, a land trampled by sheep."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "The Lord said to me, “Get a large tablet and write on it with a man’s stylus: For Maher Shalal Hash Baz.”",
      "2": "I also swore in faithful witnesses: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.",
      "3": "I approached the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. Then the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher Shalal Hash Baz.",
      "4": "For before the child knows how to say ‘My father’ and ‘My mother,’ the riches of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.”",
      "5": "Then the Lord spoke to me again and said:",
      "6": "Because these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah, and they rejoice in Rezin and in Remaliah’s son,",
      "7": "therefore, the Lord is now about to bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the River, that is, the king of Assyria in all his glory. It will overflow all its channels, and it will flood all its banks.",
      "8": "It will sweep onward into Judah. It will overflow and pass through the land. It will rise up all the way to the neck, and its wingspan will reach across the width of your land, Immanuel.",
      "9": "Be broken to pieces, you peoples.\nBe shattered!\nListen, all of you from faraway countries.\nDress for battle, and be shattered!\nDress for battle, and be shattered!",
      "10": "Get together, make your plans,\nbut they will not succeed.\nSpeak the word, but it will not stand,\nfor God is with us.",
      "11": "Listen! This is how the Lord spoke to me with a strong hand upon me. He instructed me not to walk in the way of this people. He said:",
      "12": "Do not say “A conspiracy!” about everything that this people calls a conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear. Do not be terrified.",
      "13": "The Lord of Armies is the one you are to respect as holy. He is the one you must fear. He is the one you must dread.",
      "14": "He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone they stumble over and a rock they fall over, and he will be a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.",
      "15": "Many will stumble over it. They will fall and be broken. They will be snared and captured.",
      "16": "Roll up the scroll of testimony. Seal the law among my disciples.",
      "17": "I will wait for the Lord, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will wait hopefully for him.",
      "18": "Look, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and warnings to Israel from the Lord of Armies, who dwells in Mount Zion.",
      "19": "When they tell you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists, who whisper and mutter,” shouldn’t a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?",
      "20": "To the law and to the testimony! If people do not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn for them.",
      "21": "They will pass through the land, distressed and starving, but when this takes place and they are starving, they will be frustrated, and they will curse their king and their God. They will turn their faces upward,",
      "22": "and then they will look down to the ground, but I tell you, they will see only distress, darkness, and the gloom that brings anguish. They will be banished into thick darkness."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for the land that was in anguish. In former times, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will cause it to be glorious, along the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles.",
      "2": "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.\nFor those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned.",
      "3": "You have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy.\nThey rejoice before you like the joy at harvest time,\nlike the celebration when people divide the plunder.",
      "4": "For you have shattered the yoke that burdened them.\nYou have broken the bar on their shoulders and\n    the rod of their oppressor,\nas you did in the day of Midian.",
      "5": "Every boot that marched in battle\nand the garments rolled in blood will be burned.\nThey will be fuel for the fire.",
      "6": "For to us a child is born.\nTo us a son is given.\nThe authority to rule will rest on his shoulders.\nHe will be named:\n    Wonderful Counselor,\n    Mighty God,\n    Everlasting Father,\n    Prince of Peace.",
      "7": "There will be no limit to his authority\nand no end to the peace he brings.\nHe will rule on David’s throne and over his kingdom,\n    to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness\n    from now on, into eternity.\nThe zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.",
      "8": "The Lord sent a word against Jacob,\nand it falls upon Israel.",
      "9": "All the people will know,\nincluding Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,\nwho say with pride and with an arrogant heart,",
      "10": "“The mud bricks have fallen down,\nbut we will build with cut stone.\nThe sycamore fig trees have been cut down,\nbut we will replace them with cedars.”",
      "11": "Then the Lord will raise up Rezin’s adversaries against him,\nand he will stir up his enemies.",
      "12": "Arameans from the east and Philistines from the west\nwill devour Israel with an open mouth.\nYet for all this, his anger is not turned away,\nand his hand is still stretched out, ready to strike.",
      "13": "But the people have not returned to the one who struck them,\nnor have they sought the Lord of Armies.",
      "14": "Therefore, in one day the Lord will cut off from Israel\nhead and tail, palm branch and reed.",
      "15": "The elder and the honored man are the head,\nand the prophet who teaches lies is the tail.",
      "16": "It is the leaders of this people who lead them astray,\nand those who are led by them are destroyed.",
      "17": "Therefore, the Lord will not rejoice over their young men,\nnor will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows,\nbecause everyone is godless and an evildoer,\nand every mouth speaks foolishness.\nYet for all this, his anger is not turned away,\nand his hand is still stretched out, ready to strike.",
      "18": "Now wickedness burns like a fire.\nIt devours the briers and thorns.\nLook, it flares up in the thickets of the forest,\nand it swirls upward in a column of smoke.",
      "19": "By the wrath of the Lord of Armies, the land is burned up,\nand the people are the fuel for the fire.\nNo one spares his brother.",
      "20": "On the right hand they will gobble down food,\n    but they will still be hungry.\nOn the left hand they will keep eating, but they will not be satisfied.\nEveryone will eat the flesh of his own arm.",
      "21": "Manasseh will be against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh,\nand together they will be against Judah.\nYet for all this, his anger is not turned away,\nand his hand is still stretched out, ready to strike."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Woe to those who prescribe unjust decrees,\nand to those who issue oppressive rulings,",
      "2": "to deprive the needy of justice,\nand to rob the poor among my people of their rights,\nto plunder widows,\nand to make the fatherless their prey!",
      "3": "What will you do when the day comes to settle accounts,\nduring the devastation that will descend from far away?\nTo whom will you flee for help?\nWhere will you leave your wealth?",
      "4": "The only thing left for you will be to kneel among the prisoners\nand to fall under the dead bodies.\nYet for all this, his anger is not turned away,\nand his hand is still stretched out, ready to strike.",
      "5": "Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger.\nThe club of my rage is in his hand!",
      "6": "I will send him against a godless nation\nand against the people who anger me.\nI will command him to take the plunder,\nto seize the spoils,\nand to tread them down like mud in the streets.",
      "7": "But he does not intend to do this.\nThis is not what he has in mind.\nThe intention of his heart is to destroy\nand to cut off more than just a few nations.",
      "8": "This is what he says:\nAren’t all of my officials kings?",
      "9": "Isn’t Kalno like Carchemish?\n    Isn’t Hamath like Arpad?\n    Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?",
      "10": "Just as my hand has reached the kingdoms of those petty gods,\n    kingdoms whose images were greater than those\n        of Jerusalem and of Samaria,",
      "11": "just as I have done to Samaria and her petty gods,\n    will I not do the same to Jerusalem and her worthless idols?",
      "12": "But it will not happen that way. When the Lord has completed all of his work against Mount Zion and against Jerusalem, I will bring punishment against the bloated fruit of the willful heart of the king of Assyria and against the glare in his haughty eyes.",
      "13": "For he has said:\nBy the strength of my hand I have done this,\nand by my wisdom,\nfor I have understanding.\nI have abolished the borders of the peoples\nand have plundered their treasures.\nLike a mighty warrior I have brought down their inhabitants.",
      "14": "My hand has found the riches of the peoples like eggs in a nest.\nI have gathered all the earth the way one gathers abandoned eggs.\nNot one of them flapped its wings\nor opened its mouth or chirped.",
      "15": "Should an ax brag that it is better than the woodsman\nwho chops with it?\nShould a saw think that it is greater than the one who saws with it?\nThat would be like a scepter waving the one who raised it up,\nor like a club lifting up a person, who is not made of wood.",
      "16": "Therefore, the Lord, the Lord of Armies, will make\n    the sturdy Assyrians waste away,\nand in place of their glory, he will light a fire, a blazing fire.",
      "17": "The Light of Israel will be a fire, and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour its thorns and its briers in a single day.",
      "18": "He will consume the splendor of its forest and of its fruitful field completely. It will be like a sick man wasting away.",
      "19": "The remaining trees in its forest will be so few that a child could record their number.",
      "20": "It will come about in that day that those who remain from Israel and those from the house of Jacob who have survived will never again lean on the one who struck them, but they will truly lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.",
      "21": "A remnant will return to the mighty God, namely, the remnant of Jacob.",
      "22": "Although your people, Israel, are like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will return. Complete destruction has been decreed—overwhelming, but righteous.",
      "23": "For the Lord, the Lord of Armies, will bring about the destruction decreed for the whole earth.",
      "24": "Therefore the Lord, the Lord of Armies, says, “You my people who dwell in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrian, though he strikes you with the rod and lifts up his club against you as Egypt did.",
      "25": "For in a very little while, my rage against you will be finished, and my anger will be directed to his destruction.”",
      "26": "The Lord of Armies will raise up a whip against him, as he did in the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb. His rod will stretch over the sea, and he will lift it up as he did against Egypt.",
      "27": "In that day he will remove the burden that he placed on your shoulder and the yoke he placed on your neck. The yoke will be destroyed because your neck has grown so fat.",
      "28": "The Assyrian has come to Aiath.\nHe has passed through Migron.\nAt Mikmash he stores his supplies.",
      "29": "They have crossed over the pass.\nThey made their camp at Geba.\nRamah trembles.\nGibeah of Saul has fled.",
      "30": "Cry aloud with your voice, daughter of Gallim.\nListen, Laishah! You poor Anathoth!",
      "31": "Madmenah is a fugitive.\nThe inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety.",
      "32": "This very day he will halt at Nob.\nHe will shake his fist at the mountain of the daughter of Zion,\nthe hill of Jerusalem.",
      "33": "But look! The Lord, the Lord of Armies,\nwill chop off his branches with terrifying power.\nThe tall trees will be cut down,\nand the lofty will be laid low.",
      "34": "He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an iron ax,\nand mighty Lebanon will fall."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "A shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse,\nand a Branch from his roots will bear fruit.",
      "2": "The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him:\n    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,\n    the Spirit of counsel and might,\n    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.",
      "3": "He will be delighted with the fear of the Lord.\nHe will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,\nnor will he render decisions based on what he hears with his ears,",
      "4": "but with righteousness he will judge the poor,\nand he will render fair decisions in favor of the oppressed on the earth.\nHe will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,\nand with the breath from his lips he will put the wicked to death.",
      "5": "Righteousness will be the belt around his waist,\nand faithfulness the belt around his hips.",
      "6": "The wolf will dwell with the lamb,\nand the leopard will lie down with the young goat,\nthe calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together,\nand a little child will lead them.",
      "7": "The cow and the bear will graze together,\nand their young ones will lie down together.\nThe lion will eat straw like the cattle.",
      "8": "The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole,\nand the weaned child will put his hand into a viper’s den.",
      "9": "They will not hurt or destroy anywhere on my holy mountain,\nfor the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord,\nas the waters cover the sea.",
      "10": "This is what will take place on that day. The peoples will seek the Root of Jesse, who will be standing like a banner for the peoples, and his resting place will be glorious.",
      "11": "On that day the Lord will reach out his hand for the second time to reclaim the remnant of this people who survive from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coasts of the sea.",
      "12": "He will set up a banner for the nations,\nand he will assemble the outcasts of Israel\nand gather together the scattered people of Judah,\n    from the four corners of the earth.",
      "13": "Ephraim’s envy will be turned aside,\nand those who persecute Judah will be cut off.\nEphraim will not envy Judah,\nand Judah will not persecute Ephraim.",
      "14": "They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines in the west.\nTogether they will plunder the peoples in the east.\nThey will extend their power over Edom and Moab,\nand the people of Ammon will obey them.",
      "15": "The Lord will completely dry up the gulf of the Egyptian Sea.\nWith his scorching wind he will wave his hand over the River,\nand he will split it into seven streams,\nso that people wearing sandals will be able to march through it.",
      "16": "There will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant\n    of his people that is left there,\nas there was for Israel in the day when they came up\n    out of the land of Egypt."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "In that day you will say:\n    I will give thanks to you, Lord,\n    for though you were angry with me,\n    your anger has turned away,\n    and you comfort me.",
      "2": "Surely God is my salvation.\n    I will trust him and will not be afraid,\n    because Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song,\n    and he has become my salvation.",
      "3": "Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.",
      "4": "In that day you will say:\nGive thanks to the Lord! Proclaim his name.\nDeclare among the peoples what he has done.\nProclaim that his name is exalted!",
      "5": "Sing to the Lord, for he has done amazing things!\nLet this be known in all the earth!",
      "6": "Shout aloud and sing for joy, daughter of Zion,\nfor the Holy One of Israel is great among you!"
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "The oracleabout Babylon, which Isaiah son of Amoz saw.",
      "2": "Raise a banner on a bare hill!\nShout to them.\nSignal to them to enter the gates of the nobles.",
      "3": "I have given a command to my consecrated warriors.\nI have called my elite warriors to carry out my anger—\nthose who rejoice in my triumph.",
      "4": "The noise of a horde is heard on the mountains,\nlike the noise of many people,\n    like the uproar of the kingdoms of the nations\n    who are massing together!\nThe Lord of Armies is mustering an army for war.",
      "5": "They come from a faraway country,\nfrom the ends of the heavens.\nThe Lord and the weapons of his wrath\ncome to destroy the whole land.",
      "6": "Wail, for the Day of the Lord is near.\nIt will come like destruction from the Almighty.",
      "7": "Therefore all hands will hang limp,\nand every heart will melt.",
      "8": "They will be terrified.\nPain will overcome them.\nThey will be in pain like a woman in labor.\nThey will look at each other in shock.\nTheir faces are flushed.",
      "9": "Look, the Day of the Lord is coming,\na cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger,\na day to make the land desolate,\na day to destroy its sinners there.",
      "10": "For the stars of the sky and its constellations\n    will not give their light.\nThe sun will be darkened as it rises,\nand the moon will give no light.",
      "11": "I will punish the world for its evil,\nand the wicked for their guilt.\nI will put an end to the arrogance of the insolent,\nand I will humble the pride of the ruthless.",
      "12": "I will make people rarer than fine gold,\nand mankind scarcer than the gold of Ophir.",
      "13": "Therefore, I will make the heavens tremble,\nand the earth will be shaken off its foundation\nat the wrath of the Lord of Armies,\nin the day of his fierce anger.",
      "14": "Like a hunted gazelle,\nlike sheep without a shepherd,\neach of them will turn to his own people,\nand everyone will flee to his own land.",
      "15": "Everyone who is caught will be run through.\nEveryone who is captured will fall by the sword.",
      "16": "Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes.\nTheir houses will be looted, and their wives will be raped.",
      "17": "See, I will stir up against them the Medes,\nwho have no use for silver,\nwho do not delight even in gold.",
      "18": "Their bows will strike down the young,\nand they will have no pity on newborn infants.\nThere will be no compassion in their eyes for children.",
      "19": "Babylon is the glory of kingdoms,\nthe beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride,\nbut it will be just like the day when God overthrew\n    Sodom and Gomorrah.",
      "20": "It will never be inhabited again,\nnor will anyone live in it from generation to generation.\nNo Arab will pitch his tent there.\nNo shepherd will rest his flocks there.",
      "21": "Instead, wild animals from the desert will rest there.\nThe houses will be full of wild dogs.\nOstriches will nest there,\nand wild goats will frolic.",
      "22": "Hyenas will howl in its fortresses,\nand jackals in the luxurious palaces.\nIts time is near,\nand its days will not be prolonged."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Yes, the Lord will have compassion on Jacob,\nand he will choose Israel once again.\nHe will settle them in their own land.\nAliens will join them.\nThey will unite with the house of Jacob.",
      "2": "The peoples will take Israel\nand bring them back to their own place.\nIn the Lord’s land the house of Israel will possess the nations\nas male and female servants.\nThey will take their captors captive.\nThey will rule over their oppressors.",
      "3": "On that day, when the Lord will give you rest from your sorrow, rest from your trouble, and rest from the bondage forced upon you,",
      "4": "you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:\n“How the oppressor has ceased!\nHow his fury has ended!”",
      "5": "The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked,\nthe scepter of the rulers,",
      "6": "who struck down peoples with fury, blow after blow,\nwho ruled the nations in anger,\nwith a persecution that no one restrained.",
      "7": "The whole earth is at rest and is quiet.\nEverything breaks into song.",
      "8": "Yes, the fir trees rejoice with you,\nalong with the cedars of Lebanon.\nThey say, “Since the time you were humbled,\nno woodcutter has come to cut us down.”",
      "9": "The grave below is ready to meet you when you come.\nIt stirs up the departed spirits to meet you—\nall those who once were the rulers of the earth.\nIt makes all those who were kings over nations\n    rise from their thrones.",
      "10": "They will all respond to you, Babylon.\nThe spirits all will ask you,\n“Have you also become as weak as we are?\nHave you become like us?”",
      "11": "Your pomp has been brought down to the grave,\n    along with the sound of your harps.\nMaggots are spread out beneath you,\nand worms cover you.",
      "12": "How you have fallen from heaven,\nyou bright morning star, son of the dawn!\nHow you are cut down to the ground,\nyou who laid the nations low!",
      "13": "You said in your heart,\n“I will ascend to heaven!\nI will raise my throne above the stars of God!\nI will sit on the mountain of the assembly, in the far north!",
      "14": "I will ascend above the tops of the clouds!\nI will make myself like the Most High!”",
      "15": "But you will be brought down to the grave,\nto the bottom of the pit.",
      "16": "Those who see you will stare at you.\nThey will ask themselves,\n“Is this the man who made the earth tremble,\nwho shook kingdoms?",
      "17": "Is this the man who made the world like a wilderness,\nwho overthrew its cities,\nwho did not let his prisoners go home?”",
      "18": "All the kings of the nations lie in state,\neach in his own tomb.",
      "19": "But you will be tossed out of your tomb,\nlike a rejected branch.\nYou will be covered with the dead bodies,\nwith those who have been run through by the sword,\nwith those who descend into a stone-filled pit.\nLike a corpse trampled underfoot,",
      "20": "you will not join them in burial,\nbecause you have destroyed your land and killed your people.\nThe offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.",
      "21": "Prepare a place to slaughter his sons\nbecause of the guilt of their fathers,\nso that they may not rise up to inherit the earth\nand to cover the world with cities.",
      "22": "I will rise up against them,\ndeclares the Lord of Armies.\nI will cut off from Babylon her name and her remaining people,\nher posterity and progeny, declares the Lord.",
      "23": "I will turn it into a marsh, a home for porcupines,\nand I will sweep it away with the broom of destruction,\ndeclares the Lord of Armies.",
      "24": "The Lord of Armies has sworn:\n    Certainly, this will take place just as I have planned.\n    It will stand just as I have intended it.",
      "25": "I will destroy the Assyrian in my land\n    and trample him on my mountains.\n    Then his yoke will be removed from my people,\n    and his burden will be lifted from their shoulders.",
      "26": "This is the plan that has been determined for the whole world.\nThis is the hand that is stretched out over all nations.",
      "27": "For the Lord of Armies has made plans,\nand who can stop him?\nHis hand is stretched out,\nand who can turn it back?",
      "28": "This oracle came during the year that King Ahaz died.",
      "29": "Do not rejoice, all you Philistines,\nthat the rod that struck you is broken.\nFrom the snake’s root a viper will slither out,\nand from its egg a venomous flying serpent will come.",
      "30": "The poorest of the poor will eat,\nand the needy will lie down in safety.\nBut I will kill your root with famine,\nand even those of you who remain will be put to death.",
      "31": "Wail, O gate! Howl, O city!\nMelt away, all you Philistines!\nA cloud of dust descends from the north,\nand no one in its ranks will be left behind.",
      "32": "What answer will they give to the messengers from that nation?\nThe Lord has established Zion,\nand the afflicted people will take refuge in her."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "An oracle against Moab.\nIn one night, Ar of Moab has been ruined and brought to nothing.\nIn one night, Kir of Moab has been ruined and brought to nothing.",
      "2": "They have gone up to the temple at Dibon,\nup to the high places to weep.\nMoab wails over Nebo and over Medeba.\nEvery head is shaved.\nEvery beard is cut off.",
      "3": "They wear sackcloth in their streets.\nOn the rooftops and in the public squares, everyone wails.\nThey all collapse in tears.",
      "4": "Heshbon cries out with Elealeh.\nTheir voice is heard even in Jahaz.\nTherefore the armed men of Moab cry out,\nand their spirit is weak.",
      "5": "My heart cries out for Moab!\nHer refugees flee to Zoar,\nto Eglath Shelishiyah.\nThey go up the Ascent of Luhith,\n    weeping all the way.\nOn the way to Horonaim,\n    they weep continuously over their destruction.",
      "6": "The waters of Nimrim are dried up.\nThe grass has withered away.\nThe vegetation has died,\nand no green thing remains.",
      "7": "So they will carry across the Ravine of Poplars\n    whatever remains from the wealth they acquired\n    and from the supplies they stored up.",
      "8": "For a cry has echoed around the borders of Moab.\nThe wailing reaches to Eglaim\nand all the way to Be’er Elim.",
      "9": "For the waters of Dimon are full of blood,\nand I will bring still more on Dimon.\nI will bring a lion upon the refugees of Moab\nand upon the survivors who remain in the land."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "Send the tribute ram for the ruler of the land,\nfrom Selah toward the wilderness,\nto the mountain of the daughter of Zion.",
      "2": "At the fords of the Arnon, the daughters of Moab will be\nlike birds fleeing from a scattered nest.",
      "3": "Get advice and make a decision.\nAt high noon make your shade as dark as night.\nHide the refugees.\nDo not betray the fugitive.",
      "4": "Let the refugees from Moab stay with you.\n        Be a hiding place for them from the face of the destroyer.\nFor the extortionist is no longer present.\nViolence has ceased,\nand the oppressors have disappeared from the land.",
      "5": "A throne will be established in mercy.\nIn the tent of David a judge will sit on the throne in truth,\nseeking justice, eager to bring righteousness.",
      "6": "We have heard about Moab’s pride,\nabout his egotistical conceit.\nHis pride, his arrogance, and his boasting are nothing but self-delusion.",
      "7": "Therefore Moab will wail for Moab.\nEveryone will wail.\nCompletely devastated, you will mourn for the raisin cakes\n    of Kir Hareseth.",
      "8": "Look, the fields of Heshbon wither,\nalong with the vines of Sibmah.\nThe rulers of the nations have trampled the choice vines,\n    which reached even to Jazer,\n    which spread out into the wilderness.\nTheir shoots were spread out all the way to the sea.",
      "9": "Therefore I will weep as Jazer weeps for the vines of Sibmah.\nI will drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh,\nbecause the noisy celebration over your ripened fruit\n    and over your harvest has been silenced.",
      "10": "Gladness and joy are taken away from the rich fields.\nIn the vineyards there will be no cries of joy or happy shouting.\nNo one will tread out wine from the wine presses.\nI have put a stop to the cheering.",
      "11": "That is why my deepest feelings moan like a lyre for Moab,\nand everything inside me is poured out for Kir Hareseth.",
      "12": "When Moab presents himself on the high place,\nhe only wears himself out.\nWhen he goes to his shrine to pray,\nhe will accomplish nothing.",
      "13": "This is the word that the Lord has already spoken concerning Moab.",
      "14": "But now the Lord also says, “Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab will fade away despite its noisy crowd, and those who remain will be few and feeble.”"
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "An oracle against Damascus.\nSoon Damascus will no longer be a city.\nIt will become a heap of ruins.",
      "2": "The cities of Aroer are forsaken.\nThey will be places for flocks.\nThe flocks will lie down,\nand no one will make them afraid.",
      "3": "The fortress will disappear from Ephraim,\nand the kingdom from Damascus.\nWhat remains of Aram will be like the glory of the people of Israel,\n    declares the Lord of Armies.",
      "4": "On that day the glory of Jacob will fade,\nand his sturdy body will waste away.",
      "5": "It will be like the time when a reaper has gathered the standing grain,\nand his arm has reaped the heads of grain,\nwhen someone gleans grain in the Valley of Rephaim,",
      "6": "and a few gleanings are still left there,\nor when the branches of an olive tree have been beaten,\nand only two or three ripe olives are left on the top of the highest bough,\nor four or five remain on the fruitful branches,\ndeclares the Lord, the God of Israel.",
      "7": "On that day people will trust in their Maker,\nand they will look to the Holy One of Israel.",
      "8": "They will not look to the altars, the work of their own hands.\nThey will not respect what their fingers have made,\n    neither the Asherah poles nor the altars for incense.",
      "9": "On that day Israel’s strong cities will be\nlike the forsaken hilltops of the Amorites,\nlike the places that were abandoned when the people of Israel\n    first came.\nThey will be desolate.",
      "10": "You have forgotten the God who saves you.\nYou have not remembered the Rock who is your strength.\nTherefore, although you set out the best quality plants,\nand you plant cuttings from imported vines,",
      "11": "and you put a fence around them on the day you plant them,\nand you get your seed to sprout in the morning,\nnevertheless, the harvest will come to nothing\n    in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.",
      "12": "Oh, the roar of many peoples!\nThey roar like the raging seas.\nOh, the uproar of nations!\nIt sounds like huge, crashing waves!",
      "13": "The nations will roar like the crashing of great waves,\nbut he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away.\nThey will be driven off the mountains like wind-blown chaff,\nlike a tumbleweed blown about in a storm.",
      "14": "In the evening, terror rushes in!\nBefore morning they are gone.\nThis will be the reward for those who plunder us,\nthe lot of those who rob us."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "Woe to the land of the whirring wings, along the rivers of Cush.",
      "2": "They send ambassadors by sea, in papyrus boats on the water.\nGo, you swift messengers,\nto a tall people with smooth, dark skin,\nto a nation feared far and near,\na nation powerful and conquering,\nfrom a land divided by rivers!",
      "3": "All you inhabitants of the world,\nand you who dwell on the earth,\nlook for a signal flag raised on the mountains!\nListen for the blast of the ram’s horn!",
      "4": "For the Lord has said to me,\n“I will look on quietly from my dwelling place,\nlike the shimmering heat of the sun,\nlike the rising mist at harvest time.”",
      "5": "For before the harvest,\nafter the blossom has fallen\nand the flower has turned into ripening grapes,\nthe Lord will cut off the new shoots with pruning hooks,\nand he will cut down and remove the longer vines.",
      "6": "They will all be left for the scavenging birds in the mountains\nand for the wild animals in the countryside.\nThe scavenging birds will feed on them all summer,\nand wild animals will feed on them all winter.",
      "7": "At that time people will give gifts to the Lord of Armies.\nThese gifts will come from a tall people with smooth, dark skin,\na nation feared far and near,\na nation powerful and conquering,\nfrom a land divided by rivers.\nThey will bring their gifts to Mount Zion,\nthe place where the Lord of Armies has put his name."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "An oracle against Egypt.\nLook, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud, coming to Egypt!\nThe worthless idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,\nand the hearts of the Egyptians will melt inside them.",
      "2": "I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian,\nand they will fight,\n    brother against brother,\n    neighbor against neighbor,\n    city against city,\n    and kingdom against kingdom.",
      "3": "The spirit in the Egyptians will fail completely.\nI will frustrate their plans.\nThey will turn to their worthless gods,\nto the spirits of the dead,\nto mediums and spiritists.",
      "4": "But I will hand the Egyptians over to a cruel master,\nand a fierce king will rule over them,\ndeclares the Lord, the Lord of Armies.",
      "5": "The water will dry up from the sea,\nand the riverbed will dry up completely and be empty.",
      "6": "The rivers and canals will stink.\nThe streams in the Nile delta will run low and dry up.\nReeds and rushes will wither away.",
      "7": "The plants that grow beside the Nile, at the mouth of the Nile,\nand all the crops planted along the Nile will dry up.\nThey will blow away and vanish.",
      "8": "The fishermen will mourn.\nAll those who cast hooks into the Nile will lament,\nand those who spread nets on the waters will grieve.",
      "9": "Those who work with flax,\nthe women who comb the flax,\nand the men who weave the linen will despair.",
      "10": "Those who make cloth will be crushed.\nAll the hired workers will lose heart.",
      "11": "The officials of Zoan are complete fools.\nPharaoh’s wisest counselors give unreasonable advice.\nHow can you say to Pharaoh, “I am a son of wise men,\na son of ancient kings”?",
      "12": "Where then are your wise men?\nLet them tell you now!\nLet them make known what the Lord of Armies\n    has planned against Egypt.",
      "13": "The officials of Zoan act like fools.\nThe officials of Memphis are deceived.\nThey have caused Egypt to go astray—\nthese cornerstones of her tribes!",
      "14": "The Lord has poured a confused spirit into them.\nThey made Egypt go astray in everything it does,\nlike a drunken man staggering around in his own vomit.",
      "15": "No head or tail, no palm branch or reed,\n    will accomplish anything for Egypt.",
      "16": "On that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble with fear because of the threatening hand of the Lord of Armies, which he raises against them.",
      "17": "The land of Judah will terrify Egypt. Everyone who hears about Judah will be filled with dread, because of what the Lord of Armies is planning against Egypt.",
      "18": "On that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear an oath to the Lord of Armies. One will be called the City of the Sun.",
      "19": "On that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the center of the land of Egypt, and a memorial pillar to the Lord at its border.",
      "20": "There will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of Armies in the land of Egypt. They will cry to the Lord because of their oppressors, and he will send them a savior and a champion, and he will rescue them.",
      "21": "The Lord will make himself known to Egypt, and on that day the Egyptians will know the Lord. They will worship with sacrifices and offerings. They will swear a vow to the Lord, and they will fulfill it.",
      "22": "The Lord will strike Egypt, striking them and then healing them. They will return to the Lord, and he will hear their prayer, and he will heal them.",
      "23": "On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will come to Egypt, and the Egyptians will come to Assyria, and Egyptians will serve together with Assyrians.",
      "24": "On that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing to the earth,",
      "25": "because the Lord of Armies has blessed them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”"
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "In the year that the field commander sent by Sargon king of Assyria came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it—",
      "2": "at that time the Lord delivered a message through Isaiah son of Amoz. The Lord said, “Take off the sackcloth around your waist and remove the sandals from your feet.” Isaiah did this and went naked and barefoot.",
      "3": "The Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and an omen concerning Egypt and Cush,",
      "4": "so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot, with bare buttocks, to Egypt’s shame.",
      "5": "They will be overwhelmed and ashamed because of Cush, their hope, and Egypt, their source of confidence.",
      "6": "On that day those who live on this coast will say, “Look what happened to our hope, to whom we fled for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How can we escape?”"
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "An oracle about the Wilderness by the Sea.\nLike windstorms that sweep through the Negev,\nit comes from the wilderness,\nfrom a terrifying place.",
      "2": "An ominous vision has been shown to me.\nThe betrayer betrays; the destroyer destroys.\nElam, attack! Media, lay siege!\nI will bring all her groaning to an end.",
      "3": "That is why I am full of anguish.\nPain has taken hold of me,\n    like the pain of a woman in labor.\nI am stunned by what I hear,\nterrified by what I see.",
      "4": "My heart pounds!\nI am shaking with fear.\nThe twilight that I longed for is making me quake with terror.",
      "5": "They prepare the table.\nThey spread out the luxurious carpets.\nThey eat. They drink.\n“Officers! Get up and oil your shields!”",
      "6": "Yes, this is what the Lord said to me:\n    Go, post a watchman.\n    Have him declare what he sees.",
      "7": "When he sees chariots pulled by teams of horses,\n    riders on donkeys, and riders on camels,\n    have him listen carefully—very carefully.",
      "8": "The lookout cried out:\n    Lord, I stand on the watchtower day after day,\n    and every night I stay at my post.",
      "9": "Now, look! Here come men in chariots pulled by teams of horses.\nThen he announced:\n    Fallen, fallen is Babylon!\n    All the images of her gods lie broken on the ground.",
      "10": "O my people, you who have been threshed like grain on my threshing floor, everything I have heard from the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, I have proclaimed to you.",
      "11": "The oracle against Dumah.\nSomeone calls out to me from Seir,\n    Watchman, how much of the night remains?\n    Watchman, how much of the night remains?",
      "12": "The watchman said:\n    Morning is coming, but night is coming again.\n    If you want to ask, go ahead and ask.\n    Then return! Come back again.",
      "13": "An oracle against Arabia.\nYou spend the night among the thickets of Arabia,\nyou caravans of Dedanites.",
      "14": "Bring water for the thirsty,\nyou who live in Tema.\nBring bread for the refugees.",
      "15": "They fled from the sword,\nfrom the drawn sword,\nfrom the bent bow,\nand from the heat of battle.",
      "16": "This is what the Lord said to me: “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end,",
      "17": "and the archers who survive, the strong warriors of Kedar, will be few.” The Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "An oracle about the Valley of Vision.\nWhat is troubling you now?\nWhy have all of you gone up to the rooftops?",
      "2": "Why is the town full of shouting?\nWhy is the joyful city full of turmoil?\nYour fallen were not run through with the sword.\nYour dead did not fall in battle.",
      "3": "All your rulers fled together,\ncaptured by archers without bows.\nAll your refugees were caught together.\nThey had fled far away.",
      "4": "That is why I said,\n“Look away from me.\nI will weep bitterly.\nDo not try to comfort me over the destruction of the daughter\n    of my people.”",
      "5": "For it is a day of turmoil, trampling, and terror.\nThis has come from the Lord, the God of Armies,\nin the Valley of Vision.\nIt is a day for breaking down walls\nand crying out to the mountains.",
      "6": "Elam picks up the quiver, with chariots and charioteers,\nand Kir removes the covering from their shields.",
      "7": "Your fertile valleys are full of chariots,\nand charioteers are posted by the gate.",
      "8": "He removed the cover that was protecting Judah.\nOn that day you looked for the weapons in the House of the Forest.",
      "9": "You saw all the breaches through the walls of the City of David—\nand there were many.\nYou collected water from the Lower Pool.",
      "10": "You counted the houses of Jerusalem.\nYou planned to tear them down to strengthen the wall.",
      "11": "You built a reservoir between the two walls\nfor the water from the Old Pool.\nBut you did not look to the one who had made it.\nYou did not consider the one who shaped this long ago.",
      "12": "On that day the Lord, the God of Armies,\ncalled for weeping and loud mourning.\nHe called for shaved heads and for dressing in sackcloth.",
      "13": "But take a look and see:\n    joy and gladness,\n    butchering cattle, killing sheep,\n    eating meat, and drinking wine.\n“Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”",
      "14": "The Lord of Armies has revealed this in my hearing: “I swear, your guilt will not be atoned for until your dying day, says the Lord, the God of Armies.”",
      "15": "This is what the Lord, the God of Armies, says.\nGo to this administrator Shebna, who is in charge of the palace, and ask him,",
      "16": "“What are you doing here? Who gave you permission to carve a tomb here?”\n(Shebna was carving out a tomb for himself on a height, chiseling a resting place for himself in the cliff!)",
      "17": "Watch out! The Lord is going to hurl you away violently, you ordinary man. He is going to grab you tightly,",
      "18": "whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into the open countryside. There you will die, and your glorious chariots will be there, to the shame of your master’s house.",
      "19": "I will expel you from your office. You will be thrown out from your position.",
      "20": "On that day I will call for my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah.",
      "21": "I will clothe him with your robe and tie your sash around him. I will put your authority into his hand, and he will be a father for those who live in Jerusalem and for the house of Judah.",
      "22": "I will place the key of the house of David on his shoulder. Whatever he opens, no one will shut. Whatever he shuts, no one will open.",
      "23": "I will drive him like a nail into a solid place. He will be an honored throne for the house of his father.",
      "24": "They will hang all the splendor of his father’s house on him: the branches and leaves, and all the small containers, from the large bowls all the way down to the smallest juglets.",
      "25": "In that day, says the Lord of Armies, the nail that was driven into a solid place will give way. It will be sheared off and fall down. The load hanging on it will be cut off, because the Lord has spoken."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "An oracle about Tyre.\nWail, you ships of Tarshish!\nBecause Tyre has been destroyed—\nno more house or harbor!\nThis is the news they heard from Cyprus.",
      "2": "Be silent, you who live along the coast,\nyou merchants of Sidon,\nwhose agents have crossed the sea",
      "3": "on the great waters.\nThe grain of the Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, provided her income.\nShe was the marketplace of nations.",
      "4": "Be ashamed, Sidon, fortress by the sea,\nbecause the sea has spoken, saying,\n“No longer do I feel the pain of childbirth.\nNo longer do I have children.\nI have no young men to raise,\nno virgin girls to bring up.”",
      "5": "When the news comes to Egypt,\nthey will agonize over the report from Tyre.",
      "6": "Sail across to Tarshish!\nWail, you island people!",
      "7": "Is this your joyful city, older than old,\nwhose feet carried her to settle so far away?",
      "8": "Who has planned this against Tyre,\nthe city that crowned kings,\nwhose merchants were like royal officials,\nwhose traders were honored around the world?",
      "9": "The Lord of Armies has planned this,\nto strip their pride of all its glory,\nto humiliate those who were honored around the world.",
      "10": "Overflow your land, daughter of Tarshish,\n    like the Nile overflowing its banks.\nYou no longer have a harbor as a marketplace.",
      "11": "He has stretched out his hand over the sea.\nHe has shaken the kingdoms.\nIt is the Lord who has ordered the destruction\n    of Canaan’s fortresses.",
      "12": "He said, “Rejoice no more, virgin daughter of Sidon,\nyou who have been violated.\nGet up, sail across to Cyprus.\nBut even there you will have no rest.”",
      "13": "(Compare it to the land of the Chaldeans—this people who have become nothing. It was the Assyrians who made it into a dwelling for wild animals from the desert. They raised up siege towers, tore down citadels, and made it a ruin.)",
      "14": "Wail, you ships of Tarshish,\nbecause your stronghold is destroyed!",
      "15": "In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the days of a king’s life. After the end of the seventy years, Tyre will be like the prostitute in this song.",
      "16": "Pick up a lyre.\nGo through the city,\nyou forgotten prostitute.\nPlay skillfully.\nSing many songs,\nso that you might be remembered once again.",
      "17": "At the end of the seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will go back to collecting wages, to selling herself to all the kingdoms of the world, to everyone on the surface of the earth.",
      "18": "But this time her merchandise and her wages will be dedicated to the Lord. It will not be stored away. Her goods will be for those who live in the presence of the Lord, so that they have enough to eat and clothing that will last."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "Watch, the Lord is going to strip the earth bare and make it desolate.\nHe will wring it out and scatter its inhabitants.",
      "2": "It will be the same for people and priest,\n    for servant and master,\n    for servant girl and lady,\n    for buyer and seller,\n    for lender and borrower,\n    for creditor and debtor.",
      "3": "The earth will be stripped bare, totally plundered,\n    for the Lord has spoken this word.",
      "4": "The earth mourns and withers.\nThe world fades and withers away.\nThe proud people of the earth fade away.",
      "5": "The earth is polluted by its inhabitants,\nbecause they have bypassed the laws.\nThey have changed the statutes\nand set aside the everlasting covenant.",
      "6": "Therefore a curse devours the earth,\nand those who live there will be found guilty.\nThat is why the inhabitants of the earth will be burned up,\nand so few will remain.",
      "7": "The new wine mourns.\nThe vine dries up.\nThose who were feeling merry now sigh.",
      "8": "The happy sound of drums has ceased.\nThe noise of partying has ended.\nThe joyful lyre is silent.",
      "9": "They will drink no wine with their songs anymore.\nBeer is bitter to those who drink it.",
      "10": "The city is in chaos and ruins.\nEvery house is closed up,\nand no one can get in.",
      "11": "They cry for wine in the streets,\nbut all festive joy is gone.\nJoyful celebration is banished from the land.",
      "12": "The city is left desolate,\nand the gate is smashed into pieces.",
      "13": "This is the way it will be among the peoples on earth:\nIt will be like an olive tree after it has been picked over,\nlike the gleanings left after the grape harvest.",
      "14": "They raise their voices and sing for joy.\nFrom the west they shout for the majesty of the Lord.",
      "15": "Therefore, in the east glorify the Lord.\nIn the coastlands of the sea, glorify the name of the Lord,\n    the God of Israel!",
      "16": "We hear songs from the ends of the earth:\nGlory to the Righteous One!\nBut I said, “I am wasting away! I am wasting away! Woe is me!”\nThe treacherous deal treacherously.\nYes, the treacherous deal very treacherously.",
      "17": "Panic, pit, and peril await all who live on the earth.",
      "18": "Whoever flees from the noise of terror will fall into the pit.\nWhoever crawls out of the pit will be caught in the trap.\nThe windows in the sky have opened,\nand the foundations of the earth quake.",
      "19": "The earth is broken to pieces.\nThe earth is tearing itself apart.\nThe earth is shaking violently.",
      "20": "The earth staggers like a drunken man.\nIt shakes like a shack in a windstorm.\nThe burden of its rebellion is so heavy\n    that it will fall, unable to rise again.",
      "21": "On that day the Lord will deal with the army on high\nand with the kings of the earth below.",
      "22": "They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit.\nThey will be locked up in prison,\nand after many days they will be dealt with.",
      "23": "Then the bright moon will be ashamed,\nand the hot sun will be embarrassed,\nfor the Lord of Armies will reign on Mount Zion in Jerusalem,\nand his glory will shine in the presence of his elders."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "O Lord, you are my God.\nI will exalt you! I will praise your name,\nbecause you have done astounding things,\nplans laid long ago that are firm and faithful.",
      "2": "For you have reduced the city to a heap,\nthe fortified city to ruins.\nThe citadel of foreigners is no longer a city at all.\nIt will never be rebuilt.",
      "3": "That is why powerful peoples will honor you.\nThe cities of cruel nations will fear you,",
      "4": "for you have been a stronghold for the poor,\na stronghold for the needy in their distress.\nYou have been a shelter from the rainstorm\nand shade from the heat.\nWhen the breath of the ruthless is like a rainstorm battering a wall,",
      "5": "like a hot wind drying up the desert,\nyou put down the uproar of foreigners.\nIt is like heat cooled by the shade of a cloud.\nThe song of the ruthless is silenced.",
      "6": "On this mountain\nthe Lord of Armies will prepare for all peoples\n    a banquet of rich food,\n    a banquet of aged wines,\n    with the best cuts of meat,\n    and with the finest wines.",
      "7": "On this mountain\nhe will destroy the shroud that covers all peoples,\nthe burial cloth stretched over all nations.",
      "8": "He has swallowed up death forever!\nThe Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face.\nHe will take away the shame of his people throughout the earth.\nFor the Lord has spoken.",
      "9": "On that day it will be said,\n“Look, here is our God!\nWe waited for him, and he saved us!\nThis is the Lord!\nWe waited for him.\nLet us be glad and rejoice in his salvation!”",
      "10": "On this mountain\nthe Lord’s hand will rest.\nMoab will be trampled underfoot,\nlike straw trampled into manure.",
      "11": "Moab will spread out his hands in the middle of it,\n    like someone trying to swim,\nbut the Lord will bring down Moab’s pride,\nalong with everything Moab’s hands have done.",
      "12": "The Lord will topple your high-walled fortress\nand bring it to the ground,\nall the way down to the dust."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah.\nWe have a strong city.\nGod sets up salvation as its walls and ramparts.",
      "2": "Open the gates,\nso that the righteous nation may enter,\nthe nation that guards the truth.",
      "3": "You preserve perfect peace for the person\n    whose resolve is steadfast,\nbecause he trusts in you.",
      "4": "Trust in the Lord forever,\nfor Yah the Lord is the eternal Rock.",
      "5": "He humbles those who live in a high place,\n    in a high, secure city.\nHe brings it down!\nHe brings it down to the ground!\nHe throws it down into the dust!",
      "6": "It is trampled down\nby the feet of the poor,\nby the soles of the feet of the helpless.",
      "7": "The way of the righteous is level and smooth.\nYou are righteous. You smooth the path for the righteous.",
      "8": "Truly, Lord, we have waited for you on the path of your judgments.\nYour name and your renown are what our soul desires.",
      "9": "My soul longs for you during the night.\nMy spirit within me looks for you early in the morning,\nbecause when your judgments are known on earth,\nthe inhabitants of the world will learn what righteousness is.",
      "10": "Although grace is shown to the wicked,\nthey do not learn righteousness.\nThey will continue to act unjustly even in a righteous land.\nThey will not recognize the Lord’s majesty.",
      "11": "Lord, your hand is raised, ready to strike,\nbut they do not see it.\nBut they will see your zeal for the people,\nand they will be put to shame.\nMay fire consume your enemies.",
      "12": "O Lord, you establish peace for us.\nEverything we have done, you have accomplished for us.",
      "13": "O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,\nbut we honor only your name.",
      "14": "They are dead. They will not live again.\nTheir departed spirits will not return.\nYou have dealt with them and destroyed them.\nYou have wiped out all memory of them.",
      "15": "You have enlarged the nation, O Lord.\nYou have enlarged the nation!\nYou are glorified!\nYou have extended all the borders of the land.",
      "16": "O Lord, they appealed to you in distress.\nThey whispered a prayer as you disciplined them.",
      "17": "Just as a pregnant woman nearing the time of her delivery\n    writhes and cries out in her pain,\nso we have done before you, O Lord.",
      "18": "We have been in pain\n    as if we were about to give birth to a child,\nbut we gave birth only to wind.\nWe have not brought salvation for the earth.\nWe have not given birth to people who can inhabit the world.",
      "19": "But your dead ones will live.\nTheir dead bodies will rise.\nWake up and sing for joy,\nyou who dwell in the dust,\nbecause your dew will glisten like morning light,\nand the earth will give up the spirits of the dead.",
      "20": "Go, my people, go into your rooms,\nand shut the doors behind you.\nHide yourselves for a little while,\nuntil his wrath has passed over.",
      "21": "Look! The Lord is coming out of his place\n    to deal with the guilt of those who live on the earth.\nThen the earth will reveal the blood shed on it.\nIt will no longer cover those who have been killed."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "On that day, the Lord will draw his sharp, great, and powerful sword, and he will kill Leviathan, the slithering serpent—Leviathan, the coiling serpent. The Lord will kill the monster in the sea.",
      "2": "On that day, sing about a delightful vineyard!",
      "3": "I, the Lord, am serving as its caretaker.\nI water it constantly.\nSo that nothing will damage it,\nI guard it night and day.",
      "4": "I am not angry,\nbut if I do find briers and thorns there,\nI will fight them!\nI will charge against them and set them all on fire.",
      "5": "To prevent this, let them turn to me for protection\nand make peace with me.\nLet them make peace with me!",
      "6": "In days to come,\nJacob will take root.\nIsrael will blossom and bud.\nIt will fill the whole world with fruit.",
      "7": "Has he struck Israel the way he struck those who struck them?\nHave they been killed the same way those who killed them were killed?",
      "8": "When you drive them away and send them into exile,\nyou make your case against them.\nHe drives them out with his violent storm,\nas on a day when the hot east wind blows.",
      "9": "In this way the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,\nand this will be all the fruit that results from taking away his sin.\nHe will make all the altar stones like chalk that has been crushed,\nand no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.",
      "10": "Then the fortified city will be all alone,\na dwelling place, deserted and forsaken, like a wilderness.\nCalves will graze there.\nThey will lie down there and eat all the leaves off the branches.",
      "11": "When its twigs are dried up, they are broken off.\nWomen will come and build a fire with them.\nBecause they are a people who have no understanding,\ntherefore their Maker will have no compassion on them.\nHe who formed them will not be gracious to them.",
      "12": "On that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing river, the Euphrates, to the Stream of Egypt, and you Israelites will be gathered one by one.",
      "13": "On that day there will be a very loud blast on a ram’s horn, and those who were about to perish in the land of Assyria, together with those who were scattered in the land of Egypt, will come. They will worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "Woe to drunken Ephraim’s proud crown,\nto the fading flower of its glorious beauty,\non the peak that overlooks a fertile valley.\nWoe to those who are overcome with wine!",
      "2": "Look, the Lord has someone who is strong and mighty.\nLike a hailstorm,\nlike a destructive windstorm,\nlike a hurricane that drives surging waters,\nhe will throw them down to the earth with his own hand.",
      "3": "Drunken Ephraim’s proud crown will be trampled underfoot.",
      "4": "The fading flower of its glorious beauty, on the peak overlooking\n        a fertile valley,\n    will be like the early figs before summer,\n    which someone picks and swallows as soon as he sees them.",
      "5": "On that day the Lord of Armies will become a glorious crown\nand a beautifully braided headband for the remnant of his people.",
      "6": "He will provide a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment,\nand strength for those who turn back the battle at the gate.",
      "7": "They stagger into error because of wine,\nand they stumble off the way because of beer.\nThe priests and prophets stagger with beer,\nand they are dizzy from wine.\nThey stumble from beer.\nThey stagger when they see visions.\nThey reel when they render judgment.",
      "8": "All their tables are covered with vomit.\nThere is not a spot without filth.",
      "9": "They say:\n    Who is he trying to teach?\n    Who needs his instruction?\n    A baby who has just been weaned from milk?\n    An infant just taken from the breast?",
      "10": "They say:\n    Law by law, law by law,\n    rule by rule, rule by rule,\n    a little here, a little there.",
      "11": "So the Lord will speak to this people\n    with barbarous lips and in a foreign tongue.",
      "12": "He said to them,\n“This is the resting place.\nLet the weary rest.\nThis is the place to be refreshed,”\nbut they would not listen.",
      "13": "That is why to them the word of the Lord will be:\n    Law by law, law by law,\n    rule by rule, rule by rule,\n    a little here, a little there.\nAs a result they will try to walk,\nbut they will fall backwards.\nThey will be hurt, trapped, and taken.",
      "14": "So now, hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers,\nwho rule this people in Jerusalem.",
      "15": "You said:\n    We have made a covenant with death,\n    an agreement with the grave.\n    When the punishing whip comes, it will not touch us,\n    for we have made lies our refuge,\n    and we have hidden ourselves behind falsehood.",
      "16": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says:\n    Look, I am laying a stone in Zion as a foundation,\n    a tested stone,\n    a precious cornerstone to provide a sure foundation.\n    Whoever believes will not be put to shame.",
      "17": "I will make justice the measuring line\nand righteousness the plumb line.\nA hailstorm will sweep away the refuge of lies,\nand floodwaters will wash away your shelter.",
      "18": "Your covenant with death will be canceled,\nand your agreement with the grave will not stand.\nWhen the punishing whip comes,\nyou will be beaten down by it.",
      "19": "Every time it comes, it will carry you away.\nIt could come any morning, any day, any night.\nIf you understand this message, you will be utterly terrified:",
      "20": "The bed is too short to lie on,\n    and the blanket is too narrow to cover you.",
      "21": "For the Lord will rise up as he did on Mount Perazim.\nHe will be enraged, as he was in the valley of Gibeon,\n    to do his work, his strange work,\n    and to accomplish his task, his foreign task.",
      "22": "Now stop your scornful attitude, or your chains\n        will be made stronger,\nbecause I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord,\n        the Lord of Armies,\n    against the whole earth.",
      "23": "Listen! Hear my voice.\nPay attention to what I say.",
      "24": "Does the plowman keep plowing all day in order to plant?\nDoes he keep tilling the soil and turning over the dirt?",
      "25": "When he has leveled the surface,\ndoesn’t he plant the dill\nand scatter cumin seed?\nHe plants the wheat in one place,\nbarley in another field,\nand spelt along the edge.",
      "26": "His God instructs him\nand teaches him good judgment.",
      "27": "Of course he does not thresh the dill with a threshing sledge,\nnor does he roll the wheel of a cart over the cumin.\nNo, he beats the dill with a stick\nand strikes the cumin with a staff.",
      "28": "Flour for bread needs to be ground,\nso he does not thresh endlessly.\nHe drives the wheels of his threshing cart over it\nand even his team of horses,\nbut he does not pulverize it.",
      "29": "This also springs forth from the Lord of Armies.\nHe gives amazing advice.\nHe provides great guidance."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David made his camp.\nAdd one year to another.\nLet your cycle of festivals roll on.",
      "2": "But then I will bring distress to Ariel,\nand there will be mourning and lamentation.\nThen she will become an altar hearth to me.",
      "3": "I will encamp against you on all sides,\nand I will lay siege against you with towers.\nI will raise siege works against you.",
      "4": "You will be brought so low\nthat you will speak from the ground.\nYou will murmur from the dust.\nYour voice will be like a ghost from a pit in the ground,\nand your speech will whisper from the dust.",
      "5": "But your many foes will become like fine dust,\nand the ruthless hordes like blowing chaff.\nThis will take place suddenly, in an instant.",
      "6": "You will be visited by the Lord of Armies\nwith thunder, earthquake, and a loud noise,\nwith a strong wind and a storm,\nand with the flames of a devouring fire.",
      "7": "The hordes of nations that fight against Ariel,\nall who fight against her and her stronghold,\nall who besiege her—\nall of them will be like a dream,\nlike a vision in the night.",
      "8": "They will be like a hungry man who dreams and sees himself eating,\nbut then he wakes up, and his hunger is not satisfied.\nThey will be like a thirsty man who dreams and sees himself drinking,\nbut then he wakes up and, sure enough, he is weak with thirst.\nThat is how it will be with the hordes of nations\n    that fight against Mount Zion.",
      "9": "Be stunned! Be amazed!\nBlind yourselves and be blind!\nThey are drunk, but not with wine.\nThey stagger, but not from beer.",
      "10": "For the Lord has poured out a spirit of deep sleep over you.\nHe has closed your eyes—the prophets.\nHe has covered your heads—the seers.",
      "11": "For you this whole vision has become like the words of a sealed scroll. If you give it to someone who can read, and you say, “Read this, please,” he will say, “I can’t. It is sealed.”",
      "12": "And if you give it to someone who cannot read, and you say, “Read this, please,” he will say, “I can’t read.”",
      "13": "The Lord says:\nThese people approach me with their words,\nand they honor me with their lips,\nbut their hearts are far from me.\nTheir worship of me is nothing but commandments taught by men.",
      "14": "So watch how I will continue to amaze these people\n    with amazing, extraordinary things.\nThe wisdom of the wise will perish,\nand the intelligence of the intelligent will be hidden.",
      "15": "Woe to those who try to hide their plans from the Lord.\nTheir deeds are done in darkness,\nand they think that no one sees them\nor knows what they are doing.",
      "16": "You turn things upside down!\nShould the potter be treated like clay?\nShould the thing that was made say to its maker,\n    “You didn’t make me”?\nShould the creation say to the creator,\n    “You know nothing”?",
      "17": "Isn’t it true that in a very short time\n    Lebanon will be turned into a fertile field,\n    and the fertile field will seem like a forest?",
      "18": "On that day, the deaf will hear the words from a book,\nand out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.",
      "19": "The humble will rejoice in the Lord once again,\nand the poor will delight in the Holy One of Israel.",
      "20": "But the ruthless will come to nothing.\nThose who mock will be no more,\nand all those who plan evil will be cut off—",
      "21": "all those who slander others with a word,\nall those who argue cases at the city gate,\nall those who use false testimony to deprive the innocent of justice.",
      "22": "Therefore this is what the Lord, who redeemed Abraham,\nsays about the house of Jacob:\n    Jacob will not be ashamed anymore.\n    His face will not grow pale.",
      "23": "But when his children see what I do among them,\n    they will honor my name.\n    They will honor the Holy One of Jacob.\n    They will stand in awe of the God of Israel.",
      "24": "Those who are confused will come to understand,\n    and those who complain will gladly receive instruction."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "Woe to this rebellious people, says the Lord.\nThey take advice, but not from me.\nThey establish an alliance, but not by my Spirit.\nThen they sin more and more.",
      "2": "Woe to those who go down to Egypt, without consulting me.\nThey seek Pharaoh’s protection,\nand they take refuge in the shade of Egypt!",
      "3": "So Pharaoh’s protection will bring you shame.\nTaking refuge in the shade of Egypt will be your downfall.",
      "4": "Even though Israel’s officials are in Zoan,\nand their envoys have gone as far as Hanes,",
      "5": "they will all be humiliated\nbecause of a people that is useless to them.\nThey can neither help nor provide any benefit.\nThey bring only shame and reproach.",
      "6": "An oracle about the animals of the Negev.\nThrough the land of trouble and distress,\nthe land of the lioness and the lion,\nof the viper and the venomous flying serpent,\nJudah’s envoys carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys\nand their treasures on camels’ humps,\nto a nation that cannot help them.",
      "7": "For Egypt’s help is useless and serves no purpose.\nThat is why I have called her “the dragon that just sits there.”",
      "8": "Go and write it on a tablet for them.\nRecord it on a scroll,\nso that in the future it may serve as a permanent witness.",
      "9": "These are a rebellious people, lying children,\nchildren unwilling to hear the law of the Lord,",
      "10": "who tell the seers, “Stop seeing!”\nwho tell the prophets, “Stop prophesying what is right!\nTell us pleasant things. Prophesy illusions.",
      "11": "Leave the way! Turn from the path!\nStop getting in our face about the Holy One of Israel!”",
      "12": "This is what the Holy One of Israel says:\n    Since you have rejected my word,\n    and you trust in oppression and deceit,\n    and you rely on them,",
      "13": "your guilt will be like a crack in a wall,\n    bulging out and about to collapse.\n    It will suddenly fall without warning.",
      "14": "It will crash like a broken clay pot,\n    smashed to pieces so violently that not one useful piece will be left,\n    not even a piece good enough to pick up a coal from the hearth\n    or to ladle water from a cistern.",
      "15": "This is what the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, says:\n    If you repent and wait quietly, you will be saved.\n    Your strength will depend on quietness and trust.\nBut you refused.",
      "16": "You said, “No, we will flee on horseback!”\nYes indeed, you will flee.\nYou said, “We will ride away swiftly!”\nYes indeed, you will be pursued swiftly.",
      "17": "A thousand will flee when just one threatens.\nWhen five threaten, you will flee,\nuntil you are like a single flag, fluttering on a mountaintop,\nlike a lonely banner on a hill.",
      "18": "But the Lord is eager to be gracious to you.\nHe waits on high to have mercy on you,\nfor the Lord is a God of justice.\nBlessed are all those who long for him.",
      "19": "So people will live in Zion. In Jerusalem you will weep no more. The Lord will be very gracious to you when he hears your cry. When he hears you, he will answer you.",
      "20": "Though the Lord has given you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, he is your teacher. He will not be hidden any longer. You will see your teacher with your own eyes.",
      "21": "Whenever you are tempted to turn to the right or to the left, you will hear his voice behind you, saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.”",
      "22": "You will defile your idols that are plated with silver and your images overlaid with gold. You will throw them away like a filthy cloth, saying, “Get away from me!”",
      "23": "Then he will give you rain so that you can sow seed in the ground. The bread from your land’s harvest will be excellent and plentiful. On that day your livestock will graze in wide pastures.",
      "24": "The oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat the best feed—winnowed with a shovel and a winnowing fork.",
      "25": "On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams flowing with water.\nIt will be a day of terrible slaughter, when towers fall.",
      "26": "The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day when the Lord will bind up the wounds of his people and heal the injuries he inflicted.",
      "27": "Look! The name of the Lord is coming from far away,\nburning with anger, in a column of thick smoke.\nHis lips are full of anger,\nand his tongue is a consuming fire.",
      "28": "His breath is a stream at flood stage,\nsurging all the way up to your neck.\nHe shakes the nations in a sieve to destroy them,\nand he puts a bridle in their mouths to lead them to destruction.",
      "29": "You will sing as you do on the night of a holy festival,\n    with glad hearts,\nas when they go up with flutes to the mountain of the Lord,\nto the Rock of Israel.",
      "30": "The Lord will cause the majestic splendor of his voice to be heard.\nHe will make them see his arm come crashing down in fierce anger,\nlike the flames of a consuming fire,\nlike driving rain, a furious storm with hailstones.",
      "31": "The voice of the Lord will terrify Assyria.\nHe will strike it with his rod.",
      "32": "Every stroke of the punishing rod which the Lord will lay on them\n    will be accompanied by the music of drums and lyres.\nHe himself will fight, battling them, swinging weapons.",
      "33": "Topheth has long been made ready.\nIt is prepared for the king,\na flaming funeral pyre, deep and wide, with plenty of wood.\nThe breath of the Lord, like a river of liquid fire, sets it ablaze."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,\nwho put their faith in horses,\nwho trust in chariots because there are many of them,\nwho trust in charioteers because they are very powerful.\nThey do not trust in the Holy One of Israel.\nThey do not seek the Lord.",
      "2": "The Lord is wise, and he will bring disaster.\nHe will not go back on his word,\nbut he will deal with those who do evil,\nand with those who help the wicked.",
      "3": "The Egyptians are merely men, not gods.\nTheir horses are flesh, not spirit.\nWhen the Lord stretches out his hand to punish,\nboth the helper and the one seeking help will fall.\nTogether they will perish.",
      "4": "This is what the Lord said to me:\n    When a lion or a young lion snarls over its prey,\n    and a band of shepherds is called out to drive it away,\n    it is not afraid of their shouts,\n    and it is not bothered by the noise they make.\n    In the same way, the Lord of Armies will fearlessly come down\n        to fight on Mount Zion and on its heights.",
      "5": "Like a hovering bird,\nthe Lord of Armies will protect Jerusalem.\nHe will protect it and deliver it.\nHe will pass over it and preserve it.",
      "6": "O people of Israel, return to the one you have so completely betrayed.",
      "7": "In that day every one of you will throw away his idols of silver and his idols of gold—things you made, which caused you to sin.",
      "8": "Assyria will fall, but not by a human sword.\nA sword will devour him, but not one wielded by men.\nHe will flee from the sword,\nbut his young men will be forced into slavery.",
      "9": "His rocky stronghold will pass away because of fear,\nand his officials will abandon their banner in panic,\ndeclares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion,\nwhose blast furnace is in Jerusalem."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "See, a king will reign in righteousness,\nand officials will govern with justice.",
      "2": "Each of them will be like a shelter from the wind\nand a refuge from the storm,\nlike streams of water for a dry place,\nlike the shade of a massive cliff in a parched land.",
      "3": "The eyes of those who see will not be closed,\nand the ears of those who hear will listen.",
      "4": "Hasty hearts will gain understanding,\nand stammering tongues will speak clearly.",
      "5": "The fool will no longer be called noble,\nnor will rogues be treated like respectable people.",
      "6": "The fool speaks folly,\nand his heart plots evil:\nto do what is ungodly,\nto tell lies about the Lord,\nto deny food to the hungry,\nand to refuse even one drink for the thirsty.",
      "7": "The rogue’s ways are evil.\nHe plots evil to ruin the humble with lies,\neven when the poor speak with justice.",
      "8": "But the noble man plans noble deeds,\nand by noble deeds he stands.",
      "9": "Get up, you complacent women, and listen!\nYou carefree girls, hear what I have to say!",
      "10": "In a little more than a year, you carefree women will be worried,\nbecause the grape harvest will fail,\nand the fruit harvest will not arrive.",
      "11": "Tremble, you complacent women!\nBe worried, you carefree girls!\nStrip yourselves naked,\nand put sackcloth around your waist.",
      "12": "Beat your breasts in mourning\n    for the pleasant fields,\n    for the fruitful vines,",
      "13": "because my people’s land will yield only thorns and briers.\nWeep for all the houses where you partied,\n    in the city where you celebrated.",
      "14": "Then the fortress will be abandoned.\nThe crowded city will be deserted.\nThe citadel and the watchtower will become\n    rugged ruins for a long time,\n    enjoyed by wild donkeys,\n    and a pasture for flocks,",
      "15": "until the Spirit is poured out on us from on high,\nand the wilderness becomes a fertile field,\nand the fertile field seems like a forest.",
      "16": "Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,\nand righteousness will live in the fertile field.",
      "17": "The result of righteousness will be peace,\nand righteousness will bring lasting tranquility and security.",
      "18": "My people will live in a peaceful place,\nin secure dwellings,\nand in quiet resting places.",
      "19": "Even if hail destroys the forest,\nor if the city is totally leveled,",
      "20": "how blessed you will be,\nas you sow seed beside streams,\nand let your cattle and donkeys run free."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "Woe to you who destroy, even though you have not been destroyed,\nyou who betray, though you have not been betrayed!\nWhen you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed,\nand when you have finished betraying, you will be betrayed.",
      "2": "O Lord, be gracious to us. We wait hopefully for you.\nBe our strength every morning.\nBe our salvation in times of trouble.",
      "3": "At the thunder of your voice, people flee.\nWhen you stir up your great power, nations scatter.",
      "4": "Your plunder will be taken away\n    the way a caterpillar eats things up.\nPeople will swarm on it like a locust swarm.",
      "5": "The Lord is exalted, because he dwells on high.\nHe will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.",
      "6": "There will be stability in your time,\na wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.\nYour treasure will be the fear of the Lord.",
      "7": "Listen! Their elite troops are crying in the streets.\nThe peace envoys weep bitterly.",
      "8": "The highways are deserted.\nAll travel has stopped.\nThe treaty has been broken.\nWitnesses are despised,\nand no one is respected.",
      "9": "The land mourns and becomes weak.\nLebanon is ashamed and withers away.\nThe Plain of Sharon is like the Arabah,\nand Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.",
      "10": "Now I will arise, says the Lord.\nNow I will lift myself up.\nNow I will be exalted.",
      "11": "You will conceive chaff\nand give birth to stubble.\nLike fire, your own breath will consume you.",
      "12": "People will be burned to lime,\nlike thorns that are cut and burned in the fire.",
      "13": "You who are far away, recognize what I have done.\nYou who are close by, acknowledge my mighty acts.",
      "14": "The sinners in Zion are afraid.\nTrembling has seized the ungodly.\nWho of us can live with a consuming fire?\nWho of us can live in a place that burns without end?",
      "15": "Those who walk righteously and speak blamelessly,\nthose who despise dishonest gain,\nwhose hands refuse a bribe,\nwhose ears will not listen to violent plans,\nwhose eyes reject evil—",
      "16": "they will dwell on high.\nTheir defense will be a fortress on the cliffs.\nTheir bread will be provided.\n    Their water supply will be reliable.",
      "17": "Your eyes will see the King in his splendor.\nThey will see a land that stretches far and wide.",
      "18": "Your heart will think about the past terrors.\nYou will think, “Where is the one who took the inventory?\nWhere is the one who weighed the silver?\nWhere is the one who counted the towers?”",
      "19": "You will no longer see a barbaric people,\na people with unintelligible speech, which you cannot understand,\na people who babble in a language that makes no sense.",
      "20": "Look at Zion, the city where we hold our festivals.\nYou will see Jerusalem as a peaceful place,\nas a tent that cannot be removed.\nIts stakes will never be pulled up.\nIts ropes will never be broken.",
      "21": "There the Lord will be with us in majesty,\nas in a place with wide rivers and streams,\nwhere no enemy warship can row,\nwhere no sailing ship can slip past.",
      "22": "Because the Lord is our judge,\nthe Lord is our lawgiver,\nand the Lord is our king,\nhe is the one who will save us.",
      "23": "Your rigging hangs loose.\nThe mast is not steady.\nThe sail is not set.\nWhen they divide all the plunder,\nthere will be so much that even the crippled will take part.",
      "24": "No one who lives there will say, “I am sick.”\nThe guilt of the people who live there will be forgiven."
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "Come near, you nations, and hear!\nListen, you peoples.\nLet the earth and everything in it hear,\nthe world and everything that it produces.",
      "2": "The Lord is angry with all the nations,\nand he is furious with all their armies.\nHe has condemned them to destruction.\nHe has handed them over for slaughter.",
      "3": "Their fallen bodies will lie unburied,\nand the stench of their corpses will linger.\nThe mountains will flow with their blood.",
      "4": "The whole army of the heavens will fall apart.\nThe sky will be rolled up like a scroll,\nand its whole army will waste away and fall,\n    like leaves withering on a vine,\n    like fruit that falls from a fig tree.",
      "5": "Yes, my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens.\nNow it will fall on Edom,\non the people I have sentenced to judgment.",
      "6": "The sword of the Lord is covered with blood.\nIt is coated with fat,\nwith the blood of lambs and goats,\nwith the fat from the kidneys of rams,\nfor the Lord has made a sacrifice in Bozrah,\na massive slaughter in the land of Edom.",
      "7": "Wild oxen will fall along with them,\nbull calves and powerful bulls.\nTheir land will be soaked with blood,\nand their dust will be saturated with fat.",
      "8": "It will be a day of vengeance for the Lord,\na year of retribution for Zion’s sake.",
      "9": "Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,\nits dust into sulfur,\nand its land will become burning pitch,",
      "10": "which will not be extinguished night or day.\nIts smoke will go up forever.\nGeneration after generation, it will lie in ruins.\nNo one will ever pass through it. Never again!",
      "11": "But the desert owl and the porcupine will live there.\nThe screech owl and the raven will nest there.\nGod will stretch a measuring line for chaos over Edom,\nand a plumb line for uninhabited ruins.",
      "12": "There will be nothing left for its nobles to call a kingdom.\nAll its officials will be gone.",
      "13": "Thorns will cover its citadels.\nThistles and briers will overgrow its fortresses.\nIt will be a den of jackals,\na haunt for ostriches.",
      "14": "Desert animals and hyenas will gather,\nand wild goats will bleat to each other.\nCreatures of the night will settle there\nand find a resting place.",
      "15": "An owl will nest there.\nShe will lay eggs, hatch them,\nand gather her young under her shade.\nFalcons will gather there too,\neach with its mate.",
      "16": "Search through the book of the Lord, and read.\nNot one of them will be missing.\nNot one will lack her mate.\nFor his mouth has commanded this,\nand his Spirit has gathered them together.",
      "17": "He has allotted this land for these creatures.\nHis hand has divided it up for them with a surveying line.\nThey will possess it forever.\nThey will live there generation after generation."
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "The wilderness and the desert will be glad.\nThe wasteland of the Arabah will rejoice and blossom like a crocus.",
      "2": "It will bloom lavishly,\nand there will be great joy and singing.\nThe glory of Lebanon will be given to it.\nIt will be excellent like Carmel and Sharon.\nThey will see the glory of the Lord,\nthe majesty of our God.",
      "3": "Strengthen the weak hands,\nand make the shaky knees steady.",
      "4": "Tell those who have a fearful heart:\n    Be strong.\n    Do not be afraid.\n    Look! Your God will come with vengeance.\n    With God’s own retribution, he will come and save you.",
      "5": "Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,\nand the ears of the deaf will be unplugged.",
      "6": "The crippled will leap like a deer,\nand the tongue of the mute will sing for joy.\nWaters will flow in the wilderness,\nand streams in the wasteland.",
      "7": "The burning sand will become a pool,\nand in the thirsty ground there will be springs of water.\nThere will be grass, reeds, and rushes where the haunts\n    of jackals once lay.",
      "8": "A highway will be there,\na road that will be called the holy way.\nThe impure will not walk there.\nIt will be reserved for those who walk in that holy way.\nWicked fools will not wander onto it.",
      "9": "No lion will be there,\nnor will any ferocious animal go up on it.\nThey will not be found there,\nbut only the redeemed will walk there.",
      "10": "Then those ransomed by the Lord will return.\nThey will enter Zion with a joyful shout,\nand everlasting joy will crown their heads.\nHappiness and joy will overtake them,\nand sorrow and sighing will flee away."
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all of the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.",
      "2": "The king of Assyria sent his herald from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah. A large army was with him. He stood by the water channel from the upper pool on the road to the launderer’s field.",
      "3": "Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was the palace administrator, Shebna, who was the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who was the recorder, came out to meet him.",
      "4": "The herald told them this.\nTell Hezekiah this is what the Great King, the king of Assyria, says.\nWhat makes you so confident?",
      "5": "Your wisdom and military strength are based on empty promises. Who do you trust, so that you now have rebelled against me?",
      "6": "Tell me! Are you really trusting in Egypt to be your staff, that splintered reed that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it? That is what happens to anyone who relies on Pharaoh king of Egypt.",
      "7": "If you say to me that you trust in the Lord your God, isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed? Didn’t Hezekiah tell Judah and Jerusalem to worship at this altar?",
      "8": "Now then, make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses, if you can find enough riders for them.",
      "9": "How can you resist even one officer from among the least of my lord’s servants? How can you put your trust in Egypt for chariots and charioteers?",
      "10": "What’s more, have I attacked this land to destroy it without the Lord’s orders? The Lord is the one who said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”",
      "11": "Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the herald, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew, because there are people on the city wall who are listening.”",
      "12": "But the herald replied, “Has my lord sent me only to you and to your lord to speak these words, and not to the men who are sitting on the wall, who will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine with you?”",
      "13": "Then the herald stood up and called out in a loud voice in Hebrew. He said:\nListen to the words of the Great King, the king of Assyria!",
      "14": "This is what the king says.\nDo not let Hezekiah deceive you! He will not be able to deliver you.",
      "15": "Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord, when he says that the Lord will save you, and that this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.",
      "16": "Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says. Make a peace treaty with me and surrender to me. Each one of you will eat from his own vine, from his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink water from his own cistern,",
      "17": "until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land with grain and sweet wine, a land with bread and vineyards.",
      "18": "Do not let Hezekiah make you think that the Lord will deliver you!\nHave any of the gods of the nations kept them from being handed over to the king of Assyria?",
      "19": "Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?",
      "20": "Which of the gods of these countries have delivered their country from my hand? Will the Lord really deliver Jerusalem from my hand?",
      "21": "But the officials remained silent, saying nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.”",
      "22": "Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was the palace administrator, Shebna, who was the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who was the recorder, went to Hezekiah with their clothing torn and told him everything the herald had said."
    },
    "37": {
      "1": "When King Hezekiah heard the report, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and went into the House of the Lord.",
      "2": "He sent Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, who were wearing sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.",
      "3": "They told him what Hezekiah said: “This is a day of distress, rebuke, and humiliation, because children are about to be born, but there is no strength left to give birth.",
      "4": "Perhaps the Lord your God will take note of the words of this herald, who was sent by his lord, the king of Assyria, in defiance of the living God, and perhaps the Lord your God will rebuke him for what he has heard. So please, pray for the small group that is left here.”",
      "5": "When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah,",
      "6": "he said to them, “Tell your master that this is what the Lord says. Do not be afraid of what you have heard. The lackeys of the king of Assyria have blasphemed against me.",
      "7": "Watch! I will put a spirit in him, so that when he hears certain news, he will return to his own land. There I will cause him to be killed.”",
      "8": "Then the herald went back. He heard that the king of Assyria had already left Lachish and was fighting against Libnah.",
      "9": "When Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah king of Cush had set out to fight against him, he sent messengers to Hezekiah",
      "10": "to say this to Hezekiah king of Judah:\nDo not let the God you trust deceive you, saying that Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.",
      "11": "Listen, you yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other lands, destroying them completely. And you expect to be saved?",
      "12": "Did the gods of the nations whom my fathers destroyed save them—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden, who were in Tel Assar?",
      "13": "Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the kings of the cities of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?",
      "14": "Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. He went up to the House of the Lord and placed it there before the Lord.",
      "15": "Then he prayed to the Lord.",
      "16": "O Lord of Armies, God of Israel, seated above the cherubim, you alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.",
      "17": "Turn your ear toward me, Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, Lord, and see. Listen to all of the words of Sennacherib, who has defied the living God.",
      "18": "It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these lands and their territory.",
      "19": "They have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods at all, but the work of human hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.",
      "20": "Now, Lord our God, save us from his power, and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that you are the Lord, and you alone.",
      "21": "Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah.\nThe Lord, the God of Israel, says that because you have prayed to him about Sennacherib king of Assyria,",
      "22": "the Lord sends you this reply about him.\nThe virgin daughter of Zion despises you and jeers at you.\nThe daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head at you in scorn.",
      "23": "Who is it whom you have mocked and blasphemed?\nAgainst whom have you raised your voice\nand lifted up your proud eyes?\nIt is against the Holy One of Israel.",
      "24": "You have used your servants to mock the Lord.\nYou have boasted, “I have driven my many chariots\nup the high mountains, to the most remote parts of Lebanon.\nI cut down its tallest cedars and its best fir trees.\nI have reached its highest peak, its most lush forest.",
      "25": "I dug wells and drank their water,\nand I dried up all the rivers of Egypt with the soles of my feet.”",
      "26": "Have you not heard?\nI did all this long ago.\nI formed all this in ancient times.\nNow I caused it all to take place.\nI enabled you to destroy fortified cities,\nreducing them to heaps of ruins.",
      "27": "Their inhabitants were powerless.\nOverwhelmed and ashamed,\nthey were like plants in the field,\nlike fresh green grass, like grass on a housetop,\nand like a field before it has grown.",
      "28": "But I know when you stand and when you sit,\nwhen you go out and when you come in,\nand how you rage wildly against me.",
      "29": "Because you rage against me,\nand because your arrogance has reached my ears,\nI will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth,\nand I will make you go back by the same way that you came.",
      "30": "This will be a sign for you:\nThis year you will eat what grows by itself.\nNext year you will eat what springs up from that.\nBut in the third year, you will sow crops and harvest them.\nYou will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.",
      "31": "The surviving remnant of the house of Judah\nwill again put down roots below and bear fruit above.",
      "32": "For from Jerusalem a remnant will go out,\nand survivors from Mount Zion.\nThe zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.",
      "33": "This is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:\nHe will not enter this city.\nHe will not shoot an arrow there.\nHe will not advance against it with a shield,\nand he will not build a siege ramp against it.",
      "34": "He will go back by the same route that he came,\nand he will not enter this city, declares the Lord.",
      "35": "For I will defend this city to save it,\nfor my own sake,\nand for the sake of my servant David.",
      "36": "Then an angel of the Lord went and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. Early in the morning, there they were—all the dead bodies.",
      "37": "Then Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and left. He returned to Nineveh and remained there.",
      "38": "One day when Sennacherib was worshipping in the house of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer struck him down with the sword. They fled to the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king in his place."
    },
    "38": {
      "1": "In those days Hezekiah became sick and was dying. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the Lord says. Give instructions to your household, because you are going to die. You will not survive.”",
      "2": "So Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord.",
      "3": "He said, “Please remember, Lord, how I have walked before you in truth and with my whole heart. I have done what is good in your eyes.” Hezekiah wept bitterly.",
      "4": "Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah.",
      "5": "Go back and tell Hezekiah that this is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says:\nI have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. Now then, I will add fifteen years to your life.",
      "6": "I will rescue you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.",
      "7": "This will be the sign from the Lord to you. The Lord will do what he has promised.",
      "8": "Watch! I will make the shadow of the setting sun that has moved down the stairway of Ahaz move back, ten steps higher on the staircase.\nThen the sun’s shadow moved backwards, ten steps higher on the stairway that it had just descended.",
      "9": "A poem written by Hezekiah king of Judah, after his illness and recovery.",
      "10": "I thought that, only halfway through my life,\nI was entering into the gates of death,\ndeprived of the remaining years of my life.",
      "11": "I thought, I will not see the Lord—\nthe Lord in the land of the living.\nI will no longer see anyone among the inhabitants of the world.",
      "12": "My dwelling place is being pulled down.\nIt is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent.\nI have rolled up my life like a weaver.\nHe is cutting me off from the loom.\nFrom day until night, you make an end of me.",
      "13": "I pondered this until the morning.\nHe will break all my bones like a lion!\nFrom day until night, you make an end of me.",
      "14": "I chirp weakly like a swift or a swallow.\nI mourn like a dove.\nMy eyes are tired from looking upward.\nO Lord, I am oppressed.\nBe my security.",
      "15": "What can I say?\nHe has spoken to me, and he is the one to act.\nI will march slowly throughout all my years,\nbecause my heart is bitter.",
      "16": "Lord, people live because you give them life.\nMy spirit lives through this.\nRestore me, and let me live.",
      "17": "The bitter things I experienced were for my benefit.\nYour love has preserved my life from the pit of destruction,\nfor you have thrown all my sins behind your back.",
      "18": "The grave cannot thank you.\nDeath cannot praise you.\nThose who go down into the pit cannot trust your faithfulness.",
      "19": "The living one, the living one, he praises you, as I do today.\nA father tells his children about your faithfulness.",
      "20": "The Lord will save me,\nso we will sing songs with stringed instruments\n    all the days of our lives in the House of the Lord.",
      "21": "Isaiah had said, “Have them take a cake of figs, apply it as a poultice on the inflamed spot, and he will recover.”",
      "22": "Hezekiah had also asked, “What will be the sign that I will go up to the House of the Lord?”"
    },
    "39": {
      "1": "At that time, Merodak Baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, because he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick and had recovered.",
      "2": "Hezekiah was happy to receive the envoys, and he showed them his palace treasury—the silver and the gold, the spices and the precious oil, his whole armory, and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his palace or in all his domain that Hezekiah did not show them.",
      "3": "Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did those men say? Where did they come from?”\nHezekiah replied, “They have come from a faraway country, from Babylon.”",
      "4": "The prophet asked, “What did they see in your palace?”\nHezekiah said, “They have seen everything in my palace. There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.”",
      "5": "Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Listen to the word of the Lord of Armies.",
      "6": "Listen carefully. The days are coming when whatever is in your house—everything that your fathers have stored up until today—will be carried away to Babylon. Not a thing will be left, says the Lord.",
      "7": "They will take away some of the sons who were born to you, your own children, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”",
      "8": "Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For Hezekiah also said, “There will be peace and stability during my days.”"
    },
    "40": {
      "1": "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.",
      "2": "Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call out to her.\nHer warfare really is over.\nHer guilt is fully paid for.\nYes, she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.",
      "3": "A voice is calling out:\nIn the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord.\nIn the wasteland make a level highway for our God.",
      "4": "Every valley will be raised up,\nand every mountain and hill will be made low.\nThe rugged ground will become level,\nand the rough places will become a plain.",
      "5": "Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed,\nand all flesh together will see it.\n    Yes, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.",
      "6": "A voice was saying, “Cry out!”\nAnd I said, “What shall I cry out?”\n    All flesh is grass,\n    and all its beauty is like a wildflower in the countryside.",
      "7": "Grass withers, flowers fade,\n    when the breath of the Lord blows on them.\n    Yes, the people are grass.",
      "8": "Grass withers, flowers fade,\n    but the Word of our God endures forever.",
      "9": "Get up on a high mountain,\nO Zion, you herald of good news.\nLift up your voice with strength,\nO Jerusalem, you herald of good news.\nLift it up! Do not be afraid!\nSay to the cities of Judah,\n“Here is your God!”",
      "10": "Look, God the Lord will come with strength,\nand his arm is ruling for him.\nLook, his reward is with him.\nThe result of his work is in front of him.",
      "11": "Like a shepherd he will care for his flock.\nWith his arm he will gather the lambs.\nHe will lift them up on his lap.\nHe will gently lead the nursing mothers.",
      "12": "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?\nWho marked off the heavens with the width of his hand?\nWho scooped up the dust of the earth with a measuring cup?\nWho weighed the mountains with a balance\nand the hills with scales?",
      "13": "Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord?\nWho can teach him anything or serve as his advisor?",
      "14": "Who was his advisor to give him insight?\nWho taught him the path of justice?\nWho taught him knowledge?\nWho showed him the way to complete understanding?",
      "15": "Indeed, nations are like a drop in a bucket,\nand they are treated like powder on a scale.\nLook, he lifts up islands like dust!",
      "16": "Not even the forests of Lebanon could provide enough wood to burn,\nand its animals are not enough for a whole burnt offering.",
      "17": "All the nations are nothing to him.\nBy him they are regarded as worthless,\nas less than nothing.",
      "18": "So to whom will you compare God?\nWhat image can you compare to him?",
      "19": "A craftsman casts the idol,\nand a goldsmith overlays it with gold.\nHe forges silver chains for it.",
      "20": "He chooses mulberry wood as an offering,\nwood that will not rot.\nHe looks for a skillful craftsman\n    to erect an idol that will not fall over.",
      "21": "Do you not know? Have you not heard?\nHas it not been declared to you from the beginning?\nHave you not understood it from the founding of the earth?",
      "22": "He is the one who sits above the circle of the earth.\nTo him its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.\nHe stretches out the heavens like a curtain,\nand he spreads them out like a tent to live in.",
      "23": "He is the one who reduces dignitaries to nothing.\nHe makes the judges of the world useless.",
      "24": "They have hardly been planted.\nThey have hardly been sown.\nTheir stem has hardly taken root in the earth.\nThen he blows on them, and they dry up.\nA driving storm carries them away like chaff.",
      "25": "To whom can you compare me as if we were equals?\nsays the Holy One.",
      "26": "Lift up your eyes to the heavens,\nand see who created these things.\nSee who brings out their army in great number\nand calls them all by name.\nBecause of his great strength and mighty power,\nnot one of them is missing.",
      "27": "Why do you speak, O Jacob?\nO Israel, why do you say,\n“My way is hidden from the Lord,\nand justice for me is ignored by my God”?",
      "28": "Do you not know? Have you not heard?\nThe Lord is the eternal God.\nHe is the Creator of the ends of the earth.\nHe will not grow tired, and he will not become weary.\nNo one can find a limit to his understanding.",
      "29": "He is the one who gives strength to the weak,\nand he increases the strength of those who lack power.",
      "30": "Young men grow tired and become weary.\nEven strong men stumble and fall.",
      "31": "But those who wait for the Lord will receive new strength.\nThey will lift up their wings and soar like eagles.\nThey will run and not become weary.\nThey will walk and not become tired."
    },
    "41": {
      "1": "Prepare to present your case to me, you coastlands,\nand let the peoples renew their strength.\nLet them come near. Yes, let them say,\n“We will gather together for the verdict.”",
      "2": "Who has aroused this one from the east?\nIn righteousness he summons him to his feet.\nHe gives nations to him\nand causes him to rule over kings.\nHe makes them like dust with his sword,\nlike wind-driven stubble with his bow.",
      "3": "He pursues them and passes by safely.\nHis feet do not touch the ground.",
      "4": "Who accomplished this and carried it out\nby summoning generations from the beginning?\nI, the Lord, am the first,\nand at the very end I will still be the one.",
      "5": "The coastlands see and fear.\nThe ends of the earth tremble.\nThey draw near. They come.",
      "6": "Each one assists his neighbor,\nand to his brother he says, “Be strong.”",
      "7": "The craftsman strengthens the refiner.\nThe one who flattens with the hammer\n    strengthens the one who strikes the anvil.\nConcerning the soldering he says, “It is good.”\nHe fastens it with nails so that it cannot be moved.",
      "8": "But you, O Israel, my servant,\nO Jacob, whom I have chosen,\nthe offspring of Abraham, whom I love,",
      "9": "whom I have snatched from the ends of the earth,\nwhom I have called from its corners—\nI have said to you, “You are my servant.”\nI have chosen you and not rejected you.",
      "10": "Do not fear, for I am with you.\nDo not be overwhelmed, for I am your God.\nI will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you.\nI will uphold you with my righteous right hand.",
      "11": "Just watch, they will be ashamed and humiliated—\nall those who are angry with you.\nThey will become nothing and perish—\nthose men who oppose you.",
      "12": "You will look for them, but you will not find them—\nthose men who contend against you.\nThey will become absolutely nothing, less than nothing—\nthose men who battle against you.",
      "13": "For I am the Lord your God.\nI am the one who is holding on to your right hand.\nI am the one who says to you, “Do not fear. I myself am helping you.”",
      "14": "Do not fear, you worm, Jacob, you few men of Israel.\nI myself am helping you, declares the Lord,\nyour Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.",
      "15": "Look, I am making you into a sharp, new threshing sledge\n    with double-edged blades.\nYou will thresh mountains and crush them.\nYou will turn hills into chaff.",
      "16": "You will winnow them,\nand a wind will lift them up.\nA strong wind will scatter them.\nBut you, you will rejoice in the Lord.\nIn the Holy One of Israel you will be confident.",
      "17": "The afflicted and the poor seek water, but there is none.\nTheir tongues are parched with thirst.\nI, the Lord, I myself will answer them.\nI, the God of Israel, will not leave them.",
      "18": "I will open rivers on the barren heights.\nIn the middle of valleys there will be springs.\nI will turn the wilderness into a pool of water,\nand the dry land will pour out water.",
      "19": "In the wilderness I will place cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive trees.\nIn the wasteland I will plant fir, maple, and pines together,",
      "20": "so that they may see and know,\nand pay attention and perceive this all together,\n    that the hand of the Lord has done this,\n    and the Holy One of Israel has created it.",
      "21": "“Present your case,” says the Lord.\n“Set forth your strongest points,” says the King of Jacob.",
      "22": "Let them present and declare to us what is going to occur.\nWhat were the first things you predicted?\nTell us, so that we can ponder them,\nso that we can know their outcome.\nOr, announce to us the coming things.",
      "23": "Declare to us the things that are still coming in the distant future.\nThen we will know that you are gods.\nIn fact, just do something, do anything—good or evil,\nso that we may be overwhelmed and terrified together.",
      "24": "Look, you are less than nothing,\nand your work is less than zero.\nAnyone who chooses you is detestable.",
      "25": "I have stirred up someone from the north,\nand he is coming from the rising of the sun.\nHe will call upon my name.\nHe will walk over rulers as if they were mud,\nthe way a potter tramples clay.",
      "26": "Who declared this from the beginning so that we could know it,\nand ahead of time so that we could say, “He is right”?\nIn fact, not one of them declares this.\nIn fact, not one of them makes this known.\nIn fact, no one hears you say anything.",
      "27": "I was first to announce to Zion, “Look, here they are,”\nand I sent a herald of good news to Jerusalem.",
      "28": "When I looked, there was no one.\nNone of them could give advice,\neven when I kept asking them to respond.",
      "29": "Look, all of them are useless.\nTheir works are nothing.\nTheir images are empty wind."
    },
    "42": {
      "1": "Here is my servant, whom I uphold,\nmy chosen one in whom I delight.\nI am placing my Spirit on him.\nHe will announce a just verdict for the nations.",
      "2": "He will not cry out.\nHe will not raise his voice.\nHe will not make his voice heard in the street.",
      "3": "A bent reed he will not break,\nand a dimly burning wick he will not snuff out.\nHe will faithfully bring forth a just verdict.",
      "4": "He will not burn out, and he will not be broken\nuntil he establishes justice on the earth.\nThe coastlands will wait for his law.",
      "5": "This is what the true God says,\nthe Lord who creates the heavens and stretches them out,\nwho spreads out the earth\nand everything that it produces,\nwho gives breath to the people on it\nand life to those who walk on it.",
      "6": "I am the Lord.\n    I have called you in righteousness.\n    I will hold on to your hand,\n    and I will guard you.\n    I will appoint you to be a covenant for the people,\n    to be a light for the nations,",
      "7": "to open the eyes of the blind,\n    to bring the prisoners out from the dungeon,\n    and to bring those who sit in darkness out of prison.",
      "8": "I am the Lord; that is my name.\n    I will not give my glory to another,\n    nor my praise to idols.",
      "9": "Look, the former things have taken place,\n    and I am declaring new things.\n    I am making them known to you before they spring forth.",
      "10": "Sing to the Lord a new song.\nSing his praise from the end of the earth,\nyou people who go down to the sea\n    and everything that fills it,\nyou coastlands and those who inhabit them.",
      "11": "Let the wilderness and its towns lift up their voice,\nalong with the settlements where Kedar lives.\nLet the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy.\nLet them shout from the mountain tops.",
      "12": "Let them give glory to the Lord,\nand let them declare his praise among the coastlands.",
      "13": "The Lord will set out like a hero.\nLike a warrior, he will work himself into a frenzy.\nHe will shout. Yes, he will raise a war cry.\nHe will be heroic against his enemies.",
      "14": "I have been silent for a long time.\nI have kept still. I have restrained myself.\nBut now, like a woman giving birth, I will scream.\nI will gasp and pant.",
      "15": "I will dry up mountains and hills.\nI will make all their grass wither.\nI will turn rivers into islands.\nI will dry up pools.",
      "16": "I will lead the blind on a way they do not know.\nAlong paths they do not know I will direct them.\nAhead of them I will turn darkness into light\nand rough places into level ground.\nThese are the things I will accomplish for them.\nI will not abandon them.",
      "17": "They will be turned back and completely disgraced—\nthose who trust in an idol,\nthose who say to molten images, “You are our gods.”",
      "18": "You deaf ones, listen!\nYou blind ones, watch carefully so that you can see!",
      "19": "Who is as blind as my servant?\nWho is as deaf as my messenger whom I sent?\nWho is as blind as my associate,\nas blind as the servant of the Lord?",
      "20": "You, Israel, see many things, but you do not observe.\nIsrael opens his ears, but he does not hear.",
      "21": "Because of his own righteousness,\nthe Lord was pleased to make his law great and glorious.",
      "22": "But this is a people plundered and looted.\nAll of them are trapped in holes,\nand they are hidden in prisons.\nThey have become plunder, and there is no rescuer.\nThey have become loot and no one says, “Give it back!”",
      "23": "Who among you will turn his ear toward this?\nWho will pay attention and listen for the future?",
      "24": "Who gave up Jacob to looters\nand Israel to plunderers?\nWas it not the Lord, against whom we sinned?\nBut they were not willing to walk in his ways,\nand they did not listen to his law.",
      "25": "So he poured out wrath on them,\nhis anger, and the violence of battle.\nIt set them on fire all around, but they did not understand.\nIt burned in them, but they did not take it to heart."
    },
    "43": {
      "1": "But now this is what the Lord says,\nthe Lord who created you, O Jacob,\nthe Lord who formed you, O Israel.\n    Do not be afraid, because I have redeemed you.\n    I have called you by name. You are mine.",
      "2": "When you cross through the waters, I will be with you.\n    When you cross the rivers, they will not sweep you away.\n    When you walk through fire, you will not be burned,\n    and the flame will not set you on fire.",
      "3": "Because I am the Lord your God,\n    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior,\n    I gave Egypt as your ransom,\n    Cush and Seba in exchange for you.",
      "4": "Because you are precious and honored in my eyes,\n    and I myself love you,\n    I will give people in exchange for you,\n    and peoples in exchange for your life.",
      "5": "Do not be afraid, because I am with you.\n    From the east I will bring your offspring,\n    and from the west I will gather you.",
      "6": "I will say to the north, “Give them back!”\n    and to the south, “Do not hold them.”\n    Bring my sons from far away\n    and my daughters from the end of the earth—",
      "7": "everyone who is called by my name,\n    everyone I created for my glory,\n    everyone I formed,\n    yes, everyone I have made.",
      "8": "Bring out the people who are blind, though they have eyes,\n    and the people who are deaf, though they have ears.",
      "9": "Let all the nations be gathered together,\n    and let peoples be assembled.\n    Who among them has declared this?\n    Who has made known to us the former things?\n    Let them produce their witnesses to show that they were right,\n    so that people can hear and say, “This is truth.”",
      "10": "You are my witnesses, declares the Lord.\n    You are my servant, whom I have chosen,\n    so that you may know me and believe in me,\n    so that you will understand that I am he.\n    Before me no god was formed,\n    and after me there will not be another.",
      "11": "I, yes I, am the Lord,\n    and apart from me there is no savior.",
      "12": "I myself declared it.\n    I brought salvation, and I announced it.\n    It was not some strange god among you.\n    You are my witnesses, declares the Lord,\n    and I am God.",
      "13": "Indeed, from the first day, I am he.\n    There is no one who can deliver anyone from my hand.\n    I act, and who can reverse it?",
      "14": "This is what the Lord says,\n    the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.\n    For your sake I am taking action against Babylon,\n    and I will bring down all the Chaldeans as refugees,\n        in the ships over which they rejoiced.",
      "15": "I am the Lord, your Holy One,\n    Israel’s Creator, your King.",
      "16": "This is what the Lord says,\n    who makes a road through the sea\n    and a path through mighty waters,",
      "17": "who brings out the chariot and the horses,\n    the army and the strong warrior.\n    They will all lie down together.\n    They will not get up.\n    They are extinguished.\n    Like a wick they go out.",
      "18": "Do not remember the former things.\n    Do not keep thinking about ancient things.",
      "19": "Watch, I am about to do a new thing.\n    Now it will spring up. Don’t you know about it?\n    Indeed I will make a road in the wilderness.\n    In the wasteland I will make rivers.",
      "20": "The wild animals, the jackals and ostriches, will honor me,\n    because I am providing water in the wilderness,\n    rivers in a parched wasteland,\n    water for my chosen people to drink.",
      "21": "This people that I formed for myself will declare my praise.",
      "22": "But you have not called on me, O Jacob.\n    Instead, you have become weary of me, O Israel.",
      "23": "You have not brought me sheep as your whole burnt offerings.\n    You did not glorify me with your sacrifices.\n    I did not make you serve me with a grain offering.\n    I did not make you weary with demands for incense.",
      "24": "You did not purchase fragrant cane for me with silver\n    or satisfy me with the fat from your sacrifices.\n    Instead you have made me serve because of your sins.\n    You have made me weary because of your guilt.",
      "25": "I, yes I, am he.\n    I blot out your rebellious deeds for my own sake,\n    and I will not remember your sins.",
      "26": "Refresh my memory.\n    Let us review your case together.\n    Present your defense so that you may be acquitted.",
      "27": "Your first father sinned,\n    and your mediators rebelled against me.",
      "28": "Therefore I am repudiating the officials of the sanctuary,\n    and I am giving Jacob over to complete destruction\n    and Israel to insults."
    },
    "44": {
      "1": "But now listen, O Jacob my servant,\nO Israel, whom I have chosen.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord, your Maker, says,\nthe Lord who formed you from the womb, who will help you.\n    Do not be afraid, my servant Jacob,\n    Jeshurun, whom I have chosen,",
      "3": "because I will pour out water upon a thirsty land,\n    and streams of water upon dry ground.\n    I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,\n    and my blessing on your descendants.",
      "4": "They will spring up like a tree in a grassy meadow,\n    like willows beside flowing streams.",
      "5": "One person will say, “I belong to the Lord.”\n    Another will be called by the name of Jacob.\n    Another will write on his hand, “Belonging to the Lord,”\n    and he will take the name of Israel.",
      "6": "This is what the Lord, the King of Israel,\nIsrael’s Redeemer, the Lord of Armies, says.\n    I am the first, and I am the last.\n    Except for me, there is no god.",
      "7": "For who is like me? Let him declare it.\n    Let him recite in order for me the things that took place\n        since the time I established an ancient people.\n    Or let them declare what is yet to come,\n    and what is going to take place.",
      "8": "Do not tremble, and do not be frightened.\n    Did I not announce this to you,\n    and declare it already long ago?\n    You are my witnesses.\n    Is there any god except me?\n    There is no other Rock. I am not aware of any other.",
      "9": "All those who form an idol are good for nothing.\n    All the things which delight them provide no benefit.\n    As for their witnesses—they do not see.\n    They know nothing, so they will be ashamed.",
      "10": "Who is this who forms a god or casts a metal image that can provide no profit?",
      "11": "Look at him! All his associates will be ashamed. The craftsmen are merely men. Let them all gather themselves and take a stand. They will be terrified and ashamed together.",
      "12": "A blacksmith uses a cutting tool and makes an idol over hot coals. With hammers he shapes it. He makes it with his strong arm, but he becomes hungry and has no strength left. He does not drink water, and so he grows faint.",
      "13": "A woodworker stretches out a measuring line. He marks the lines with a stylus. He shapes the idol with chisels. He marks it with a compass. Then he carves it till it is shaped like a person, like a splendid man to inhabit a shrine.",
      "14": "He goes to cut down cedars for himself, or he chooses a holm tree or an oak, and he lets it grow strong among the trees of a forest. Or he plants a cedar, and rain causes it to grow tall,",
      "15": "but it becomes fuel for a man to burn. He takes part of it to warm himself. He lights a fire to bake bread, and then from the rest he makes a god and worships it. He carves an idol and bows down to it.",
      "16": "Half of it he burns in a fire—over that half he eats meat. He roasts meat and is satisfied. So he is warm and says, “Ah! I am warm. I see the light of the fire.”",
      "17": "Then from what is left he makes a god to serve as his idol. He bows down to it. He worships it, and he prays to it, “Save me, because you are my god.”",
      "18": "They are ignorant. They do not understand, because their eyes are plastered shut, and they cannot see. Their hearts are unable to gain insight.",
      "19": "A person does not take this to heart, so he has no knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I burn in the fire, and I bake bread on its coals. I roast meat, and I eat. Should I make the rest of it into a disgusting idol? Should I bow down to a piece of wood?”",
      "20": "He is like a sheep grazing on ashes. A deceived mind leads him astray. He will not save his life, nor will he say, “Isn’t what I am holding in my right hand a fraud?”",
      "21": "Remember these things, O Jacob, because you are my servant, Israel. I am forming you to be my servant. You, Israel, you will never be forgotten by me.",
      "22": "I am blowing away your rebellious deeds like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to me, because I am redeeming you.",
      "23": "Shout for joy, you heavens, because of what the Lord is doing.\nMake a joyful shout, you depths of the earth.\nBurst forth with shouts of joy, you mountains,\nyou forest and every tree in it,\nbecause the Lord has redeemed Jacob,\nand in Israel he will display his beauty.",
      "24": "This is what the Lord, your Redeemer,\nthe Lord who formed you from the womb, says.\n    I am the Lord, the one who does all things,\n    who stretched out the heavens by myself,\n    who hammered out the earth.\n    (Who was with me then?)",
      "25": "I frustrate the signs of the deceivers\n    and make fools of the fortune tellers.\n    I overturn the wisdom of the wise\n    and turn their knowledge into foolishness.",
      "26": "He is the one who fulfills the word of his servants,\nwho completes the plan announced by his messengers,\nwho says about Jerusalem, “It will be inhabited,”\nand about the cities of Judah, “They will be rebuilt,\nand I will raise up their ruins.”",
      "27": "He is the one who says to the deep ocean, “Dry up,”\nthe one who says, “I will dry up your rivers.”",
      "28": "He is the one who says about Cyrus, “He is my shepherd,\nand he will complete everything I desire.”\nHe is the one who says about Jerusalem, “It will be rebuilt,”\nand who says to the temple, “Your foundations will be laid.”"
    },
    "45": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord says to his anointed one,\nto Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped,\n    to subdue nations before him\n    by stripping kings of their weapons,\n    to open doors before him\n    so that the gates cannot be shut.",
      "2": "I myself will go before you,\n    and I will level high mountains.\n    I will break bronze doors into pieces,\n    and I will cut through iron bars.",
      "3": "I will give you treasures hidden in darkness\n    and riches concealed in secret places,\n    so that you will acknowledge that I am the Lord,\n    the one who calls you by name, the God of Israel.",
      "4": "For the sake of my servant Jacob,\n    for the sake of Israel my chosen one,\n    I will call you by your name.\n    I will give you an honored name, though you do not know me.",
      "5": "I am the Lord, and there is no other.\n    Except for me, there is no god.\n    I will equip you even though you do not know me,",
      "6": "so that people will know from the rising of the sun\n            to the place where it sets\n        that there is no one except me.\n    I am the Lord, and there is no other.",
      "7": "I am the one who forms light and creates darkness,\n    the one who makes peace and creates disaster.\n    I am the Lord, the one who does all these things.",
      "8": "Shower down, you heavens, from above,\nand let the clouds rain down righteousness.\nLet the earth open up,\nso that salvation will produce fruit.\nLet righteousness sprout up along with it.\nI, the Lord, am creating this.",
      "9": "Woe to anyone who argues against the potter who formed him.\nHe is just a potsherd among the broken pieces of pottery on the ground.\nDoes clay say to its potter, “What are you making?\nYour work looks like something made by a potter with no hands”?",
      "10": "Woe to anyone who says to his father, “What have you fathered?”\nor to a woman, “What are you giving birth to?”",
      "11": "This is what the Lord says,\nthe Holy One of Israel, who formed Israel.\n    Do you wish to question me concerning things to come?\n    Will you give me orders about my children\n    and about the work of my hands?",
      "12": "I myself made the earth,\n    and I created Adam upon it.\n    With my hands I stretched out the heavens,\n    and I commanded all their army.",
      "13": "I myself will arouse him in righteousness,\nand I will make all his roads level for him.\nHe himself will rebuild my city.\nHe will set my exiles free—\nbut not for a price and not for a gift,\nsays the Lord of Armies.",
      "14": "This is what the Lord says.\nThe wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush\n    and those tall Sabeans will cross over to you and become yours.\nThey will walk behind you and approach you in chains.\nThey will bow down to you and plead with you and say,\n“Yes, God is with you, and there is no other.\nThere is no other God.”",
      "15": "Indeed, you are a God who hides himself.\nYou are the God of Israel, the Savior.",
      "16": "They will be ashamed.\nAll of them will also be disgraced.\nTogether they will walk in humiliation—those experts at crafting images.",
      "17": "Israel will be saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation.\nYou will not be ashamed or disgraced for all eternity.",
      "18": "This is what the Lord says.\nHe created the heavens,\nHe is God!\nHe formed the earth and made it.\nYes, he established it!\nHe did not create it to remain empty.\nHe formed it to be inhabited.\nI am the Lord, and there is no other.",
      "19": "I did not speak in secret,\nor from someplace in a land of darkness.\nI did not say to the descendants of Jacob,\n“Seek me in the midst of chaos.”\nI, the Lord, am speaking in righteousness.\nI am declaring what is right.",
      "20": "Gather! Come! Draw near together,\nyou survivors from the nations.\nThey have no knowledge—\nthose who are lifting up their idols of wood\nand praying to a god that cannot save.",
      "21": "Make an announcement and come close.\nLet them consult together.\nWho made this known ahead of time?\nFrom time past who announced it?\nWas it not I, the Lord?\nThere is no god except me,\na righteous God and Savior.\nThere is no one except me.",
      "22": "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth,\nbecause I am God,\nand there is no other.",
      "23": "I have sworn by myself.\nFrom my mouth a righteous word has gone out,\nand it will not return unfulfilled.\nIndeed, to me every knee will bow,\nand every tongue will swear allegiance.",
      "24": "“Only in the Lord,” they will say of me,\n“Only in the Lord is there true righteousness and strength.”\nTo him they will come and be ashamed—\nall those who are angry at him.",
      "25": "In the Lord, all the descendants of Israel will be justified.\nThey will be praised by him."
    },
    "46": {
      "1": "Bel bows down. Nebo stoops.\nBabylon’s idols are a heavy load, carried by animals and cattle.\nThey are dead weight for the tired animals that carry them.",
      "2": "The animals stoop. They bow down together.\nThey are not able to save their burdensome load.\nThey go into captivity.",
      "3": "Listen to me, O house of Jacob,\nall of you who are left from the house of Israel,\nyou who have been carried from birth,\nyou who have been lifted up from before you were born.",
      "4": "Until your old age, I am he,\n    and until you have gray hair, I myself will hold you up.\n    I myself made you, and I myself will lift you up.\n    I myself will hold you up, and I will rescue you.",
      "5": "Whom can you set beside me as if we were equal?\nWhom can you compare to me as if we were alike?",
      "6": "People pour out gold from a purse\nand weigh out silver on a scale.\nThey hire a smith,\nand he makes the metal into a god.\nThey bow down to it. They even worship it.",
      "7": "They lift it up. They carry it on their shoulders.\nThey set it up in its place, but it just stands there.\nIt cannot move from its place.\nEven when someone cries out to it, it does not answer.\nIt cannot save him from his distress.",
      "8": "Remember this, and stand firm.\nYou rebels, take this to heart!",
      "9": "Remember the former things that took place long ago,\nfor I am God, and there is no other.\nI am God, and there is no one like me.",
      "10": "I am the one who announces the final outcome already in the beginning.\nI announce ahead of time things that have not yet been done.\nI am the one who says, “My plan will stand,\nand I will do everything I want to do.”",
      "11": "I am the one who calls a bird of prey from the east.\nI call the man who fulfills my plan from a faraway land.\nYes, I have spoken. I will certainly bring it to pass.\nI have formed a plan, and I will certainly carry it out.",
      "12": "Listen to me, you who have stubborn hearts,\nyou who are far from righteousness.",
      "13": "I will bring my righteousness near. It will not be far away.\nI will bring my salvation near. It will not be delayed.\nI will set up salvation in Zion,\nand I will show my splendor to Israel."
    },
    "47": {
      "1": "Go down and sit in the dust, you virgin daughter of Babylon.\nSit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans,\nfor you will never again be called delicate and pampered.",
      "2": "Take millstones and grind meal.\nRemove your veil. Strip off your skirt.\nExpose your thighs. Wade through rivers.",
      "3": "Let your nakedness be exposed.\nLet your shame be seen!\nI will take vengeance.\nI will not spare anyone.",
      "4": "Our Redeemer—the Lord of Armies is his name—is the Holy One of Israel.",
      "5": "Daughter of the Chaldeans, sit silently, and enter into the darkness,\nfor you will never again be called queen of the kingdoms.",
      "6": "I was angry with my people.\nI defiled my heritage.\nI gave them into your hand.\nYou showed them no mercy.\nEven on the aged you made your yoke very heavy.",
      "7": "You said, “I will be a lady forever.”\nYou did not take these things to heart.\nYou did not remember how this will turn out.",
      "8": "But now hear this, you wanton lover of pleasure,\nwho sits securely,\nwho says in her heart,\n“I am the one, and there is no one except me.\nI will not live as a widow.\nI will not experience the loss of children.”",
      "9": "But these two things will come upon you in an instant, in one day:\nloss of children and widowhood.\nThey will come to you in full measure\nin spite of your many magic spells,\nin spite of the great power of your magic charms.",
      "10": "You felt secure in your wickedness.\nYou said, “No one sees me.”\nYour wisdom and your knowledge led you astray.\nSo you said in your heart, “I am the one,\nand there is not another one beside me.”",
      "11": "But disaster will come upon you.\nYou do not know when it will come.\nCalamity will fall upon you.\nYou will not be able to atone for it.\nA devastating blow that you did not expect will come\n    upon you suddenly.",
      "12": "Go ahead, stand secure in your magic charms\n    and in your many magic spells,\n    with which you have been laboring since your youth.\nPerhaps you will be able to profit.\nPerhaps you will be able to inspire terror.",
      "13": "You are worn out by all the advice you receive.\nLet them stand up and save you—\nthose who make charts of the skies to practice astrology,\nthose who gaze at the stars to obtain omens,\nthose who predict what will happen to you on each new moon.",
      "14": "Look, they are nothing but stubble.\nFire consumes them.\nThey are not able to save themselves from the power of the flame.\nThere are no burning coals to warm their food.\nThere is no firelight to sit in front of.",
      "15": "They can do nothing more for you—\nthose who have worn you out with all their dealings with you\n    from your youth.\nEach one wanders in his own direction.\nThere is no one left to save you."
    },
    "48": {
      "1": "Hear this, you house of Jacob,\nyou who call yourselves by the name of Israel,\nwho came forth from the waters of Judah,\nwho swear by the name of the Lord\nand invoke the God of Israel,\nbut not in true righteousness.",
      "2": "Yes, they name themselves after the Holy City,\nand they lean on the God of Israel—\nthe Lord of Armies is his name.",
      "3": "Things that took place long ago,\nI announced before they happened.\nFrom my mouth the announcement went out.\nI made these things known.\nThen suddenly I acted, and they came about.",
      "4": "I did this because I know that you are stubborn.\nYour neck is as stiff as iron,\nand your forehead is as hard as bronze.",
      "5": "I declared this to you long ago.\nBefore it came about, I announced it to you,\nto prevent you from saying, “My false god did it.\nMy wooden idol and my metal image commanded it.”",
      "6": "You heard all this.\nNow look at the facts.\nWon’t you admit that I am right?\nFrom now on I will also announce new things to you,\nhidden things that you never knew.",
      "7": "These things are being created right now, not long ago.\nYou have not heard of them before today,\nso you cannot say, “Oh, I already knew that!”",
      "8": "No, you have never heard them.\nYou certainly never knew them.\nYour ear was not open, even back then.\nYes, I knew that you would be extremely unfaithful.\nYou were called a rebel before you were born.",
      "9": "For my name’s sake, I am slow to express my anger.\nSo that I will be praised, I will hold it back from you.\nAs a result, you are not cut off.",
      "10": "You see, I refined you, but not in the same way silver is refined.\nI tested you in the furnace of affliction.",
      "11": "For my own sake, for my own sake, I will act.\nWhy should my name be defiled?\nMy glory I will not give to another.",
      "12": "Listen to me, Jacob.\nListen to me, Israel, whom I called.\nI am he. I am the first.\nI am also the last.",
      "13": "It was my hand that laid the foundation of the earth,\nand my right hand spread out the heavens.\nI summon them and they stand together.",
      "14": "Gather together, all of you, and listen.\nWho among them announced these things?\nThe Lord loves him.\nHe will carry out his desire against Babylon,\nand his arm is against Chaldea.",
      "15": "I, yes I, have spoken. I am the one who called him.\nI have brought him, and his mission will succeed.",
      "16": "Come close to me and hear this.\nFrom the beginning, I have not spoken in secret.\nFrom the time it first existed, I was there.\nAnd now God the Lord has sent me with his Spirit.",
      "17": "This is what the Lord says, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.\nI am the Lord your God,\nwho teaches you how to succeed,\nwho leads you in the way you should walk.",
      "18": "If only you would have listened carefully to my commandments!\nThen your peace would have been like a river,\nand your righteousness like the waves of the sea.",
      "19": "Your descendants would have been like sand,\nand the children from your body like grains of sand.\nTheir name would never have been cut off or destroyed\n    from my presence.",
      "20": "Get out of Babylon. Flee from Chaldea.\nWith a joyful voice declare and announce this.\nSend it out to the end of the earth.\nSay, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.”",
      "21": "They did not suffer thirst in the desolate places\n    through which he led them.\nHe made water flow for them from a rock.\nHe split open a rock, and water gushed out.",
      "22": "There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked."
    },
    "49": {
      "1": "Listen to me, you coastlands.\nPay attention, you faraway peoples!\nThe Lord called me from the womb.\nWhen I was inside my mother, he mentioned my name.",
      "2": "He made my mouth like a sharpened sword.\nHe hid me in the shadow of his hand.\nHe made me a polished arrow.\nHe concealed me in his quiver.",
      "3": "He said to me, “You are my servant Israel,\nin whom I will display my glory.”",
      "4": "But I said to myself, “I have labored in vain.\nI spent my strength and came up empty, with nothing.\nYet a just verdict for me rests with the Lord,\nand my reward is with my God.”",
      "5": "But now the Lord,\nwho formed me from the womb to be his servant,\nto turn Jacob back to him,\nso that Israel might be gathered to him,\nso that I will be honored in the eyes of the Lord,\nbecause my God has been my strength—",
      "6": "the Lord said:\nIt is too small a thing that you should just be my servant\n    to raise up only the tribes of Jacob\n    and to restore the ones I have preserved in Israel,\nso I will appoint you to be a light for the nations,\nso that my salvation will be known to the end of the earth.",
      "7": "This is what the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, its Holy One,\nsays to the one deeply despised,\nto the one who is detested by the nation,\nto the servant of rulers.\n    Kings will see and stand up.\n    Officials will see and bow down,\n    because of the Lord, who is faithful,\n    because of the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.",
      "8": "This is what the Lord says.\nIn the time of favor, I will answer you.\nIn the day of salvation, I will help you.\nI will guard you,\nand I will appoint you to be a covenant for the people,\nto re-establish the land,\nto redistribute inheritances that are now deserted,",
      "9": "to say to the prisoners, “Go forth!”\nto those who are in the darkness, “Show yourselves!”\nThey will graze beside roads,\nand they will find pasture on all the barren heights.",
      "10": "They will not hunger, and they will not thirst,\nand neither scorching wind nor sun will strike them,\nbecause the one who shows them mercy will lead them.\nHe will guide them beside springs of water.",
      "11": "I will make all my mountains into a smooth road,\nand my highways will be raised up.",
      "12": "Look, people will come from far away.\nLook, some will come from the north and the west,\nand some from the land of Sinim.",
      "13": "Shout for joy, O heavens,\nand rejoice, O earth.\nLet mountains burst forth with shouts of joy,\nbecause the Lord is comforting his people,\nand he is showing mercy to his afflicted ones.",
      "14": "But Zion said, “The Lord has abandoned me.\nThe Lord has forgotten me.”",
      "15": "Can a woman forget her nursing child\nand not show mercy to the son from her womb?\nEven if these women could forget,\nI will never forget you.",
      "16": "Look, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.\nYour walls are never out of my sight.",
      "17": "Your children are hurrying back.\nThose who destroyed and devastated you will depart from you.",
      "18": "Lift up your eyes all around and see!\nAll of them are gathered. They are coming to you.\nAs surely as I live, declares the Lord,\nall of them are like jewelry that you will put on.\nYou will wear them like a bride.",
      "19": "Though your land was wasted and desolate and devastated,\nnow it will be too small for its inhabitants.\nThen those who are swallowing you will be far from you.",
      "20": "The children you lost will say this into your ears once again,\n“The place is too small for me.\nMake room for me so that I can settle there.”",
      "21": "Then you will say in your heart,\n“Who has given birth to these for me?\nI had lost my children and could have no more.\nI was exiled and divorced.\nSo who raised these?\nI was left all by myself.\nWhere did these come from?”",
      "22": "This is what God the Lord says.\nLook, I will lift up my hand to nations,\nand I will raise my signal flag for peoples.\nThen they will bring your sons in their embrace,\nand your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.",
      "23": "Then kings will be your foster fathers,\nand their queens will be your nursing mothers.\nWith their faces to the ground, they will bow down to you.\nThey will lick the dust at your feet.\nThen you will know that I am the Lord.\nThose who wait hopefully for me will not be ashamed.",
      "24": "Can plunder be taken from a mighty man?\nCan captives be rescued from a tyrant?",
      "25": "This is what the Lord says.\nEven from a mighty man captives can be taken,\nand the victims of a tyrant can be rescued.\nSo I myself will contend with the one who contends with you,\nand I myself will save your children.",
      "26": "I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh.\nThey will get drunk on the new wine of their own blood.\nSo all flesh will know that I am the Lord, your Savior\nand your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."
    },
    "50": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord says.\nSo where are the divorce papers of your mother,\nwhom I sent away?\nTo which of my creditors did I sell you?\nIt was because of your guilt that you were sold.\nBecause of your rebellions, your mother was sent away.",
      "2": "When I came, why was no one there?\nWhy, when I called, was there no one who answered?\nIs my arm really too short to redeem?\nDo I not have enough power to rescue?\nYes! By my rebuke I can dry up the sea.\nI can turn rivers into a wilderness,\nso that their fish will stink from having no water,\nand they will die of thirst.",
      "3": "I can clothe the heavens with blackness,\nand I can cover them with sackcloth.",
      "4": "The Lord God gave me a tongue like the learned, an instructed tongue,\nso I know how to sustain the weary with a word.\nHe wakes me up morning by morning.\nHe wakes up my ears so that I listen like the learned.",
      "5": "The Lord God opened my ear,\nand I myself was not rebellious.\nI did not turn back.",
      "6": "I submitted my back to those who beat me,\nand my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard.\nI did not hide my face from disgrace and from spit.",
      "7": "The Lord God will help me,\nso I will not be disgraced.\nTherefore I have made my face hard like flint.\nI know that I will not be put to shame.",
      "8": "The one who will acquit me is near!\nWho can accuse me?\nLet us take our stand.\nWho can pass judgment on me?\nLet him approach me.",
      "9": "Look, the Lord God will help me.\nWho then can declare me guilty?\nLook, all of them will wear out like a garment.\nA moth will consume them.",
      "10": "Who among you worships the Lord\nand listens to the voice of his servant?\nAnyone who walks in darkness\nand who has no bright light—\nlet him trust in the name of the Lord,\nand let him lean on his God.",
      "11": "Watch out, all of you who are lighting fires\n    to arm yourselves with flaming arrows.\nGo ahead, walk by the light of your fires\nand by the flaming arrows you lit!\nBut from my hand you will receive this:\nYou will lie down in a place of torment."
    },
    "51": {
      "1": "Listen to me, you people who pursue righteousness,\nyou people who seek the Lord!\nLook confidently to the rock from which you were hewn\nand to the quarry from which you were cut.",
      "2": "Look confidently to Abraham your father,\nand to Sarah, who gave birth to you.\nYes, when I called him, Abraham was only one person,\nbut I blessed him and multiplied him.",
      "3": "The Lord is certain to comfort Zion.\nHe will comfort all her ruins.\nCertainly he will make her wilderness like Eden\nand her wasteland like the garden of the Lord.\nJoy and gladness will be found in her,\nthanksgiving and the sound of music.",
      "4": "Pay attention to me, O my people.\nMy nation, listen to me!\nFor the law will go out from me,\nand I will establish my justice as a light to the peoples.",
      "5": "My righteousness is near.\nMy salvation goes forth,\nand my arms will bring justice to the peoples.\nThe seacoasts will wait for me.\nThey will have confidence in my arm.",
      "6": "Lift up your eyes to the heavens.\nLook closely at the earth beneath,\nbecause the heavens will vanish like smoke,\nand the earth will wear out like a garment,\nand its inhabitants will die like gnats.\nBut my salvation will remain forever,\nand my righteousness will never be abolished.",
      "7": "Listen to me, you people who know righteousness,\nyou people who have my law in your hearts.\nDo not fear the insults of men,\nand do not be discouraged by their abuse.",
      "8": "Because a moth will consume them like a garment,\nand its worm will consume them like wool.\nBut my righteousness will remain forever,\nand my salvation will last for all generations.",
      "9": "Wake up! Wake up!\nClothe yourself with strength, you arm of the Lord!\nAwake as in days of old,\nas in generations of long ago.\nWas it not you who cut Rahab to pieces,\nand who pierced the sea monster?",
      "10": "Was it not you who dried up the sea,\n    the waters of the great deep,\nand who made a road through the depths of the sea\n    for the redeemed to cross over?",
      "11": "Then those ransomed by the Lord will return.\nThey will enter Zion with a joyful shout,\nand everlasting joy will crown their heads.\nHappiness and joy will overtake them.\nSorrow and sighing will flee away.",
      "12": "I, even I, am the one who comforts you.\nWho are you, Zion, that you fear humans, who die,\nor a child of Adam, who passes away like grass?",
      "13": "You have forgotten the Lord, your Creator,\nwho stretches out the heavens,\nwho makes the earth stand firm.\nYou tremble continually all day,\nbecause of the rage of the oppressor,\nwho is preparing to destroy.\nBut where is the rage of the oppressor now?",
      "14": "The prisoner will soon be released.\nHe will not die and go to the pit,\nand he will not lack bread.",
      "15": "I am the Lord your God,\nwho stirs up the sea so that its waves roar.\nThe Lord of Armies is his name!",
      "16": "I have placed my words in your mouth,\nand with the shadow of my hand I have covered you—\nI, who planted the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth,\nI, who say to Zion, “You are my people.”",
      "17": "Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself! Get up, Jerusalem!\nYou have drunk the cup filled with the Lord’s wrath from his hand.\nYou drank it. You drained the chalice, the cup that makes you stagger.",
      "18": "There is no one to guide her from among all the sons she bore.\nThere is no one to take her hand from among all the sons she raised.",
      "19": "Those two things are happening to you.\nWho will grieve for you?\nDevastation and destruction and famine and sword!\nWho will comfort you?",
      "20": "Your children faint and collapse at the corner of every street,\n    like an antelope in a net.\nThey are full of the wrath of the Lord,\nfull of the rebuke of your God.",
      "21": "Therefore hear this, you afflicted woman,\na woman drunk, but not from wine.",
      "22": "This is what the Lord God says,\nyour God, who will contend for his people.\n    Look, I am taking the cup that makes you stagger out of your hand,\n    the chalice, the cup filled with my wrath.\n    Never again will you drink from it,",
      "23": "because I will place it into the hand of your tormentors,\n    who have said to you,\n    “Lie down so that we can walk over you.”\n    You made your back like the ground\n    and like the street for those who walked over you."
    },
    "52": {
      "1": "Wake, awake!\nClothe yourself with strength, O Zion.\nPut on your beautiful garments,\nJerusalem, you holy city,\nfor never again will the uncircumcised\nand the unclean enter you.",
      "2": "Shake off the dust.\nGet up and take your seat, Jerusalem.\nLoosen the chains from your neck,\nyou captive daughter of Zion.",
      "3": "Yes, this is what the Lord says.\nYou were sold for nothing,\nand you will be redeemed without money.",
      "4": "Yes, this is what the Lord God says.\nIn the beginning, my people went down to Egypt to stay there\n    for a while.\nLater Assyria oppressed them without cause.",
      "5": "Now what do I have here? declares the Lord.\nIndeed, my people have been taken away for nothing.\nTheir rulers howl with mockery, declares the Lord.\nMy name is continually despised all day.",
      "6": "Therefore my people will know my name.\nSo on that day they will know that I am the one—\nthe one who is saying, “Here I am!”",
      "7": "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of a herald,\n    who proclaims peace and preaches good news,\n    who proclaims salvation,\n    who says to Zion, “Your God is king!”",
      "8": "The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voices.\nTogether they shout for joy,\nbecause with both eyes they will see it\nwhen the Lord returns to Zion.",
      "9": "Break out, shout for joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem,\nbecause the Lord is comforting his people.\n    He is redeeming Jerusalem.",
      "10": "The Lord lays bare his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations,\nand all the ends of the earth will see the salvation from our God.",
      "11": "Get away! Get away! Get out of there!\nDo not touch any unclean thing!\nGo out from her midst.\nPurify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord!",
      "12": "You will not be in a hurry when you go out.\nYou will not be fleeing when you walk out,\nbecause the one who walks in front of you is the Lord,\nand your rearguard is the God of Israel.",
      "13": "Look, my servant will succeed.\nHe will rise. He will be lifted up. He will be highly exalted.",
      "14": "Just as many were appalled at him—\nhis appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man,\nand his form was disfigured more than any other person—",
      "15": "so he will sprinkle many nations,\nand kings will shut their mouths because of him,\nbecause they will see something they had never been told before,\nand they will understand something they had never heard before."
    },
    "53": {
      "1": "Who has believed our report,\nand to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?",
      "2": "He grew up before him like a tender shoot\nand like a root from dry ground.\nHe had no attractiveness and no majesty.\nWhen we saw him, nothing about his appearance made us desire him.",
      "3": "He was despised and rejected by men,\na man who knew grief,\nwho was well acquainted with suffering.\nLike someone whom people cannot bear to look at,\nhe was despised,\nand we thought nothing of him.",
      "4": "Surely he was taking up our weaknesses,\nand he was carrying our sufferings.\nWe thought it was because of God\n    that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted,",
      "5": "but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.\nHe was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved.\nThe punishment that brought us peace was upon him,\nand by his wounds we are healed.",
      "6": "We all have gone astray like sheep.\nEach of us has turned to his own way,\nbut the Lord has charged all our guilt to him.",
      "7": "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,\nyet he did not open his mouth.\nLike a lamb he was led to the slaughter,\nand like a sheep that is silent in front of its shearers,\nhe did not open his mouth.",
      "8": "He was taken away without a fair trial and without justice,\nand of his generation, who even cared?\nSo, he was cut off from the land of the living.\nHe was struck because of the rebellion of my people.",
      "9": "They would have assigned him a grave with the wicked,\nbut he was given a grave with the rich in his death,\nbecause he had done no violence,\nand no deceit was in his mouth.",
      "10": "Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him\nand to allow him to suffer.\nBecause you made his life a guilt offering, he will see offspring.\nHe will prolong his days,\nand the Lord’s gracious plan will succeed in his hand.",
      "11": "After his soul experiences anguish, he will see the light of life.\nHe will provide satisfaction.\nThrough their knowledge of him, my just servant will justify the many,\nfor he himself carried their guilt.",
      "12": "Therefore I will give him an allotment among the great,\nand with the strong he will share plunder,\nbecause he poured out his life to death,\nand he let himself be counted with rebellious sinners.\nHe himself carried the sin of many,\nand he intercedes for the rebels."
    },
    "54": {
      "1": "You barren woman who never gave birth, shout for joy.\nBurst forth with shouts of joy!\nCry aloud, you who have never been in labor,\nbecause the deserted woman has more children\n    than the woman who is married, says the Lord.",
      "2": "Make more room for your tent.\nTell them to stretch out the curtains of your dwelling.\nDo not hold back!\nMake your tent ropes longer.\nMake your tent stakes stronger,",
      "3": "because you will spread out to the right and to the left.\nYour offspring will take possession of nations,\nand they will repopulate devastated cities.",
      "4": "Do not be afraid,\nbecause you will not be put to shame.\nDo not be worried,\nbecause you will not be embarrassed.\nYou will forget the shame of your youth,\nand you will never remember the disgrace of your widowhood,",
      "5": "because your Maker is your husband.\nThe Lord of Armies is his name.\nYour Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.\nHe is called the God of all the earth.",
      "6": "Though you are like an abandoned wife with a wounded spirit,\nthough you are like the wife from a man’s youth who has been rejected,\nthe Lord is calling you back, says your God.",
      "7": "For a brief moment I abandoned you,\nbut with great compassion I am gathering you.",
      "8": "In a flood of anger I hid my face from you for a moment,\nbut in everlasting mercy I will have compassion on you,\nsays your Redeemer, the Lord.",
      "9": "To me this is like the time of the waters of Noah.\nAs I swore that the waters of Noah will never again cover the earth,\nso I am swearing that I will not be angry at you,\nand I will not rebuke you.",
      "10": "For even if the mountains are removed,\nand the hills are overthrown,\nmy mercy will not be removed from you,\nand my covenant of peace will not be overthrown,\nsays the Lord, who is showing you mercy.",
      "11": "Watch me, you afflicted woman, storm-tossed and not comforted,\nI will set your precious stones in black mortar\nand lay down sapphires as your foundation.",
      "12": "I will decorate your parapets with rubies,\nyour gates with sparkling stones,\nand your city boundaries with precious gems.",
      "13": "All your children will be taught by the Lord,\nand the peace and prosperity of your children will be great.",
      "14": "In righteousness you will be established.\nOppression will be far from you, so you will not be afraid.\nTerror will be far from you. It will never come near you.",
      "15": "If anyone attacks you, because of me he will accomplish nothing.\nWhoever launches an attack against you will fall before you.",
      "16": "See, I myself created the craftsman\n    who blows on the charcoal in the fire\n    to produce weapons for their task.\nI myself have created a destroyer to cause devastation.",
      "17": "Every weapon formed against you will fail,\nand you will condemn every tongue that rises up to judge you.\nThis is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.\nTheir righteousness is from me, declares the Lord."
    },
    "55": {
      "1": "Hey, all of you who are thirsty, come to the water,\neven if you have no money!\nCome, buy and eat!\nCome, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.",
      "2": "Why do you spend money on something that is not bread?\nWhy do you waste your labor on something that does not satisfy?\nListen carefully to me, and eat what is good.\nSatisfy your appetite with rich food.",
      "3": "Turn your ear toward me, and come to me.\nListen, so that you may continue to live.\nYes, I will make an everlasting covenant with you,\nthe faithful mercies promised to David.",
      "4": "Look, I appointed him as a witness for peoples,\na leader and commander of peoples.",
      "5": "Look, you will call out to a nation you do not know,\nand a nation that does not know you will run to you,\non account of the Lord your God,\nbecause of the Holy One of Israel,\nfor he has glorified you.",
      "6": "Seek the Lord while he may be found!\nCall on him while he is near!",
      "7": "Let the wicked man abandon his way.\nLet an evil man abandon his thoughts.\nLet him turn to the Lord,\nand he will show him mercy.\nLet him turn to our God,\nbecause he will abundantly pardon.",
      "8": "Certainly my plans are not your plans,\nand your ways are not my ways, declares the Lord.",
      "9": "Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,\nso my ways are higher than your ways,\nand my plans are higher than your plans.",
      "10": "Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky\nand do not return there\nunless they first water the earth, make it give birth, and cause it to sprout,\nso that it gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater,",
      "11": "in the same way my word that goes out from my mouth\n    will not return to me empty.\nRather, it will accomplish whatever I please,\nand it will succeed in the purpose for which I sent it.",
      "12": "Yes, you will go out with joy,\nand in peace you will be carried along.\nThe mountains and the hills will break out in shouts of joy before you,\nand all the trees of the field will clap their hands.",
      "13": "Instead of thorns, a fir tree will grow up.\nInstead of briers, a myrtle tree will grow up.\nThis will make a name for the Lord.\nIt will serve as an everlasting sign that will not be cut off."
    },
    "56": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord says.\nProtect justice, and carry out righteousness,\nbecause my salvation is coming very soon.\nMy righteousness is ready to be revealed.",
      "2": "How blessed is everyone who does this,\nwho grabs hold of it,\nwho keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,\nwho holds back his hand from doing any evil.",
      "3": "Therefore, the foreigner who joins himself to the Lord should not say,\n“The Lord will certainly exclude me from his people.”\nThe eunuch should not say,\n“I am just a dried-up tree.”",
      "4": "Because this is what the Lord says:\n“If the eunuchs keep my Sabbaths,\nchoose things that delight me,\nand take hold of my covenant,",
      "5": "then I will set up in my house and on my walls\n    a monument and a name for them\n    that is better than that of sons and daughters.\nI will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.”",
      "6": "Then the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,\n    to minister to him and to love the name of the Lord\n    and to become his servants,\n    every one of them who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,\n    those who take hold of my covenant—",
      "7": "I will bring them to my holy mountain,\nand I will make them glad in my house of prayer.\nTheir whole burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be\n    acceptable on my altar.\nFor my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples\n    of the world.",
      "8": "This is the declaration of God the Lord,\nwho gathers Israel’s dispersed people:\n“I will gather still more people to my house besides\n    the ones already gathered.”",
      "9": "All you wild animals, come to eat—\nall you animals in the forest.",
      "10": "His watchmen are blind, all of them.\nThey know nothing.\nAll of them are silent dogs.\nThey are not able to bark.\nThey are seers who lie down,\nwho love to sleep.",
      "11": "These dogs have a big appetite.\nThey are never satisfied.\nThese shepherds have no understanding.\nAll of them turn to their own ways.\nEach one, without exception, turns to his own gain.",
      "12": "“Come on, I want to drink wine.\nLet’s get drunk on beer.\nTomorrow will be another day, just like today,\nanother great day, better than ever.”"
    },
    "57": {
      "1": "The righteous one perishes,\nbut no one takes it to heart.\nMen of mercy are being taken away,\nbut no one understands\n    that the righteous one is being spared from evil.",
      "2": "He will enter into peace.\nThey will rest on their beds.\nHe is walking in his uprightness.",
      "3": "But you there, come closer,\nyou children of a witch,\nyou offspring of an adulterer and a prostitute.",
      "4": "Who are you mocking?\nWho are you making faces at and sticking out your tongue at?\nAren’t you all children born in rebellion,\nthe offspring of deceit,",
      "5": "you who are in heat among the oaks and under every green tree,\nyou who slaughter children in the ravines under the rugged cliffs?",
      "6": "Your chosen territory is among the smooth stones of the ravines.\nThey, yes, they, are your lot.\nYou even poured out a drink offering to them,\nand you offered up a grain offering.\nSince you have done these things, should I spare you?",
      "7": "Upon a mountain, high and lofty, you spread out your bed.\nYes, you went up there to offer a sacrifice.",
      "8": "Behind the door and doorpost you placed your memorial.\nYes, you deserted me and uncovered yourself. You climbed right into bed.\nYou made room for them in your bed.\nYou committed yourself to them.\nYou loved their bed.\nYou stared at their bodies.",
      "9": "You traveled to deliver offerings of fragrant oil to the king,\nand you made many offerings of incense.\nYou sent your messengers to a distant land.\nYou sent them as far as hell.",
      "10": "Because of the length of your journey, you became weary,\nbut you did not say, “It is hopeless!”\nSo you found new strength, and you did not faint.",
      "11": "But who is making you so anxious and so afraid that you\n    practice deception?\nYou did not remember me\nand did not keep me in your heart.\nIs it because I have been silent for a long time\n    that you do not fear me?",
      "12": "I will declare your righteousness and your deeds,\nbut they will not benefit you.",
      "13": "When you cry out for help,\nlet your collections of idols deliver you.\nBut the wind will blow them all away.\nA breeze will take them away.\nBut the one who takes refuge in me will inherit the land.\nHe will possess my holy mountain.",
      "14": "I will say,\n“Build up, build up the highway.\nPrepare the way.\nRemove the stumbling block from the way of my people.”",
      "15": "Certainly this is what the High and Lofty One says,\nthe one who dwells with his people forever,\nand whose name is holy:\n    I dwell in a high and holy place,\n    yet also with the one who is crushed and lowly in spirit,\n    in order to revive the spirit of those who have been pushed down,\n    and to revive the hearts of those who have been crushed.",
      "16": "Surely I will not accuse forever,\n    and I will not always be angry,\n    because every spirit would grow weak in my presence,\n    and every breath of life, which I made, would fail.",
      "17": "Because of the guilt from their selfish gain, I was angry,\n    and I struck them and hid my face.\n    I was angry,\n    but the deserter kept walking in the way his heart desired.",
      "18": "I saw his ways,\n    but I will heal him, and I will lead him,\n    and I will restore comfort to him\n    and to all who mourn with him.",
      "19": "I am the one who creates praise as the fruit of their lips.\nPeace, peace to the one far off and to the one nearby,\nsays the Lord,\nand I will heal him.",
      "20": "But the wicked are like the tossing sea,\n    which is not able to rest.\nIts waters toss up dirt and mud.",
      "21": "There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked."
    },
    "58": {
      "1": "Cry out with a full-throated shout.\nDo not hold back.\nShout like the blast of a ram’s horn.\nDeclare to my people their rebellious deeds.\nDeclare to the house of Jacob their sins.",
      "2": "They seek me day by day,\nand they are delighted to know my ways,\n    as if they were a nation that does what is right,\n    as if they had not forsaken the just ways of their God.\nThey ask me for just verdicts.\nThey are delighted to approach God:",
      "3": "“Why do we fast, but you do not see?\nWhy do we afflict ourselves, but you are not aware?”\n    This is what you do!\n    On the same day when you fast, you do whatever you please,\nand you oppress all your workers.",
      "4": "You fast so you can fight and quarrel,\nso you can strike with a wicked fist.\nYou should not fast the way you are doing it today\nif you expect God on high to hear your voice.",
      "5": "Is this the kind of fast that I would choose:\n    a day when a person afflicts himself\n    and bows his head like a reed\n    and makes his bed on sackcloth and ashes?\nDo you call this a fast, a day to gain the Lord’s favor?",
      "6": "On the contrary, isn’t this the kind of fast that I would choose:\n    to loosen the chains of wickedness,\n    to tear apart the ropes of a yoke,\n    to release the oppressed so they go free,\n    and to tear every yoke to pieces?",
      "7": "Isn’t a true fast that you share your bread with the hungry\nand bring the homeless and afflicted into a house?\nYes, when you see a naked person, you are to cover him,\nand do not hide yourself from your own flesh and blood.",
      "8": "Then your light will break forth like dawn,\nand your healing will spring up quickly.\nYour righteousness will go out ahead of you,\nand the Glory of the Lord will follow you.",
      "9": "Then you will call, and the Lord will answer.\nYou will cry out, and he will say, “Here I am!”\nIf you remove the bar of the yoke from among you,\nand if you stop finger-pointing and speaking wickedly,",
      "10": "if you offer your life for the hungry,\nand if you satisfy the desires of the afflicted,\nthen your light will shine in the darkness,\nand your darkest gloom will shine like the noonday sun.",
      "11": "Then the Lord will lead you continually.\nHe will satisfy your desire in arid places,\nand he will strengthen your bones.\nThen you will be like a watered garden,\nlike a spring of water, whose waters will not fail.",
      "12": "Then your ancient ruins will be rebuilt,\nand you will restore the foundations from past generations.\nThen you will be called the repairer of broken walls,\nthe restorer of streets to live on.",
      "13": "If you do not trample the Sabbath\n    by doing whatever you please on my holy day,\nif you call the Sabbath a delight,\nif you treat the holy day of the Lord as something to be honored,\nif you honor it by not going your own way,\nby not pursuing pleasure or negotiating a deal,",
      "14": "then you will delight in the Lord.\nI will cause you to ride over the heights of the land.\nI will provide food for you from the land inherited from\n    your father Jacob.\nYes, the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
    },
    "59": {
      "1": "Listen to me! The Lord’s arm is not too short to save,\nand his ear is not too deaf to hear.",
      "2": "No, it is your guilt that has separated you from your God,\nand your sins have hidden God’s face from you,\n    so that he does not hear.",
      "3": "Look, your hands are polluted with blood,\nand your fingers drip guilt.\nYour lips speak lies.\nYour tongue mutters dishonesty.",
      "4": "No one calls for justice,\nand no one argues his cases honestly.\nThey rely on empty arguments and commit perjury!\nThey conceive trouble and give birth to wickedness!",
      "5": "They hatch viper eggs,\nand they weave spider webs.\nAnyone who eats their eggs will die,\nand a cracked egg hatches into a venomous snake.",
      "6": "They cannot make a garment from their webs,\nand they will not be able to cover themselves with their deeds.\nTheir deeds are evil deeds,\nand violent actions fill their hands.",
      "7": "Their feet run to do evil,\nand they hurry to shed innocent blood.\nTheir thoughts are futile thoughts.\nDestruction and ruin are the destination of their highways.",
      "8": "They do not know the road to peace,\nand there is no justice on the route they follow.\nThey made crooked paths for themselves.\nNo one who walks on them will experience peace.",
      "9": "Therefore justice is far from us,\nand righteousness does not reach us.\nWe hope for light, but look, there is only darkness.\nWe hope for bright light, but we walk around in the darkest gloom.",
      "10": "We grope along a wall like blind men.\nWe grope like people with no eyes.\nWe stumble at noon as if it were twilight.\nAmong the healthy, we are like dead men.",
      "11": "We growl like bears—all of us—\nand like doves we always mourn.\nWe hope for justice, but there is none.\nWe hope for salvation, but it is far from us.",
      "12": "Yes, our rebellious deeds are many before you,\nand our sins testify against us.\nOur rebellious deeds are with us,\nand as for our guilty deeds, we are aware of them.",
      "13": "Those deeds are rebellion and treachery against the Lord.\nWe turn back from following our God.\nWe incite oppression and apostasy.\nWe conceive and mutter deceitful words from our hearts.",
      "14": "Justice is turned back,\nand righteousness stands far away,\nfor truth stumbles in the city square,\nand honesty cannot enter it.",
      "15": "The truth is missing,\nand anyone who turns from evil makes himself prey.\nThe Lord looked and saw something evil—\nthere was no justice.",
      "16": "He saw that there was no one.\nHe was appalled that there was no one who could intervene.\nSo his own arm worked salvation for him,\nand his own righteousness supported him.",
      "17": "He clothed himself with righteousness like armor\nand wore a helmet of salvation on his head.\nHe dressed in garments for vengeance,\nand he wrapped himself with zeal like a cloak.",
      "18": "He will repay in full what they have earned,\nnamely, wrath to his foes and full payment to his enemies.\nHe will repay even the distant coastlands.",
      "19": "From the west they will fear the Lord’s name,\nand from the rising of the sun they will fear his glory,\nfor he will come like a raging river,\ndriven by the Spirit of the Lord.",
      "20": "Then a redeemer will come for Zion\nand for those in Jacob who turn from rebellion.\nThis is the declaration of the Lord.",
      "21": "As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My Spirit, who is upon you, and my words, which I placed in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth or from the mouth of your offspring or from the mouth of their offspring, from this time forward and forever, says the Lord."
    },
    "60": {
      "1": "Arise, shine, for your light has come,\nand the glory of the Lord is dawning upon you.",
      "2": "Look, darkness covers the earth,\nand deep darkness covers the peoples,\nbut the Lord will dawn upon you,\nand his glory will be seen over you.",
      "3": "Nations will walk to your light,\nand kings to the brightness of your dawn.",
      "4": "Look up. Look all around and see!\nAll of them have been gathered. They are coming to you.\nYour sons will come from far away,\nand people will carry your daughters on their side.",
      "5": "Then you will look and be radiant.\nYour heart will race with excitement and burst with joy.\nFor great riches from the sea will be delivered to you.\nThe wealth of the nations will come to you.",
      "6": "Caravans of camels will cover your land,\nyoung camels from Midian and Ephah.\nAll those from Sheba will come.\nThey will carry gold and incense,\nand they will announce the good news of the praise of the Lord.",
      "7": "All the flocks of Kedar will be gathered to you.\nRams from Nebaioth will serve as sacrifices for you.\nThey will be accepted as burnt offerings on my altar,\nand I will beautify my splendid house.",
      "8": "Who are these who fly along like a cloud,\nwho fly like doves to their coops?",
      "9": "Yes, the coastlands will wait for me with hope,\nand the ships of Tarshish will be the first\n    to bring your children from far away.\nThey will have their silver and gold with them,\nfor the name of the Lord your God\nand for the Holy One of Israel,\nbecause he makes you beautiful.",
      "10": "Then foreigners will rebuild your walls,\nand their kings will serve you,\nbecause in my wrath I struck you,\nbut in my favor I had mercy on you.",
      "11": "Then your gates will always remain open.\nDay and night they will not be shut,\n    in order to bring you the wealth of the nations,\nand their kings will be led in procession.",
      "12": "For the nation and the kingdom that do not serve you will perish.\nSuch nations will be completely devastated.",
      "13": "The glory of Lebanon will come to you:\nthe fir, the maple, and the pine tree together.\nThey will beautify my holy place,\nand I will glorify my footstool.",
      "14": "Then the children of your oppressors will walk up to you and bow down.\nAll who despise you will fall down under the soles of your feet,\nand they will call you the city of the Lord,\nZion of the Holy One of Israel.",
      "15": "You were abandoned and hated, with no one walking through you,\nbut now I will make you a source of everlasting pride,\na joy from generation to generation.",
      "16": "You will nurse on the milk of the nations,\nand you will nurse at the breast of kings.\nYou will know that I am the Lord, your Savior,\nand that your Redeemer is the Mighty One of Jacob.",
      "17": "Instead of bronze I will bring gold.\nInstead of iron I will bring silver,\ninstead of wood, copper,\nand instead of stones, iron.\nAnd I will make peace your overseer,\nand righteousness your strong ruler.",
      "18": "Violence will never again be heard in your land,\nnor destruction and ruin in your boundaries.\nInstead, you will call your walls Salvation\nand your gates Praise.",
      "19": "The sun will never again be your light by day,\nand the moon will not shine to provide brightness for you,\nfor the Lord will be your everlasting light,\nand your God will be your splendor.",
      "20": "Your sun will never again set,\nand your moon will not wane,\nbecause the Lord will be your everlasting light,\nand the days of your mourning will be over.",
      "21": "As for your people, all of them will be righteous.\nThey will inherit the earth forever.\nThey are shoots I have planted,\nthe work of my hands, to display my beauty.",
      "22": "The smallest will become an army of a thousand,\nand the least will become a powerful nation.\nI am the Lord.\nWhen the time is right, I will do it quickly."
    },
    "61": {
      "1": "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,\n    because the Lord has anointed me\nto preach good news to the afflicted.\nHe sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,\n    to proclaim freedom for the captives\n    and release for those who are bound,",
      "2": "to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor\n    and the day of vengeance for our God,\n    to comfort all who mourn,",
      "3": "to provide for those who mourn in Zion,\n    to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,\n    the oil of joy instead of mourning,\n    a cloak of praise instead of a faint spirit,\n    so that they will be called oaks of righteousness,\n    a planting of the Lord to display his beauty.",
      "4": "Then they will rebuild ancient ruins.\nThey will raise up what was formerly devastated,\nand they will renew ruined cities,\n    which have been devastated for generations.",
      "5": "Strangers will stand and shepherd your flock,\nand foreigners will be your farmers and vinedressers.",
      "6": "You will be called the Lord’s priests.\nYou will be named ministers of our God.\nYou will eat the wealth of nations,\nand you will boast about their riches.",
      "7": "In place of your shame, you will receive a double portion.\nInstead of dishonor, they will rejoice in their share of the land.\nIn fact, in their land they will inherit a double portion.\nEverlasting joy will be theirs.",
      "8": "Yes, I am the Lord. I love justice.\nI hate robbery in a burnt offering.\nI will repay them in faithfulness,\nand I will make an everlasting covenant with them.",
      "9": "Their offspring will be known among the nations,\nand their descendants in the midst of the peoples.\nAll who see them will recognize\n    that they are offspring whom the Lord has blessed.",
      "10": "I will rejoice greatly in the Lord.\nMy soul will celebrate because of my God,\nfor he has clothed me in garments of salvation.\nWith a robe of righteousness he covered me,\nlike a bridegroom who wears a beautiful headdress like a priest,\nand like a bride who adorns herself with her jewelry.",
      "11": "For as the earth produces its growth,\nand as a garden causes what has been sown to sprout up,\nso God the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up\n    in the presence of all the nations."
    },
    "62": {
      "1": "For the sake of Zion I will not be silent.\nFor the sake of Jerusalem I will not be quiet,\nuntil her righteousness goes forth shining brightly,\nand her salvation burns like a torch.",
      "2": "Nations will see your righteousness,\nand all kings will see your glory.\nYou will be called by a new name\n    that the mouth of the Lord will assign to you.",
      "3": "Then you will be a beautiful crown in the Lord’s hand,\nand a royal diadem in the palm of your God.",
      "4": "You will never again be called Abandoned,\nand your land will never again be called Desolation,\nfor you will be called My Delight Is in Her,\nand your land will be called Married,\nbecause the Lord delights in you,\nand your land will be married.",
      "5": "For just as a young man marries a virgin,\nyour sons will marry you,\nand just as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride,\nyour God will rejoice over you.",
      "6": "Upon your walls, Jerusalem, I appointed watchmen.\nAll day and all night they will never be silent.\nYou who keep reminding the Lord, do not rest!",
      "7": "Do not give him rest\nuntil he establishes Jerusalem,\nand he causes her to be praised on the earth.",
      "8": "The Lord swore by his right hand\nand by his strong arm:\n    I will certainly never again give up your grain as food\n        for your enemies,\n    and foreigners will not drink the sweet new wine you worked for.",
      "9": "For those who pick fruit will eat it, and they will praise the Lord,\n    and those who harvest grapes will drink in my holy courtyards.",
      "10": "Go through, go through the gates.\nPrepare a way for the people.\nBuild up, build up the highway.\nClear it of stones.\nRaise a banner for the peoples.",
      "11": "Listen, the Lord is making a proclamation to the end of the earth.\nTell the daughter of Zion:\n“Look, your salvation is coming.\nLook, his reward is with him,\nand his compensation is out in front of him.”",
      "12": "Then they will be called holy people,\nthe redeemed of the Lord.\nThen you will be called Sought After,\nA City Not Abandoned."
    },
    "63": {
      "1": "Who is this coming from Edom, with bright red garments?\nWho is this coming from Bozrah, clothed majestically,\nmarching out with great strength?\nIt is I, the one who speaks in righteousness.\nIt is I, the one who is mighty to save.",
      "2": "Why is your clothing so red?\nWhy are your garments like those of someone\n    who has been trampling grapes in a winepress?",
      "3": "I have trodden the winepress alone,\nand from the peoples there was no one with me.\nSo I stomped on them in my anger,\nand I trampled them in my wrath,\nand their juice splattered on my garments.\nI stained all my clothing.",
      "4": "For the day for vengeance was in my heart,\nand the year for my redemption has come.",
      "5": "I looked intently but there was no helper.\nI was shocked that no one supported me.\nMy arm delivered me,\nand my wrath supported me.",
      "6": "I trampled the peoples in my anger.\nI made them drunk in my wrath,\nand I will pour out their juice onto the ground.",
      "7": "I will tell about the Lord’s mercies,\nabout the praises of the Lord,\nabout all that the Lord has done for us,\nabout his great goodness to the house of Israel,\nwhich he performed for them according to his abundant compassion,\nand according to his great mercy.",
      "8": "He said, “Surely they are my people,\nchildren who will not deal falsely,”\nso he became their Savior.",
      "9": "In all their anguish he felt anguish,\nand the Angel of his Presence saved them.\nIn his love and in his pity he himself redeemed them,\nand he took them up and carried them all the days of old.",
      "10": "But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit,\nso he turned against them and became an enemy.\nHe himself fought against them.",
      "11": "Yet he remembered the days of old,\nthe days of Moses and his people.\nWhere is the one who brought them up from the sea,\n    with the shepherds of his flock?\nWhere is the one who set his Holy Spirit in their midst,",
      "12": "who sent his majestic arm to the right hand of Moses,\nwho divided waters before them\n    to make an everlasting name for himself,",
      "13": "who let them walk through the depths?\nLike a horse in the wilderness, they did not stumble.",
      "14": "Like cattle that descend into a valley,\nthey were given rest by the Lord’s Spirit.\nThis is how you led your people\n    to make a majestic name for yourself.",
      "15": "Gaze down from the heavens and see,\nfrom your holy and beautiful dwelling place.\nWhere is your zeal and your might?\nThe feelings of your heart and your compassion\n    are withheld from me.",
      "16": "But you are our Father,\nthough Abraham does not know us,\nthough Israel does not acknowledge us.\nYou, the Lord, are our Father.\nOur Redeemer from everlasting is your name.",
      "17": "Why do you cause us to wander from your ways, Lord?\nWhy do you harden our heart so that we do not fear you?\nReturn for the sake of your servants,\nthe tribes that are your heritage.",
      "18": "For a short time your holy people possessed the land.\nNow our adversaries have trampled your sanctuary.",
      "19": "We have been your people from ancient times,\nbut you have not ruled over the other nations.\nThey were not called by your name."
    },
    "64": {
      "1": "Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and come down.\nMountains then would quake because of your presence.",
      "2": "As fire ignites stubble and as fire makes water boil,\nmake your name known to your adversaries.\nThen nations would quake in your presence.",
      "3": "You did amazing things that we did not expect.\nYou came down. Mountains quaked because of your presence.",
      "4": "From ancient times no one has heard.\nNo ear has understood.\nNo eye has seen any god except you,\nwho goes into action for the one who waits for him.",
      "5": "You meet anyone who joyfully practices righteousness,\nwho remembers you by walking in your ways!\nBut you were angry because we sinned.\nWe have remained in our sins for a long time.\nCan we still be saved?",
      "6": "All of us have become like something unclean,\nand all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth.\nAll of us have withered like a leaf,\nand our guilt carries us away like the wind.",
      "7": "There is no one who calls on your name,\nwho rouses himself to take hold of you.\nSo you hid your face from us.\nYou made us melt by the power of our guilt.",
      "8": "But now, Lord, you are our father.\nWe are the clay, and you are our potter.\nAll of us are the work of your hand.",
      "9": "Do not be angry, Lord, without limit.\nDo not remember our guilt forever.\nPlease look closely.\nAll of us are your people.",
      "10": "Your holy cities have become a wilderness.\nZion has become a wilderness.\nJerusalem is a desolation.",
      "11": "Our holy and glorious house, where our fathers praised you,\n    has been burned by fire,\n    and everything we desired has become a ruin.",
      "12": "Since this is so, how can you hold back, O Lord?\nHow can you remain silent and afflict us without limit?"
    },
    "65": {
      "1": "I was available to those who did not ask.\nI let myself be found by those who did not seek me.\nI said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that did not call on my name.",
      "2": "I reached out my hands all day to a stubborn people,\nwho are walking in a way that is not good,\nwho follow their own ideas.",
      "3": "This people continually provokes me to anger, right to my face,\n    by sacrificing in the groves,\n    by burning incense on the bricks.",
      "4": "They sit in tombs\nand keep their vigils all night.\nThey eat the flesh of pigs,\nand broth made from unclean meat is in their pots.",
      "5": "They say, “Keep to yourself.\nDo not touch me because I am too holy for you.”\nThese people are smoke in my nostrils,\nlike a fire burning all day.",
      "6": "Look, I have put it in writing.\nI will not be silent until I repay them.\nI will repay into their lap",
      "7": "both their guilt and the guilt of their fathers,\n    says the Lord.\nBecause they burned incense upon the mountains,\nand upon the hills they ridiculed me,\nso I will measure out their full pay into their lap.",
      "8": "This is what the Lord says.\nJust as sweet wine is found in the grape cluster,\nso that someone says, “Do not destroy it\nbecause there is a blessing in it,”\nso I will act in the same way for the sake of my servants,\nin order not to destroy the whole people.",
      "9": "I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,\nand from Judah those who will inherit my mountains,\nso that my chosen ones will possess the land,\nand my servants will dwell there.",
      "10": "Sharon will become a pasture for flocks,\nand the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds,\nfor my people who seek me.",
      "11": "But you who are abandoning the Lord,\nyou who have forgotten my holy mountain,\nwho are setting a table for Fortune,\nwho are pouring out mixed wine for Destiny,",
      "12": "I will destine you for the sword.\nAll of you will bow down to be slaughtered,\nbecause I called, but you did not answer.\nI spoke, but you did not listen.\nYou committed evil in my eyes,\nand you chose that which does not please me.",
      "13": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says.\nWatch! My servants will eat,\nbut you will go hungry.\nWatch! My servants will drink,\nbut you will be thirsty.\nWatch! My servants will rejoice,\nbut you will be ashamed.",
      "14": "Watch! My servants will shout because of the joy in their heart,\nbut you will cry out because of the pain in your heart,\nand because of a broken spirit you will wail.",
      "15": "You will leave your name for my chosen ones to use as a curse,\nand the Lord God will put you to death,\nbut he will call his servants by another name,",
      "16": "so that anyone on earth who blesses himself\n    will bless himself by the God of Amen,\nand anyone on the earth who swears\n    will swear by the God of Amen!\nFor the past troubles will be forgotten.\nYes, they are certainly hidden from my eyes.",
      "17": "Watch this! I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.\nThe former things will not be remembered.\nThey will not come to mind.",
      "18": "Instead, rejoice and celebrate forever, because of what I am creating.\nWatch this! I am about to create Jerusalem to be a source of gladness,\nand her people will be a source of joy.",
      "19": "I also will be glad because of Jerusalem,\nand I will rejoice over my people.\nThe sound of weeping will not be heard in her again,\nnor will the sound of crying.",
      "20": "There will never again be an infant there who lives for only a few days,\nor an elderly man who does not fill out all his days,\nfor one who dies at a hundred will be considered a young man,\nand one who fails to attain the age of one hundred will be regarded\n        as cursed.",
      "21": "Then they will build houses and live in them.\nThey will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.",
      "22": "They will not build a house and have another person live in it.\nThey will not plant and have another person eat the crop,\nfor the days of my people will be like the days of a tree,\nand my chosen ones will enjoy all the work of their hands.",
      "23": "They will not labor only to receive nothing,\nand they will not give birth to children doomed to disaster,\nfor they will be offspring who are blessed by the Lord,\nand their descendants will be with them.",
      "24": "Then even before they call, I will answer.\nWhile they are still speaking, I will hear.",
      "25": "The wolf and the lamb will graze together,\nand lions will eat straw like cattle,\nbut the serpent will eat dust as its food.\nThey will not harm or destroy anywhere on my holy mountain,\nsays the Lord."
    },
    "66": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord says.\nThe heavens are my throne,\nand the earth is a footstool under my feet.\nWhere, then, is the house that you could build for me?\nWhere, then, is a place that could serve as my resting place?",
      "2": "For my hand made all these things,\nso all these things came into existence,\ndeclares the Lord.\nYet this is the person I will watch over:\n    the one who is afflicted and whose spirit is crushed,\n    the one who trembles at my word.",
      "3": "One who slaughters an ox, also smites a person.\nOne who sacrifices a lamb, also breaks the neck of a dog.\nOne who offers a grain offering, also offers the blood of pigs.\nOne who offers memorial incense, also blesses a useless idol.\nYes, they have chosen their own ways,\nand their soul delights in their detestable things.",
      "4": "So I myself will choose their punishments,\nand the things that terrify them I will bring to them,\nbecause I called, and there was no one who answered.\nI spoke, and they did not listen.\nThey did what is evil in my eyes,\nand they chose things that do not please me.",
      "5": "Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word.\nYour brothers, who hate you\nand exclude you for the sake of my name, say:\n“Let the Lord be glorified so that we may see your joy.”\nBut they themselves will be put to shame.",
      "6": "Listen! An uproar in the city,\nthe sound of an uproar from the temple,\nthe sound of the Lord repaying his enemies in full!",
      "7": "Before she suffers labor pains, she gives birth.\nBefore birth pain comes upon her, she delivers a male child.",
      "8": "Who has ever heard of something like this?\nWho has ever seen such a thing?\nIs a land brought forth in one day?\nIs a nation born all at once?\nBut as soon as Zion experiences labor pains, she gives birth\n    to her children.",
      "9": "Would I bring a baby to the point of birth and not let it be born?\nsays the Lord.\nOr would I let a baby be conceived but shut the womb to prevent\n    its birth?\nsays your God.",
      "10": "Rejoice with Jerusalem and celebrate with her, all you who love her.\nShare her joy with her, all you who have been mourning over her,",
      "11": "so that you may nurse and be satisfied from her comforting breast,\nso that you may suck and find delight from her milk-filled breasts.",
      "12": "Yes, this is what the Lord says.\nI am ready to extend peace to her like a river,\nand the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream.\nYou will be nursed. You will be carried on her side,\nand you will be bounced on her knees.",
      "13": "Just like a man whom his mother comforts,\nin the same way I myself will comfort you,\nand you will be comforted concerning Jerusalem.",
      "14": "Then you will see, and your heart will be glad.\nLike grass you will receive new strength, right down to your bones.\nThen the Lord’s hand will be known to his servants,\nbut his fury to his enemies.",
      "15": "Look, the Lord will come like fire,\nand his chariots like a whirlwind,\nto pour out his furious anger\nand his rebuke like flames of fire.",
      "16": "For the Lord will bring judgment on all flesh\n    by fire and by his sword,\nand those slain by the Lord will be many.",
      "17": "Those who try to sanctify themselves\nand those who try to purify themselves\n    in order to follow others into the groves,\n    in order to eat the meat of pigs and other disgusting things like mice—\ntogether they will be swept away, declares the Lord.",
      "18": "As for me, because of their works and their thoughts,\nthe time is coming for me to gather people from all nations\n    and all languages.\nThey will come, and they will see my glory.",
      "19": "Then I will set up a sign among them,\nand I will send out survivors from among them to the nations,\nto Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, to those who are archers,\nto Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands,\nwho have not heard my message and have not seen my glory.\nThen they will declare my glory among the nations.",
      "20": "Then they will bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord. They will bring them on horses and chariots and wagons and mules and dromedaries to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, in the same way that the people of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel to the Lord’s house.",
      "21": "Even from among these people I will take priests and Levites, says the Lord.",
      "22": "For just as the new heavens and the new earth that I am making will remain standing before me, declares the Lord, in the same way your offspring and your name will stand.",
      "23": "As often as one new moon follows another and one Sabbath follows another, all flesh will come to worship before me, says the Lord.",
      "24": "They will go out, and they will see the corpses of the ones who were rebelling against me, for their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched, and all flesh will be horrified by them."
    }
  },
  "Jeremiah": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, who was one of the priests from Anathoth in the land of Benjamin.",
      "2": "The word of the Lord came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah,",
      "3": "and continued through the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, up to the time of the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month.",
      "4": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "5": "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,\nand before you were born, I set you apart.\nI appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.",
      "6": "But I said, “Ah, Lord God! I really do not know how to speak! I am only a child!”",
      "7": "The Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone to whom I send you and say whatever I command you.",
      "8": "Do not be afraid of them, because I am with you, and I will rescue you, declares the Lord.”",
      "9": "Then the Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. The Lord said to me:\nThere! I have now placed my words in your mouth.",
      "10": "Look, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms\nto uproot and to tear down,\nto destroy and to overthrow,\nto build and to plant.",
      "11": "Again the word of the Lord came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?”\nI answered, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”",
      "12": "The Lord said to me, “That is correct. You have observed accurately. And this vision means that I am watching over my word to fulfill it.”",
      "13": "The word of the Lord came to me a second time: “What do you see?”\nI answered, “I see a boiling pot tipped away from the north.”",
      "14": "Then the Lord said to me:\nDisaster will boil over from the north on everyone who lives in the land.",
      "15": "Listen, I am summoning all the clans from the northern kingdoms, declares the Lord. They will come, and each one will set up his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem. They will come against all the surrounding walls and against all the cities of Judah.",
      "16": "I will pronounce my judgments against Judah because of their wickedness. They have abandoned me. They have made burnt offerings to other gods, and they have bowed down to the work of their own hands.",
      "17": "Now you, get ready. Rise up and tell them everything I am commanding you. Do not be frightened by them, or I will frighten you in their presence.",
      "18": "Look, today I have made you like a fortified city, like an iron pillar, and like bronze walls, to take a stand against the whole land. Stand against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.",
      "19": "They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, because I am with you to rescue you, declares the Lord."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Go and proclaim this in the hearing of Jerusalem.\nThis is what the Lord says.\nThis is what I remember concerning you:\n    your faithfulness when you were young,\n    and your love when you were pledged in marriage.\nI remember how you followed me in the wilderness,\nin a land that has never been planted.",
      "3": "Israel was set apart as holy to the Lord,\n    the firstfruits of his harvest.\nAll those who devoured Israel became guilty,\nand disaster came upon them, declares the Lord.",
      "4": "Hear the word of the Lord, you house of Jacob.\nAll you families of the house of Israel,",
      "5": "this is what the Lord says.\nWhat fault did your fathers find in me,\nthat they departed so far from me?\nThey followed worthless idols,\nand so they became worthless themselves.",
      "6": "They did not say,\n“Where is the Lord, who brought us up from the land of Egypt?\nWhere is the one who led us through the wilderness,\n    through a desert wasteland filled with ravines,\n    through a land of drought and the shadow of death,\n    a land which no one passes through,\n    a land where no human being lives?”",
      "7": "I brought you into a fertile land,\nto eat its fruit and its good things.\nBut you defiled my land\nand made my inheritance repulsive.",
      "8": "The priests did not ask, “Where is the Lord?”\nThe experts in the law did not acknowledge me.\nTheir shepherds rebelled against me.\nThe prophets prophesied by Baal\nand went after useless idols.",
      "9": "So I am bringing charges against you again, declares the Lord,\nand I am bringing charges against your children’s children.",
      "10": "Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look.\nSend someone to Kedar and observe carefully.\nSee if there has ever been anything like this.",
      "11": "Has a nation ever exchanged its gods\n(even though they are not gods at all)?\nYet my people have exchanged their Glory\n    for useless idols.",
      "12": "Be appalled at this, you heavens.\nBe horrified and wither away completely, declares the Lord.",
      "13": "For my people have committed two evils:\nThey have abandoned me, the spring of living water,\nand they have dug their own cisterns,\nbroken cisterns that hold no water!",
      "14": "Is Israel a servant, born into slavery?\nWhy then has Israel been plundered?",
      "15": "Young lions have roared at him.\nThey have growled loudly.\nThey have made his land desolate.\nHis towns are burned and deserted.",
      "16": "The men of Memphis and Tahpanhes\n    have shaved the top of your head.",
      "17": "Have you not brought this on yourself\n    by deserting the Lord your God\n    while he led you on the way?",
      "18": "So why are you on the road to Egypt\n    to drink the water of the Shihor?\nAnd why are you on the road to Assyria\n    to drink the water of the River?",
      "19": "It is your own evil that will bring discipline on you.\nYour backsliding will judge you.\nKnow and see how evil and bitter it is for you\n    to forsake the Lord your God,\n    to have no fear of me,\ndeclares the Lord God of Armies.",
      "20": "Long ago I broke your yoke.\nI tore off your chains,\nbut you said, “I will not serve you!”\nInstead, on every high hill\nand under every green tree\nyou sprawl out like a prostitute.",
      "21": "But I planted you as a very good vine,\nhealthy and from reliable stock.\nHow then did you turn against me?\nHow then did you turn into a wild vine?",
      "22": "Even if you scrub yourself with cleanser\nand use a lot of strong soap,\nthe stain of your guilt is before me, declares the Lord.",
      "23": "How can you say, “I have not defiled myself.\nI have not gone after the Baals”?\nLook what you did in the valley!\nThink about what you did!\nYou were a fast female camel\n    running wildly all over the place,",
      "24": "or a wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness,\n    sniffing the wind in her passion.\nWho can control her when she is in heat?\nNone of the males who pursue her will become tired.\nThey will find her in her mating time.",
      "25": "Stop before your shoes wear out\nand your throat becomes dry!\nBut you say, “It’s hopeless!\nI love strange gods, and I must pursue them.”",
      "26": "As a thief is shamed when he is caught,\nso the house of Israel will be shamed—\nthe people, their kings, their officials,\ntheir priests, and their prophets.",
      "27": "They say to wood, “You are my father.”\nThey say to stone, “You gave birth to me.”\nThey have turned their backs to me\nand not their faces.\nBut when a time of trouble comes, they say,\n“Get up and save us!”",
      "28": "Where are the gods you made for yourselves?\nLet them rise up,\nif they are able to save you in a time of trouble.\nAfter all, Judah, you have as many gods as you have towns.",
      "29": "Why do you bring charges against me?\nYou have all rebelled against me, declares the Lord.",
      "30": "I punished your people in vain.\nThey did not respond to correction.\nYour own sword has devoured your prophets,\n    like a raging lion.",
      "31": "You people of this generation,\nconsider the word of the Lord.\nHave I been a wilderness to Israel,\nor a land of deep darkness?\nWhy do my people say, “We are free to wander.\nWe will not come to you anymore”?",
      "32": "Does a virgin about to be married forget her jewelry?\nDoes a bride forget her veil?\nBut my people have forgotten me for countless days.",
      "33": "How practiced you are in the ways that you pursue love!\nEven the most evil women could learn from your ways.",
      "34": "The lifeblood of poor, innocent people is found on your skirt,\neven though you did not catch them breaking in.\nIn spite of all this,",
      "35": "you say, “I am innocent.\nHe will not be angry with me.”\nBut I have indeed judged you\nbecause you say, “I have not sinned.”",
      "36": "How fickle you are in changing your direction!\nYou will be disappointed by Egypt,\njust as you were by Assyria.",
      "37": "So you will leave there with your hands on your head,\nbecause the Lord has rejected the ones you trust.\nYou will receive no help from them."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "If a man divorces his wife\nand she leaves him and marries another man,\ncan he return to her again?\nWouldn’t acting like that completely defile the land?\nBut you have lived like a prostitute with many lovers.\nAnd now you want to return to me?\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "2": "Look up to the bare hills and see.\nIs there any place where you have not engaged in sex?\nYou sat by the roadsides waiting for lovers,\n    like a nomad in the desert.\nYou have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.",
      "3": "That is why the showers have been withheld,\nand the spring rains have not come.\nYet you have the shameless look of a prostitute.\nYou refuse to be ashamed.",
      "4": "Did you not just call to me, “My father!\nYou are my close friend from my youth!”?",
      "5": "You say, “Will he be angry for so long?\nWill he keep up his wrath forever?”\nYes, that is what you say,\nbut you do whatever evil you can.",
      "6": "In the days of King Josiah, the Lord asked me:\nHave you seen what unfaithful Israel did? She has gone up onto every high hill and under every green tree and acted like a prostitute there.",
      "7": "I told myself that after she did all this, she would return to me, but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.",
      "8": "Unfaithful Israel committed adultery, so I sent her away. I gave her a certificate of divorce, yet I saw that in spite of this, her treacherous sister Judah had no fear. She also went and acted like a prostitute.",
      "9": "Since Israel regarded her sexual sins so lightly, she defiled the land by committing adultery with stones and trees.",
      "10": "In spite of all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not turn back to me with all her heart, but only pretended, declares the Lord.",
      "11": "Then the Lord said to me:\nUnfaithful Israel is more righteous than treacherous Judah.",
      "12": "Go, proclaim these words to the north.\nReturn, unfaithful Israel, declares the Lord.\nI will no longer frown on you,\nbecause I am merciful, declares the Lord.\nI will not be angry forever.",
      "13": "At least acknowledge your guilt.\nAdmit that you rebelled against the Lord your God.\nYou have distributed your favors to strangers under every green tree,\nand you have not listened to me, declares the Lord.",
      "14": "Return, unfaithful people, declares the Lord, because I am your husband. I will take you—one from a city, two from a family—and bring you to Zion.",
      "15": "Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.",
      "16": "In those days, when you have been fruitful and increased in number in the land, declares the Lord, men will no longer say, “The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.” It will not enter their minds. It will not be remembered. It will not be missed, nor will another one be made.",
      "17": "Then they will call Jerusalem “The Throne of the Lord.” All nations will gather there in Jerusalem for the sake of the name of the Lord. No longer will they stubbornly follow their own evil hearts.",
      "18": "In those days the house of Judah will join with the house of Israel, and together they will come from a land in the north to the land I gave your fathers as an inheritance.",
      "19": "I myself said that I would like to treat you like sons\nand give you a desirable land,\nthe most splendid inheritance among the entire army of nations.\nI thought you would call me Father\nand would no longer turn away from me.",
      "20": "But you, O house of Israel, have been unfaithful to me,\nlike a wife who is unfaithful to her husband, declares the Lord.",
      "21": "A cry is heard on the bare hills,\nthe weeping and pleading of the people of Israel,\nbecause they have perverted their way.\nThey have forgotten the Lord their God.",
      "22": "Return, unfaithful people.\nI will cure you of your unfaithfulness.\nYes, we will come to you,\nfor you are the Lord our God!",
      "23": "Yes, there has been deception from the hills,\nand commotion in the mountains,\nbut there is salvation for Israel in the Lord our God.",
      "24": "Since our younger days,\n    shameful gods have consumed the results of our fathers’ hard work,\n    their sheep and cattle,\n    and their sons and daughters.",
      "25": "We will lie down in that shame.\nOur disgrace covers us.\nWe have sinned against the Lord our God,\nboth we and our fathers.\nFrom our younger days until today,\nwe have not obeyed the Lord our God."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Israel, if you will return, declares the Lord,\nreturn to me.\nIf you remove your disgusting idols from my sight,\nand do not go astray,",
      "2": "and if you swear, “As surely as the Lord lives,”\n    in truth, justice, and righteousness,\nthen the nations will be blessed by him,\nand they will take pride in him.",
      "3": "For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem:\nBreak up your unplowed ground\nand do not sow among thorns.",
      "4": "Circumcise yourselves to the Lord.\nCircumcise your hearts, you men of Judah,\nyou who live in Jerusalem.\nOtherwise my rage will burn like fire,\nfire that cannot be put out,\nbecause of the evil that you have done.",
      "5": "Announce in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem.\nBlow the ram’s horn throughout the land.\nShout loudly and say, “Gather together!\nWe must flee into the fortified cities!”",
      "6": "Raise a signal flag to flee to Zion!\nFlee for safety!\nDo not stay behind!\nI am bringing disaster from the north.\nI am bringing terrible destruction.",
      "7": "A lion has come out of his den.\nA destroyer of nations has set out.\nHe has come out of his lair to lay waste to the land.\nYour cities will lie in ruins with no one living in them.",
      "8": "So put on sackcloth, mourn and wail,\nbecause the burning anger of the Lord has not turned away from us.",
      "9": "When that day comes, declares the Lord,\nthe heart of the king will fail,\nand the hearts of the officials as well.\nThe priests will be stunned.\nThe prophets will be dumbfounded.",
      "10": "Then I said:\nOh no, Lord God!\nYou have completely deceived these people\nand Jerusalem as well.\nYou said, “You will have peace,”\nbut the sword is at our throats!",
      "11": "At that time it will be said to these people and to Jerusalem: “A hot wind from the bare hills in the wilderness blows toward my dear people, but not to winnow or purify.",
      "12": "A wind too strong for that is being sent by me. Now I am passing judgment on them.”",
      "13": "Look! He rises up like clouds.\nHis chariots are like a whirlwind.\nHis horses are faster than eagles!\n“We are doomed! We are ruined!”",
      "14": "Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart\n    so that you will be saved.\nHow long will your wicked thoughts live inside you?",
      "15": "A voice declares from Dan,\nand a report of disaster comes from the hills of Ephraim.",
      "16": "Announce this to the nations.\nMake Jerusalem hear it.\nA besieging army is coming from a distant land,\nraising a war cry against the cities of Judah.",
      "17": "They have surrounded her like men watching a field,\nbecause she has rebelled against me, declares the Lord.",
      "18": "The way you live and the things you did have brought this on you.\nThis is your punishment.\nIt is bitter!\nIt strikes your heart!",
      "19": "My agony! My agony!\nI am writhing in pain.\nOh my heart!\nThe walls of my heart are quivering!\nI cannot keep silent,\nbecause I hear the sound of the ram’s horn.\nIt is the signal for war!",
      "20": "One disaster after another is announced.\nAll the land is ruined.\nSuddenly my tents are destroyed.\nMy tent curtains are torn apart in an instant.",
      "21": "How long must I see the battle flag\nand hear the sound of the ram’s horn?",
      "22": "My people are fools.\nThey do not know me.\nThey are ignorant children.\nThey do not understand.\nThey are experts at doing evil,\nand they do not know how to do good.",
      "23": "I looked at the earth.\nIt was undeveloped and empty.\nI looked at the heavens,\nbut there were no lights.",
      "24": "I looked at the mountains,\nand they were quaking.\nAll the hills were shaking.",
      "25": "I looked and there was no one there.\nEvery bird in the sky had flown away.",
      "26": "I looked and saw that the fertile land was a wilderness.\nAll the cities were torn down,\nbecause of the Lord and his burning anger.",
      "27": "This is what the Lord says.\nThe land will be laid waste,\nbut I will not destroy it completely.",
      "28": "Because of this, the earth will mourn,\nand the sky above will grow dark.\nI have spoken. I have made plans.\nI will show no pity,\nand I will not turn back from this.",
      "29": "At the sound of riders and archers,\nthe people of every city will flee.\nThey will go off into the brush.\nThey will climb up into the rocks.\nEvery city will be abandoned.\nThere will not be anyone to live in them.",
      "30": "You are destroyed!\nWhat are you doing?\nWhy do you dress in scarlet\nand put on gold jewelry?\nWhy do you put makeup on your eyes?\nYou are making yourself look beautiful for nothing.\nYour lovers reject you.\nThey seek your life.",
      "31": "Listen, I hear a cry like that of a woman in labor,\na cry of pain like that of a woman giving birth to her first child,\nthe cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath,\nstretching out her hands and saying,\n“Oh no, it is hopeless!\nMy life is slipping away in the presence of murderers.”"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Hurry here and there through the streets of Jerusalem.\nLook and take note.\nSearch her public squares.\nSee if you can find just one person who deals justly\nand who seeks to be faithful.\nIf you can, I will forgive her.",
      "2": "Though they say, “As surely as the Lord lives,”\nthey are still swearing falsely.",
      "3": "Lord, don’t your eyes look for faithfulness?\nYou struck them,\nbut they felt no pain.\nYou crushed them,\nbut they refused discipline.\nThey made their faces harder than rock\nand refused to repent.",
      "4": "Then I said:\n    These are only the poor.\n    They are foolish,\n    because they do not know the way of the Lord\n    and the just verdict of their God.",
      "5": "I will go to the great men and speak to them.\n    Certainly they know the way of the Lord,\n    the just verdict of their God.\n    But all of them together have broken the yoke\n    and have torn off their chains.",
      "6": "That is why a lion from the forest will strike them.\n    A wolf from the desert will attack them,\n    and a leopard is watching their cities.\n    Everyone who comes out of them will be torn to pieces\n    because their rebellions are so many,\n    and their unfaithfulness is so great.",
      "7": "Why should I forgive you?\nYour children have abandoned me\nand sworn by gods that are not gods.\nI satisfied their needs,\nyet they committed adultery\nand crowded into prostitutes’ houses.",
      "8": "They are well-fed, lusty stallions,\neach one neighing for his neighbor’s wife.",
      "9": "Should I not punish them for this? declares the Lord.\nShould I not avenge myself on a nation like this one?",
      "10": "Go through her vineyards and destroy them,\nbut do not destroy them completely.\nCut away the branches,\nbecause they do not belong to the Lord.",
      "11": "The house of Israel and the house of Judah\n    have been completely unfaithful to me, declares the Lord.",
      "12": "They have lied about the Lord.\nThey say, “He is nothing.\nNo disaster will come upon us.\nWe will not see sword or famine.",
      "13": "The prophets are only wind.\nThe word is not in them,\nso let what they say come upon them.”",
      "14": "Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Armies, says.\nBecause they have said this,\nI will make my words in your mouth a fire.\nThese people are the wood, and it will burn them up.",
      "15": "Now, O house of Israel, I am bringing against you\n    a nation from far away, declares the Lord.\nI am bringing an enduring nation, an ancient nation.\nThey are a nation whose language you do not know,\nnor can you understand what they say.",
      "16": "Their quiver is like an open grave.\nThey are all strong warriors.",
      "17": "They will consume your harvest and your bread.\nThey will consume your sons and daughters.\nThey will consume your flocks and herds,\nand they will consume your vines and fig trees.\nWith their swords they will beat down your fortified cities,\nthe places in which you trust.",
      "18": "Yet even in those days, declares the Lord, I will not destroy you completely.",
      "19": "When the people ask, “Why has the Lord our God done this to us?” answer them, “Just as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your own land, so now you will serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.”",
      "20": "Declare this to the house of Jacob!\nProclaim it in Judah!",
      "21": "Hear this, you foolish, senseless people!\nYou have eyes but you cannot see.\nYou have ears but you cannot hear.",
      "22": "Do you not fear me? declares the Lord.\nDo you not tremble before me?\nI made sand as the boundary for the sea,\na permanent barrier that it cannot cross.\nThe waves toss back and forth,\nbut they cannot get past it.\nThe towering waves crash,\nbut they cannot pass over it.",
      "23": "But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart.\nThey have turned aside and wandered away.",
      "24": "They do not say to themselves,\n“We should fear the Lord our God,\nwho sends autumn rains and spring rains at the right time,\nwho reserves for us enough weeks for the harvest.”",
      "25": "But your guilty actions have kept these things at a distance.\nYour sins have kept these good things away from you.",
      "26": "Wicked men are found among my people.\nLike men who trap birds, they lie in wait for my people\n    to set traps and catch people.",
      "27": "Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit.\nThat is how they became powerful and rich.",
      "28": "They have become fat and sleek.\nThey have gone beyond evil words.\nThey do not argue a case for the fatherless to help them win,\nand they do not seek justice for the poor.",
      "29": "Should I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord.\nShould I not avenge myself on a nation like this one?",
      "30": "A terrible thing has taken place.\nA horrible thing has happened in the land.",
      "31": "Prophets prophesy lies,\npriests rule by their own authority,\nand my people love this.\nBut what will you do in the end?"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Flee for safety, people of Benjamin!\nGet out of Jerusalem!\nBlow the ram’s horn in Tekoa.\nRaise a signal over Beth Hakkerem!\nDisaster and great destruction threaten from the north.",
      "2": "I will silence the beautiful, pampered daughter of Zion.",
      "3": "Shepherds and their flocks will come against her.\nThey will pitch their tents all around.\nEach one will pasture his flock in his own spot.",
      "4": "Consecrate yourselves for war against her.\nRise up, we will attack at noon!\nWe are doomed! The day is ending.\nThe evening shadows are getting longer.",
      "5": "We should get up and attack at night\nand destroy its citadels.",
      "6": "This is what the Lord of Armies says.\nCut down her trees.\nRaise a siege ramp against Jerusalem.\nThis city must be punished.\nThere is nothing but oppression inside her.",
      "7": "Just as a well pours out fresh water,\nshe pours out fresh evil.\nViolence and destruction are heard in her.\nSickness and wounds are always before me.",
      "8": "Be warned, Jerusalem,\nor I will turn away from you.\nI will make your land desolate,\nso that no one can live there.",
      "9": "This is what the Lord of Armies says.\nThey will glean what remains of Israel\n    as thoroughly as a vine.\nLike someone gathering grapes,\npass your hand over the branches again.",
      "10": "Who can I speak to?\nWho will listen to my warning?\nLook! Their ears are uncircumcised.\nThey will not be able to hear.\nIndeed, to them the word of the Lord is an embarrassment.\nThey take no pleasure in it.",
      "11": "I am full of the Lord’s wrath,\nand I cannot hold it in.\nPour it out on the children in the street\nand on the young men gathered together.\nBoth husband and wife will be taken,\nthe old along with the very old.",
      "12": "Their houses will be turned over to others,\ntogether with their fields and their wives,\nbecause I will stretch out my hand against those who live in the land,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "13": "From the least of them to the greatest,\nall of them are greedy for gain.\nFrom prophets to priests, they all practice deceit.",
      "14": "They have treated the wound of my people as if it were nothing serious.\nThey say, “Peace, peace,” but there is no peace!",
      "15": "Are they ashamed of the detestable things they have done?\nNo, they are not ashamed at all!\nThey do not know how to be ashamed.\nSo they will fall with the fallen.\nThey will be thrown down when I punish them, says the Lord.",
      "16": "This is what the Lord says.\nStand at the crossroads and look.\nAsk about the ancient paths.\nAsk where the good road is.\nWalk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.\nBut you said, “We will not walk in it.”",
      "17": "I set watchmen over you and said,\n“Listen to the sound of the ram’s horn!”\nBut you said, “We will not listen.”",
      "18": "Therefore, listen, you nations!\nYou witnesses, observe what will happen to them.",
      "19": "Listen, O earth.\nI am bringing disaster on this people,\nthe fruit of their schemes,\nbecause they have not listened to my words,\nand they have rejected my law.",
      "20": "What use to me is incense from Sheba\nor sweet cane from a distant land?\nYour burnt offerings are not appealing to me.\nYour sacrifices do not please me.",
      "21": "Therefore this is what the Lord says.\nLook, I am going to place obstacles in front of this people.\nParents and children alike will stumble over them.\nFriends and neighbors will perish.",
      "22": "This is what the Lord says.\nLook, a nation is coming from a land in the north.\nA great nation is stirring from the farthest parts of the earth.",
      "23": "Its warriors grip bows and spears.\nThey are cruel and merciless.\nThey sound like the roaring sea.\nThey ride horses, arranged like soldiers ready for battle\n    against you, O daughter of Zion.",
      "24": "We have heard the news about them,\nand our hands hang limp.\nAnguish grips us like a woman in labor.",
      "25": "Do not go out to the field.\nDo not walk on the road,\nbecause the enemy has a sword.\nThere is terror on every side.",
      "26": "Put on sackcloth, daughter of my people.\nRoll in ashes.\nMourn as you would for an only son,\nbecause suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.",
      "27": "I have made you like someone who tests metals.\nMy people are the ore that is being tested.\nObserve them,\nand examine their ways.",
      "28": "They are all stubborn rebels,\nwalking in slander.\nThey are as hard as bronze and iron,\nand all of them are contaminated.",
      "29": "The bellows blows hot to melt away the refining agent with fire.\nThe refining agent is completely used up, but the evil is not removed.",
      "30": "They are classified as rejected silver,\nbecause the Lord has rejected them."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.",
      "2": "Stand in the gate of the House of the Lord and proclaim this message there.\nHear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who are coming through this gate to worship the Lord.",
      "3": "This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.\nReform your ways and your actions, and I will establish you in this place.",
      "4": "Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”",
      "5": "Sincerely reform your ways and your actions. Carry out justice between a man and his neighbor.",
      "6": "Do not oppress the alien who lives in your land, the fatherless, or the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place. Do not follow after other gods to your own harm. If you avoid these things,",
      "7": "I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your fathers forever and ever.",
      "8": "Take warning. You are trusting in deceptive words that cannot help you.",
      "9": "Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and swear falsely? Will you offer sacrifices to Baal and follow other gods you do not know?",
      "10": "Will you come and stand before me in this temple that bears my Name, and say, “We are safe,” the whole time you do all these detestable things?",
      "11": "This house bears my Name! Have you made it a den of robbers? Watch out! I myself have been watching, declares the Lord.",
      "12": "Go to my place in Shiloh, where I first made a dwelling place for my Name. See what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.",
      "13": "You have done all these things, declares the Lord. Even though I spoke to you again and again, you did not listen. I called you, but you did not answer.",
      "14": "Because of this, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name—the place in which you trust, the place I gave to you and to your fathers.",
      "15": "I will drive you out of my sight just as I drove away all of your brothers, the people of Ephraim.",
      "16": "As for you, Jeremiah, do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or a request for them, and do not plead with me. I will not listen to you.",
      "17": "Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?",
      "18": "The children gather wood, the fathers light a fire, and their wives knead dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to make me angry.",
      "19": "Am I the one they are frustrating? declares the Lord. No, they are frustrating themselves, to their own shame.",
      "20": "Therefore this is what the Lord God says. You may be sure that my burning anger will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the land. It will burn and not be put out.",
      "21": "This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Go ahead. Grab your burnt offerings, along with your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves!",
      "22": "When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, I said nothing to them about burnt offerings and sacrifices.",
      "23": "I gave them only this command: “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Walk entirely in the way I commanded you to walk, so that it may go well with you.”",
      "24": "But they did not obey me or listen to me. They followed their own advice and the stubbornness of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.",
      "25": "From the time your fathers left Egypt until today, I have sent all my servants, the prophets, to them again and again.",
      "26": "But they did not obey me or listen to me. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their fathers.",
      "27": "So say all these things to them, but they will not listen to you. Call to them, but they will not answer you.",
      "28": "Say to them, “This is the nation that did not obey the Lord its God or accept discipline. Faithfulness has perished, and it has disappeared from their lips.",
      "29": "Cut off your hair and throw it away. Sing a lament on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and forsaken this generation under his wrath.”",
      "30": "The people of Judah have committed evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They set up their disgusting idols in the house that bears my Name, and they have defiled it.",
      "31": "They built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—a thing I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.",
      "32": "That is why the days are coming, declares the Lord, when that place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth because there will be no other place left.",
      "33": "The corpses of those people will become food for the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the land, and there will be no one to frighten them away.",
      "34": "In the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, I will bring the sounds of joy and happiness to an end, as well as the voices of groom and bride, for the land will become desolate."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people who live in Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.",
      "2": "They will be exposed to the sun, to the moon, and to all the army of the heavens, which they loved and served and followed and consulted and worshipped. They will not be gathered up again. They will not be reburied. They will lie on the ground like manure.",
      "3": "Death will be chosen rather than life for the entire remnant left from this evil family, wherever I banish them, declares the Lord of Armies.",
      "4": "You are to tell them that this is what the Lord says:\nDo people fall and not get up again?\nIf a person turns away, doesn’t he turn back again?",
      "5": "Then why has this people turned away?\nWhy is Jerusalem always turning away?\nThey hang on to deception\nand refuse to let it go.",
      "6": "I have paid attention and listened,\nbut they do not say what is right.\nNo one repents of his wickedness.\nNo one asks, “What have I done?”\nEveryone pursues his own course,\n    like a horse charging into battle.",
      "7": "Even the stork in the sky knows her seasons.\nThe turtledove, the swift, and the thrush\n    observe the right time for their migration.\nBut my people do not recognize\n    the just judgments of the Lord.",
      "8": "How can you say, “We are wise,\nand the law of the Lord is with us,”\nwhen in reality the lying pen of the scribes\n    has changed it into a lie?",
      "9": "Your wise men will be put to shame.\nThey will be shattered and captured.\nSince they have rejected the word of the Lord,\nwhat kind of wisdom do they have?",
      "10": "That is why I will give their wives to other men\nand their fields to new owners,\nbecause, from the least to the greatest,\nall of them are greedy for gain.\nFrom prophet to priest, everyone practices deceit.",
      "11": "They dress the wound of the daughter of my people\n    as if it were not serious.\n“Peace, peace,” they say,\nwhen there is no peace.",
      "12": "Are they ashamed when they do such a detestable thing?\nNo, they have no shame at all.\nThey do not even know how to blush.\nThat is why they will fall among the fallen.\nThey will be brought down when I punish them, says the Lord.",
      "13": "I will take away their harvest, declares the Lord.\nThere will be no grapes on the vine.\nThere will be no figs on the fig tree,\nand the leaves will wither.\nWhat I have given them will be taken away from them.",
      "14": "Why are we just sitting here?\nLet’s get together!\nLet us go into the fortified cities and die there.\nThe Lord our God has condemned us to die\n    by giving us poisoned water to drink,\n    because we have sinned against him.",
      "15": "We hoped for peace,\nbut no good came.\nWe hoped for a time of healing,\nbut there is only terror.",
      "16": "The snorting of horses is heard from Dan.\nAt the sound of the neighing of mighty stallions,\n    the whole land trembles.\nThey have come to devour the land and everything in it,\n    the city and all who live there.",
      "17": "Look, I am sending snakes among you,\nvenomous snakes that cannot be charmed,\nand they will bite you, declares the Lord.",
      "18": "My joy is gone, grief is upon me,\nand my heart is sick.",
      "19": "I hear the cry of my dear people from a distant land:\n“Is the Lord not in Zion?\nIs her King not there?”\nWhy have they provoked my anger with their carved images,\nwith their worthless foreign idols?",
      "20": "The harvest is past,\nsummer has ended,\nand we have not been saved.",
      "21": "Because my people are crushed, I have been crushed.\nI am in mourning, and horror seizes me.",
      "22": "Is there no balm in Gilead?\nIs there no physician there?\nWhy has the health of my people not been restored?"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "I wish my head were a spring of water\nand my eyes a fountain of tears.\nThen I would weep day and night\n    for the fallen of my people.",
      "2": "I wish there was a lodging place for travelers\nin the wilderness.\nThen I would leave my people\nand get away from them.\nThey are all adulterers,\na society of traitors.",
      "3": "They bend their tongues like bows, to deceive.\nIt is not by faithfulness that they prevail in the land.\nThey go from evil to evil,\nand they do not acknowledge me,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "4": "Everyone should be on guard against his friend.\nDo not trust any brother,\nfor every brother is really a deceiver,\nand every friend spreads slander.",
      "5": "Everyone betrays his friend,\nand no one speaks the truth.\nThey have taught their tongues to lie.\nThey wear themselves out with sinning.",
      "6": "You, Jeremiah, live in the midst of deception!\nIn their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "7": "Therefore this is what the Lord of Armies says.\nWatch me. I will refine them and test them.\nWhat else can I do for my dear people?",
      "8": "Their tongues are like deadly arrows.\nThey speak deceitfully.\nWith their mouths they speak peacefully to their neighbors,\nbut in their hearts they set traps.",
      "9": "Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord.\nShall I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?",
      "10": "I will cry and sob for the mountains.\nI will sing a lament for the pastures in the wilderness.\nThey are desolate and untraveled,\nand not even the lowing of cattle is heard.\nFrom the birds in the sky to all the animals below, everything has fled.\nThey are all gone.",
      "11": "I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a jackals’ den,\nand I am going to lay waste to the cities of Judah,\nso that no one can live there.",
      "12": "Who is wise enough to understand this? Who has been instructed by the Lord so that he can explain it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one can pass through it?",
      "13": "The Lord said:\nThis happened because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them. They did not listen to my voice or live according to it.",
      "14": "Instead, they followed the stubbornness of their hearts, and they have followed the Baals as their fathers taught them.",
      "15": "Therefore, this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Watch me. I am going to make this people eat wormwood and drink bitter water.",
      "16": "I will scatter them among nations that they and their fathers have not known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have destroyed them.",
      "17": "This is what the Lord of Armies says.\nConsider this, and call for the wailing women.\nSend for those who are the most skilled.",
      "18": "They should hurry and sob over us.\nOur eyes will run with tears.\nOur eyelids will stream with water.",
      "19": "The sound of sobbing is heard from Zion.\n“We are ruined!\nWe are so ashamed!\nWe must leave our land\nbecause they have torn down our dwellings.”",
      "20": "Listen to the word of the Lord, you women.\nPay attention to the word from his mouth.\nTeach your daughters how to sob.\nEach of you should teach her neighbor a lament.",
      "21": "Death has climbed in through a window\nand entered our citadels.\nIt has taken away the children from the streets\nand the young men from the city squares.",
      "22": "This is what the Lord says.\nDead bodies will fall\nlike manure on the ground,\nlike freshly cut grain after the reaper,\nwith no one to gather it.",
      "23": "This is what the Lord says.\nThe wise man should not boast in his wisdom.\nThe strong man should not boast in his strength,\nnor the rich man in his riches.",
      "24": "Instead, let those who boast boast about this:\nthat they have understanding, and that they know me.\nThey know that I am the Lord,\nwho shows mercy, justice, and righteousness on earth,\nfor I delight in these things, declares the Lord.",
      "25": "Watch! The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh—",
      "26": "Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all who cut their hair short and who live in the wilderness. Actually, these are all uncircumcised nations. And the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in their hearts."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Hear the word that the Lord is speaking to you, house of Israel.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord says.\nDo not learn the ways of the nations,\nor be frightened by signs in the heavens,\nalthough the nations are frightened by them.",
      "3": "The rituals of the peoples are worthless.\nThey cut down a tree in the forest.\nThen the hands of a craftsman work it with an ax.",
      "4": "They decorate it with silver and gold,\nbut they have to nail it down with hammers,\n    so that it will not tip over.",
      "5": "Their idols are like a scarecrow in a melon patch.\nThey cannot speak.\nThey must be carried because they cannot walk.\nDo not fear them. They can do no harm,\nnor can they do any good.",
      "6": "No one is like you, Lord.\nYou are great and your name is powerful.",
      "7": "Is there anyone who should not fear you, King of the Nations?\nThat is what you deserve.\nAmong all the wise men of the nations\nand in all their kingdoms,\nthere is no one like you.",
      "8": "They are stupid and foolish,\nbecause they are instructed by worthless idols made of wood.",
      "9": "Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish,\nand gold is brought from Uphaz.\nThe handiwork of a goldsmith\nand the work of a craftsman,\ntheir idols are dressed in blue and purple.\nBut they are nothing but the work of skilled craftsmen.",
      "10": "But the Lord is the true God.\nHe is the living God, the eternal King.\nThe earth quakes at his wrath.\nThe nations cannot endure his fury.",
      "11": "You are to say this to them:\n“These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth,\n    will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.”",
      "12": "But the one who made the earth by his power,\n    established the world by his wisdom,\n    and stretched out the heavens by his understanding—",
      "13": "he thunders, and the waters in the heavens roar.\nHe makes storm clouds rise from the ends of the earth.\nHe makes lightning for the rain,\nand he brings out the wind from his warehouses.",
      "14": "But as for mankind, they are all stupid.\nTheir knowledge has dried up.\nEvery goldsmith is embarrassed by his idols.\nThe images he makes are false.\nThere is no breath in them.",
      "15": "They are worthless,\nan achievement to be mocked.\nAt the time of their punishment, they will perish.",
      "16": "He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these,\nbecause he is the Maker of all things,\nincluding Israel, the tribe that belongs to him.\nThe Lord of Armies is his name.",
      "17": "Pick up your pack from the ground,\nyou who live under siege.",
      "18": "For this is what the Lord says.\nWatch, I am going to throw out those who live in the land at this time.\nI am going to bring them distress that they will feel.",
      "19": "Woe to me because of my wound!\nMy injury is severe!\nBut I said, “Yes, this is my suffering,\nand I must bear it.”",
      "20": "My tent is destroyed.\nAll its ropes are broken.\nMy children are gone, and they are no more.\nNo one is left to pitch my tent\nor to set up my dwelling.",
      "21": "The shepherds have become as senseless as animals.\nThey do not seek the Lord.\nThat is why they do not prosper\nand all their flock is scattered.",
      "22": "Listen! I hear noise—\na great commotion from a land in the north.\nIt will make the cities of Judah desolate.\nIt will make them a haunt for jackals.",
      "23": "I know, Lord, that a man’s way is not his own,\nnor can a man direct his own steps.",
      "24": "Correct me, Lord, but with justice,\nnot in your anger,\nor you will reduce me to nothing.",
      "25": "Pour out your wrath on the nations who do not acknowledge you,\non the peoples who do not call on your name,\nfor they have devoured Jacob.\nThey have devoured him completely\nand made his homeland desolate."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.",
      "2": "Listen to the terms of this covenant, and announce them to every man in Judah and to those who live in Jerusalem.",
      "3": "Tell them that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. A curse on the man who does not obey the terms of this covenant,",
      "4": "the terms I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron-smelting furnace. I said, “Obey me and do everything that I command you, and you will be my people, and I will be your God.”",
      "5": "Then I will ratify the oath I swore to your fathers, that I would give them a land flowing with milk and honey—as it is today.\nI answered, “Amen, Lord.”",
      "6": "The Lord then told me to proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.\nListen to the terms of this covenant and obey them.",
      "7": "From the time when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt until today, I have warned them again and again to obey my voice,",
      "8": "but they did not obey. They did not pay attention. Each one lived according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart. So I brought all the curses of this covenant on them. I commanded them to obey, but they did not obey.",
      "9": "The Lord also said to me:\nA conspiracy has been uncovered among the men of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem.",
      "10": "They have returned to the sins of their fathers, who refused to obey my words. They are following other gods and serving them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I made with their fathers.",
      "11": "Therefore this is what the Lord says. Watch this. I am going to bring a disaster on them that they will not be able to escape. They will cry out to me, but I will not listen to them.",
      "12": "Then the cities of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem will cry out to the gods to whom they have been burning offerings, but who cannot do anything to save them in the time of trouble.",
      "13": "Judah, you have as many gods as you have towns. You have set up as many altars to burn offerings to Shame—that is, to Baal—as there are streets in Jerusalem.",
      "14": "As for you, Jeremiah, do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or a request for them. I will not listen to them when they call to me in their time of distress.",
      "15": "She is my beloved, but what right does she have to be in my temple when she has done so many wicked things? Can consecrated meat prevent you from being punished if you rejoice when you do evil?",
      "16": "The Lord called you a green olive tree with beautifully formed fruit. But with the roar of a mighty storm he will set it ablaze, and its branches will be broken.",
      "17": "The Lord of Armies, who planted you, has decreed disaster for you because of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done. They have provoked me to anger by burning incense to Baal.",
      "18": "The Lord revealed their plot to me so I became aware of it. He showed me what they were doing.",
      "19": "I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I had not realized that they had plotted against me. They were saying:\n“Let us destroy the tree along with its fruit.\nLet us cut him off from the land of the living,\nso that his name will no longer be remembered.”",
      "20": "But, Lord of Armies, you judge righteously.\nYou test the heart and mind.\nLet me see your vengeance on them,\n    for I have presented my case to you.",
      "21": "Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the men of Anathoth who are seeking your life and saying, “Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord, or you will die by our hands.”",
      "22": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. I will certainly punish them. Their young men will die by the sword. Their sons and daughters will die by famine,",
      "23": "and none of them will be left. I will bring disaster on the men of Anathoth, the year of their punishment."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Lord, you are righteous whenever I bring a case before you.\nNevertheless, I want to speak with you about justice.\nWhy does the way of the wicked prosper?\nWhy do the treacherous live at ease?",
      "2": "You plant them, and they take root.\nThey grow, and they produce fruit.\nYou are always on their lips,\nbut far from their hearts.",
      "3": "But you know me, Lord.\nYou see me and test the attitude of my heart toward you.\nDrag them away like sheep for the slaughter,\nand set them apart for the day when they will be put to death.",
      "4": "How long will the land mourn,\nand the grass in the whole countryside wither?\nBecause of the evil of the people who live there,\nthe animals and birds are dying,\nfor the people have said,\n“He will not see how things turn out for us.”",
      "5": "If you have raced men on foot\nand they have tired you out,\nhow will you compete against horses?\nIf you fall in open country,\nhow will you manage in the thickets along the Jordan?",
      "6": "Your relatives and the members of your father’s\n    household have betrayed you.\nThey have raised a loud outcry against you.\nDo not trust them when they speak friendly words to you.",
      "7": "I have abandoned my house.\nI have forsaken my heritage.\nI have given the one I love dearly into the hands of her enemies.",
      "8": "My heritage has become like a lion in the forest to me.\nShe roars at me, so I hate her.",
      "9": "For me my heritage has become like a howling hyena,\n    surrounded by scavenging birds of prey.\nGo and gather all the wild animals.\nBring them to devour her.",
      "10": "Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard\nand trampled down my estate.\nThey will turn my pleasant estate into a desolate wasteland.",
      "11": "They have made it a wasteland.\nIt mourns. It is desolate before me.\nThe whole land is laid waste,\nbecause there is no one who cares.",
      "12": "Looters are swarming over all the barren heights in the wilderness.\nThe Lord has a sword that devours from one end of the land\n        to the other.\nNo one will be safe.",
      "13": "They plant wheat, but they reap thorns.\nThey wear themselves out, but they gain nothing.\nBe ashamed of your harvests,\nbecause of the burning anger of the Lord.",
      "14": "This is what the Lord says. As for my wicked neighbors, who seize the inheritance I gave my people Israel, I will certainly uproot them from their homeland, and I will uproot the house of Judah from among them.",
      "15": "After I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them. I will return each of them to his own inheritance and each of them to his own land.",
      "16": "If they carefully learn the ways of my people and swear by my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives” (just as they once taught my people to swear by Baal), then they will be established among my people.",
      "17": "But if they do not listen, I will completely uproot and destroy that nation, declares the Lord."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and purchase a linen undergarment for yourself. Put it around your waist. Do not let it touch water.”",
      "2": "So I bought an undergarment as the Lord said, and I put it on.",
      "3": "Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time:",
      "4": "“Take the undergarment you purchased, the one you are wearing around your waist, and go right now to Perath and hide it there in a cleft in the rocks.”",
      "5": "So I went and hid it at Perath, as the Lord commanded me.",
      "6": "Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go to Perath and retrieve the undergarment I told you to hide there.”",
      "7": "So I went to Perath and searched. I took the undergarment from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and worthless.",
      "8": "Then the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "9": "This is what the Lord says. I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem in the same way.",
      "10": "These wicked people refuse to listen to me. They follow their own stubborn hearts. They follow after other gods by serving them and worshipping them. They are all like this worthless undergarment.",
      "11": "Just as an undergarment fits tightly around a man’s waist, in the same way I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord. I did this so that they would be my people and so that they would bring praise and honor to my name, but they would not listen.",
      "12": "Give this message to them.\nThis is what the Lord God of Israel says: “Every clay jar will be filled with wine.” Then they will say to you, “We know that every clay jar will be filled with wine.”",
      "13": "So say to them, “This is what the Lord says. I will certainly make everyone who lives in this land drunk. The kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all those who live in Jerusalem will become drunk.",
      "14": "Then I will smash them to pieces—a man against his brother, fathers, and sons, declares the Lord. I will not spare them. I will destroy them without pity or compassion.”",
      "15": "Listen and pay attention!\nDo not be arrogant, for the Lord has spoken.",
      "16": "Honor the Lord your God before he brings darkness,\nand before your feet stumble on the mountains at dusk.\nYou will look for light,\nbut he will turn it into the shadow of death\nand change it into deep darkness.",
      "17": "If you will not listen,\nI will cry for you in secret because of your arrogance.\nMy eyes will weep bitterly and overflow with tears,\nbecause the Lord’s flock will be taken captive.",
      "18": "Say to the king and to the queen mother,\n“Come down from your thrones,\nbecause your crowns will fall from your heads.”",
      "19": "The cities of the Negev are under siege,\nand no one can get through to them.\nAll of Judah will be taken into exile.\nThey will be carried away completely.",
      "20": "Look up and see those who are coming from the north.\nWhere is the flock entrusted to you,\nthe sheep you were so proud of?",
      "21": "What will you say when associates whom you yourself have taught are appointed as masters over you? Won’t pain seize you like a woman in labor?",
      "22": "If you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” you should know that it is because of your great guilt that your skirt has been torn off, and you have been violated.",
      "23": "Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin?\nCan a leopard change its spots?\nJust as little can you, who are disciples of evil, do good.",
      "24": "I will scatter you like chaff blown by the desert wind.",
      "25": "This is your lot.\nThis is what I have assigned to you,\ndeclares the Lord.\nThis will take place because you have forgotten me\nand trusted in falsehood.",
      "26": "I myself will lift your skirt over your head,\nso that your shame can be seen—",
      "27": "your adulteries, your lust-filled neighing,\nand your shameless prostitution.\nI have seen your detestable acts on the hills and in the countryside.\nWoe to you, Jerusalem!\nYou are unclean.\nAfter this, will you ever be clean again?"
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "This is the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.",
      "2": "Judah mourns.\nHer city gates fall apart.\nThey mourn for the land,\nand a cry of grief rises from Jerusalem.",
      "3": "The strong send the weak to get water.\nThey go to the cisterns but find no water.\nThey return with empty containers.\nAshamed and humiliated, they cover their heads.",
      "4": "The ground is cracked,\nbecause there has been no rain in the land.\nThe farmers are distressed.\nThey cover their heads.",
      "5": "Even the doe in the field gives birth\nand then abandons the fawn,\nbecause there is no grass.",
      "6": "Wild donkeys stand on the barren heights.\nThey pant for air like jackals.\nTheir eyes grow dim,\nbecause there are no plants to eat.",
      "7": "Do something, Lord, for the sake of your name,\n    even though our guilt testifies against us.\n    We have rebelled many times,\n    and we have sinned against you.",
      "8": "You are Israel’s hope,\n    its Savior in times of trouble.\n    Why are you like a stranger in the land,\n    like a traveler who stays only for the night?",
      "9": "Why are you like a man taken by surprise,\n    like a strong warrior who cannot save?\n    You are among us, Lord,\n    and we are called by your name.\n    Do not forsake us!",
      "10": "This is what the Lord says concerning this people.\n    They love to wander!\n    They never restrain their feet.\n    So the Lord does not accept them.\n    Instead, he will remember their guilt\n    and punish their sins.",
      "11": "The Lord told me, “Do not pray for the well-being of these people.",
      "12": "Even if they fast, I will not listen to their cries for help. Even if they sacrifice burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will finish them off with sword, famine, and plague.”",
      "13": "Then I said, “But, Lord God, the prophets keep telling them, ‘You will not see sword or famine. I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”",
      "14": "Then the Lord said this to me:\nThose prophets are prophesying lies in my name, but I did not send them. I did not command them, and I did not speak to them. They are prophesying a false vision to you and providing worthless omens—something from their own imagination.",
      "15": "Therefore, this is what the Lord says about the prophets who prophesy lies in my name. I did not send them. They say that there will be no sword or famine in this land, but by sword and famine those prophets will die.",
      "16": "The people to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of famine and the sword. No one will bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters. I will pour out on them the destruction that they deserve.",
      "17": "You, Jeremiah, are to say this to them:\nLet my eyes overflow with tears,\nwithout stopping night or day,\nbecause the virgin daughter of my people has been severely injured.\nIt is a very serious wound.",
      "18": "If I go out to the field,\nI see those who have been run through by the sword.\nIf go into the city,\nI see those diseased by famine.\nBoth prophet and priest have gone to a land they do not know.",
      "19": "Lord, have you completely rejected Judah?\nDo you despise Zion?\nWhy have you afflicted us,\nso that we cannot be healed?\nWe looked for health,\nbut nothing good came.\nWe hoped for healing,\nbut there was only terror.",
      "20": "We acknowledge our wickedness\nand the guilt of our fathers.\nWe have sinned against you.",
      "21": "For your name’s sake, do not despise us.\nDo not dishonor your glorious throne.\nRemember your covenant with us,\nand do not break it.",
      "22": "Do the worthless idols of the nations send rain?\nDo the skies provide the torrential showers?\nIs it not rather you, who are the Lord our God?\nOur hope is in you,\nbecause you are the one who does all these things."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "The Lord said to me:\nEven if Moses and Samuel were standing in front of me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from me. Let them go!",
      "2": "When they ask you, “Where should we go?” tell them that this is what the Lord says:\nThose doomed to death, to death,\nthose doomed to the sword, to the sword,\nthose doomed to famine, to famine,\nthose doomed to captivity, to captivity.",
      "3": "I will punish them in four ways, declares the Lord: The sword will kill, and dogs will drag them away. The birds in the sky and the wild animals in the land will devour and destroy.",
      "4": "I will make them an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.",
      "5": "Who will have pity on you, Jerusalem?\nWho will mourn for you?\nWho will turn back to ask how you are?",
      "6": "You have rejected me, declares the Lord.\nYou have turned away from me.\nSo I will stretch out my hand against you and destroy you.\nI am weary of showing compassion.",
      "7": "I will scatter them with a winnowing fork at the gates of the land.\nI will make them childless.\nI will destroy my people,\nbecause they have not changed their ways.",
      "8": "I will make their widows more numerous than the sand on the seashore.\nAt noon I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of their\n        young men.\nI will bring anguish and terror down on them suddenly.",
      "9": "The mother of seven will grow faint.\nShe will breathe her last.\nHer sun will set while it is still day,\nand she will be ashamed and humiliated.\nThe survivors I will put to the sword in the presence of their enemies,\n        declares the Lord.",
      "10": "I am so miserable, my mother, that you gave birth to me.\nI am the man with whom the whole land argues and quarrels.\nI have not lent or borrowed, but everyone curses me.",
      "11": "The Lord said:\nI will surely set you free for your own good.\nI will surely make your enemies plead with you\nin a time of trouble and in a time of distress.",
      "12": "Can anyone break iron—iron from the north—or bronze?",
      "13": "I will give away your wealth and your treasures as plunder, without cost, because of all your sins throughout all your territory.",
      "14": "I will make you serve your enemies in a land you do not know, for my anger is kindled in me, and you will burn continuously.",
      "15": "O Lord, you understand.\nRemember me and care for me.\nTake vengeance for me on those who persecute me.\nYou are slow to anger.\nDo not take me away.\nKeep in mind that for your sake I bear disgrace.",
      "16": "Your words came to me, and I devoured them.\nYour words became my joy,\nthe delight of my heart,\nbecause I bear your name,\nO Lord God of Armies.",
      "17": "I did not sit with the band of partygoers,\nnor did I celebrate with them.\nI sat alone, because your hand was upon me.\nYou filled me with indignation.",
      "18": "Why is my pain unending?\nWhy is my wound incurable, refusing to heal?\nWill you be as deceptive as an intermittent stream to me,\nlike a source of water that a person can’t depend on?",
      "19": "Therefore this is what the Lord says.\nIf you repent, I will take you back,\nso that you may stand before me.\nIf what you say is worthwhile and not worthless,\nyou will be my spokesman.\nThey must turn to you,\nbut you must not turn to them.",
      "20": "I will make you like a bronze wall to this people.\nThey will fight against you,\nbut they will not overcome you,\nbecause I am with you to save you\nand to rescue you, declares the Lord.",
      "21": "I will rescue you from the hand of the wicked,\nand I will deliver you from the grasp of the ruthless."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "You are not to marry a wife in this place\nor to have sons and daughters,",
      "3": "because this is what the Lord says\n    about the sons and daughters born in this place,\nabout the mothers who bore them,\nand about the fathers who conceived them in this land:",
      "4": "They will die of deadly diseases.\n    They will not be mourned.\n    They will not be buried.\n    They will lie on the ground like manure.\n    They will be devoured by sword and famine,\n    and their carcasses will become food for the birds in the sky\n    and the wild animals in the land.",
      "5": "This is what the Lord says.\nDo not enter a house where people are grieving.\nDo not go there to mourn for anyone or to comfort anyone,\nfor I have taken away my peace from this people, declares the Lord,\nalong with my mercy and my compassion.",
      "6": "Both the greatest and the least will die in this land.\nNo one will bury them or mourn for them.\nNo one will cut himself or shave himself for them.",
      "7": "No one will break bread to comfort those who mourn the dead.\nNo one will offer a consoling cup, even for a father or a mother.",
      "8": "Do not enter a house where there is feasting,\nor sit down there to eat and drink.",
      "9": "For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.\nI will certainly put an end to the sounds of joy and happiness in this place,\nas well as the voices of bride and groom.\nThis will take place before your eyes and in your lifetime.",
      "10": "When you tell the people all of this, they will ask you, “Why has the Lord decreed all this great disaster against us? What are we guilty of? What sin have we committed against the Lord our God?”",
      "11": "Then say this to them:\nIt is because your fathers abandoned me, declares the Lord, and followed other gods. They served them, and they worshipped them. They abandoned me and did not keep my law.",
      "12": "But you have done more evil than your fathers. Look, each of you follows his own stubborn, evil heart, and you do not listen to me.",
      "13": "Therefore, I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will serve other gods day and night, and I will show you no mercy.",
      "14": "Nevertheless, listen to this. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer say, “As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the children of Israel out from the land of Egypt.”",
      "15": "But they will say, “As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the children of Israel out from the land in the north and from all the lands to which he exiled them.” For I will restore them to the homeland I gave to their fathers.",
      "16": "Look, I am sending for many fishermen, declares the Lord, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt for them on every mountain, on every high hill, and in the crevices of the rocks.",
      "17": "My eyes are watching everything they do. It is not hidden from me, nor is their guilt hidden from my eyes.",
      "18": "But first I will pay them double for their guilt and their sin, because they defiled my land with the carcasses of their disgusting idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.",
      "19": "The Lord is my strength and my fortress,\nmy refuge in times of trouble.\nNations will come to you from the ends of the earth and say,\n“Our forefathers possessed only false gods,\nworthless idols, and there was nothing good in them.",
      "20": "Can a man make gods for himself?\nYes, but they are not gods!”",
      "21": "Therefore I will certainly teach them.\nThis time I will teach them my power and my strength,\nand then they will know that my name is the Lord."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Judah’s sin is written with an iron stylus.\nIt is engraved with a diamond tip on the tablet of their hearts\nand on the horns of their altars.",
      "2": "Even their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles,\nbeside every green tree on the high hills,",
      "3": "and on the mountains in the countryside.\nI will turn all your wealth into plunder\nbecause of the sin you committed on the high places\n    throughout all your territory.",
      "4": "You will lose your inheritance that I gave you,\nand I will make you serve your enemies in a land you do not know.\nYou have started a fire in my anger that will burn forever.",
      "5": "This is what the Lord says.\nCursed is anyone who trusts in mankind,\nwho seeks his strength from human flesh,\nand who turns his heart away from the Lord.",
      "6": "He will be like a juniper bush in the wasteland.\nHe will not see good things when they come.\nHe lives in a dry place in the wilderness,\nin a salty land where no one lives.",
      "7": "But blessed is anyone who trusts in the Lord,\nwhose confidence is in him.",
      "8": "He will be like a tree planted by water.\nIt sends out its roots to the stream.\nIt does not fear the heat when it comes.\nIts leaves will remain green.\nIt is not concerned about a time of drought.\nIt does not stop producing fruit.",
      "9": "The heart is more deceitful than anything.\nIt is beyond cure.\nWho can understand it?",
      "10": "I, the Lord, am the one who searches the heart\nand examines the mind,\n    to reward a man according to what he has done,\n    according to what his deeds deserve.",
      "11": "Those who accumulate a fortune unjustly\n    are like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay.\nMidway through life their fortune will be lost,\nand in the end they will be exposed as fools.",
      "12": "The place of our sanctuary is a glorious throne,\n    exalted from the beginning.",
      "13": "You are the hope of Israel, Lord.\nAll who forsake you will be put to shame.\nThose who turn away from you will be written in the earth,\nbecause they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.",
      "14": "Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed.\nSave me, and I will be saved,\nfor you are the one I praise.",
      "15": "They say to me,\n“Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come!”",
      "16": "I have not tried to run away from being your shepherd,\nnor have I wanted to bring the day of incurable pain.\nYou are aware of everything that comes out of my lips.\nIt is not hidden from you.",
      "17": "Do not be a terror to me.\nYou are my refuge in the day of disaster.",
      "18": "Let my persecutors be put to shame,\nbut do not let me be put to shame.\nLet them be terrified,\nbut do not let me be terrified.\nBring on them the day of disaster\nand destroy them with double destruction.",
      "19": "This is what the Lord told me.\nGo and stand at the Gate of the People, through which the kings of Judah enter and leave, and in all the gates of Jerusalem.",
      "20": "Tell them this message.\nHear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, all of Judah, and all who live in Jerusalem, and all who enter by these gates.",
      "21": "This is what the Lord says. Protect your lives. Do not carry a load of things on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem.",
      "22": "Do not carry a load out of your houses on the Sabbath day. Do not do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy as I commanded your fathers.",
      "23": "But they did not listen or pay attention. They became stiff-necked so that they would not hear or receive instruction.",
      "24": "However, if you listen carefully to me, declares the Lord, and if you do not carry any load through the gates of the city on the Sabbath day, but you instead keep the Sabbath day holy and do not do any work,",
      "25": "then kings who sit on David’s throne and their officials will enter in through the gates of this city, riding in chariots and on horses, along with the men of Judah and with those who live in Jerusalem. They will live in this city forever.",
      "26": "They will come from the cities of Judah, from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the Shephelah, from the hill country, and from the Negev. They will bring burnt offerings, sacrifices, fellowship offerings, incense, and thank offerings to the House of the Lord.",
      "27": "But if you will not listen to me and do not keep the Sabbath day holy, and you enter the gates of Jerusalem carrying a load on the Sabbath day, then I will set fire to its gates. I will burn the public buildings of Jerusalem, and the fire will not be put out."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:",
      "2": "“Get up, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will reveal my words to you.”",
      "3": "So I went down to the potter’s house, and he was making something on the wheel.",
      "4": "But the pot he was forming out of the clay was ruined as he shaped it with his hands, so the potter formed it into a different pot, whatever he saw fit to make.",
      "5": "Then the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "6": "House of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? declares the Lord. See, like clay in the potter’s hands, that is what you are in my hands, house of Israel.",
      "7": "One time I may say that a nation or a kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed,",
      "8": "but if that nation I spoke about repents of its evil, then I will relent and not bring the disaster I had planned to bring against it.",
      "9": "Another time I may say that a nation or a kingdom is to be built and planted,",
      "10": "but if they do what is evil in my sight by not listening to my voice, then I will not bring about the good I said I would do for them.",
      "11": "Now therefore say this to the men of Judah and to those who live in Jerusalem. This is what the Lord says. Look! I am forming a disaster against you. I am devising a plan against you. Turn from your evil ways, each of you, and reform your ways and your actions.",
      "12": "But they will say, “It is hopeless! Each of us will always walk in the stubbornness of his own evil heart.”",
      "13": "Therefore this is what the Lord says.\nAsk among the nations,\n“Who has ever heard anything like this?”\nVirgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.",
      "14": "Does the snow of Lebanon ever disappear from its rocky slopes?\nDoes cold water flowing from a long distance ever run dry?",
      "15": "Yet my people have forgotten me.\nThey burn incense to false gods,\n    that make them stumble in their ways,\n    in the ancient paths.\nThey walk on side roads,\non roads not built up.",
      "16": "They make their land something horrible,\na target of lasting contempt.\nEveryone who passes by will be horrified and shake his head.",
      "17": "Like the east wind I will scatter them in front of their enemies.\nI will show them my back and not my face on the day of their calamity.",
      "18": "Some people said, “Come on! Let’s make plans against Jeremiah, because the law will not vanish from the priest, nor guidance from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come on, let’s attack him with words and pay no attention to anything he says.”",
      "19": "Listen to me, Lord.\nListen to what my opponents are saying.",
      "20": "Should good be repaid with evil?\nYet they have dug a pit for me.\nRemember how I stood before you to speak on their behalf,\nto turn your anger from them.",
      "21": "Therefore, hand their children over to famine,\nand hand them over to the power of the sword.\nLet their wives become childless widows.\nLet their men be put to death,\nand their young men be struck in battle by the sword.",
      "22": "Let a cry be heard from their houses\nwhen you suddenly bring marauders against them,\nbecause they have dug a pit to capture me\nand have hidden snares for my feet.",
      "23": "But you, Lord, are aware of all their plots to kill me.\nDo not forgive their guilt.\nDo not blot out their sin from your sight.\nLet them be overthrown in your presence.\nDeal with them in the time of your anger."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord says.\nGo and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and some of the priests.",
      "2": "Go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, by the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I will tell you.",
      "3": "Say this to them:\nHear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and you who live in Jerusalem. This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.\nWatch out! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of all who hear about it ring,",
      "4": "because they have forsaken me and have defiled this place. They have burned incense in it to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.",
      "5": "They have built high places to Baal and burned their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, and which did not enter my mind.",
      "6": "So listen to this. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.",
      "7": "I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who seek their lives. I will make their dead bodies food for the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the land.",
      "8": "I will make this city desolate, and I will make it a target of contempt. Everyone who passes by will be horrified and scoff because of all its wounds.",
      "9": "I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. They will eat one another’s flesh during the pressure from the siege that their enemies, those who want to kill them, will bring upon them.",
      "10": "Then break the jar in the sight of the men who are with you.",
      "11": "Tell them this is what the Lord of Armies says.\nThis is how I will break this people and this city, like a potter’s jar that is so smashed that it cannot be made whole again. They will bury people in Topheth until there is no place left to bury.",
      "12": "This is what I will do to this place, says the Lord, and to those who live here: I will make this city like Topheth.",
      "13": "The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will become defiled—all the houses on whose rooftops they have burned incense to all the army of the heavens and poured out drink offerings to other gods. They will all be defiled like that place Topheth.",
      "14": "Then Jeremiah came back from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the House of the Lord and said to all the people:",
      "15": "“This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. I will certainly bring on this city and on all its towns every disaster that I have proclaimed against it, because they have become stiff-necked, refusing to hear my words.”"
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who served as the chief officer in the House of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying about these things,",
      "2": "Pashhur ordered them to beat Jeremiah the prophet, and he put him in the stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate in the House of the Lord.",
      "3": "The next day, when Pashhur released him from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord does not call you Pashhur, but Magor Missabib,",
      "4": "for this is what the Lord says: I will certainly make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry the people captive to Babylon, and he will strike them with the sword.",
      "5": "Also, the riches of this city, all its property, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—I will give it all away into the hands of their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon.",
      "6": "As for you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, you will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon! You will die there, and you will be buried there, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied falsely.”",
      "7": "You persuaded me, Lord, and I agreed to it.\nYou are stronger than I am, and you won out.\nI have become a laughingstock all day long,\nand everyone is mocking me.",
      "8": "Whenever I speak, I cry out.\nI cry out, “Violence and destruction!”\nBut the word of the Lord has brought scorn on me.\nI am mocked all day long.",
      "9": "If I say, “I will not mention him\nor speak in his name anymore,”\nthen there is a burning fire in my heart,\nshut up in my bones,\nand I am weary of holding it in.\nI cannot!",
      "10": "I hear many whispering,\n“Terror on every side!”\nAll my close friends,\nthose who are watching for my fall, say,\n“Denounce him! Let’s denounce him.\nPerhaps he can be pressured into making a mistake.\nThen we will have the upper hand against him,\nand we will take our revenge on him.”",
      "11": "But the Lord is with me like a terrifying warrior.\nSo my persecutors will stumble,\nand they will not gain the upper hand.\nThey will be put to shame completely,\nbecause they have not been successful.\nTheir eternal disgrace will never be forgotten.",
      "12": "Lord of Armies, you test the righteous.\nYou see the heart and the mind.\nLet me see your vengeance on them,\nfor I have laid out my case before you.",
      "13": "Sing to the Lord!\nPraise the Lord,\nfor he has delivered the life of the needy\n    from the hand of the wicked.",
      "14": "May the day I was born be cursed.\nDo not let the day my mother gave birth to me be blessed.",
      "15": "May the man be cursed who brought news to my father,\n“A son is born to you,”\nthe man who brought him great joy.",
      "16": "Let that man be like the cities the Lord overthrew without pity.\nLet him hear a cry in the morning,\nan alarm for war at noon,",
      "17": "because he did not put me to death in the womb,\nso that my mother would have been my grave,\nand her womb would have been pregnant forever.",
      "18": "Why did I emerge from that womb\n    to see trouble and sorrow,\n    to finish my days in shame?"
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent Pashhur son of Malkijah along with Zephaniah the priest, the son of Ma’aseiah, to speak to Jeremiah. They said,",
      "2": "“Inquire of the Lord for us, because Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will perform some of his wonders on our behalf as he did in the past, so that Nebuchadnezzar will withdraw from us.”",
      "3": "But Jeremiah answered them:\nTell Zedekiah that",
      "4": "the Lord, the God of Israel, says this.\nI will certainly turn the weapons of war in your hands against you, the ones you are using to fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, who are outside your wall besieging you. And I will bring them inside this city.",
      "5": "I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with furious anger and great wrath.",
      "6": "I will strike those who live in this city, both man and animal. They will die of a terrible plague.",
      "7": "Afterward, says the Lord, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, those who serve him, and the people in this city who survive the plague, sword, and famine. I will deliver them into the hands of their enemies and into the hands of those who seek their lives. He will strike them with the sword. He will show them no compassion, no pity, and no mercy.",
      "8": "Tell this people this is what the Lord says. I will certainly set before you the way of life and the way of death.",
      "9": "Whoever remains in this city will die by the sword, famine, and plague, but all those who go out and surrender to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will escape with their lives.",
      "10": "For I have set my face against this city to bring harm and not good, says the Lord. The city will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it up with fire.",
      "11": "Concerning the house of the king of Judah, this is the word of the Lord.",
      "12": "The Lord says that you, House of David, are to administer justice in the morning and deliver the victim of robbery from the hand of the oppressor, or my wrath will flare up like fire and burn so that no one can put it out, because of the evil you have done.",
      "13": "Look, I am against you, you who live in this valley in the rocky highlands, declares the Lord. I am against you who say, “Who can come against us? Who can enter our homes?”",
      "14": "I will punish you according to what you have done, says the Lord. I will kindle a fire in the forest, and it will consume everything around you."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord says.\nGo down to the palace of the king of Judah and speak this message there.",
      "2": "Hear the word of the Lord, king of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne—you, your officials, and your people who enter these gates.",
      "3": "This is what the Lord says. Do what is just and right. Rescue the person who has been robbed from the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, to the fatherless, or to the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place.",
      "4": "If you diligently carry this out, then kings who sit on David’s throne will enter through the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by their officials and their people.",
      "5": "But if you will not obey these words, then I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that this house will become a ruin.",
      "6": "Yes, this is what the Lord says about the house of the king of Judah.\nYou are like Gilead to me,\nlike the peak of Lebanon.\nYou can be sure that I will turn you into a wilderness,\nlike uninhabited towns.",
      "7": "I will send destroyers against you,\neach of them with his weapons.\nThey will cut down your best cedars,\nand they will throw them into the fire.",
      "8": "Many nations will pass by this city and will ask one another, “Why did the Lord do such a thing to this great city?”",
      "9": "And the answer will be, “It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God. They worshipped other gods and served them.”",
      "10": "Do not weep for the dead.\nDo not mourn for him,\nbut weep bitterly for the one who is exiled,\nbecause he will never return.\nHe will never see the land of his birth.",
      "11": "For this is what the Lord says about Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned in place of his father Josiah. He has gone out from this place, but he will never return again.",
      "12": "He will die in the place where they have led him captive. He will never see this land again.",
      "13": "Woe to him who builds his house through unrighteousness\nand his roof with injustice,\nwho makes his neighbors work for nothing\nand does not pay them,",
      "14": "who says, “I will build a huge mansion for myself\n    with spacious upper rooms.”\nHe makes large windows for it,\npanels it with cedar,\nand paints it red.",
      "15": "Does it make you a king when you are extravagant with cedar?\nDidn’t your father eat and drink,\nand do what was just and right?\nThen it went well for him.",
      "16": "He defended the cause of the poor and needy,\nand it went well.\nIsn’t this what it means to know me? declares the Lord.",
      "17": "But your eyes and your heart are greedy for gain,\n    for shedding innocent blood,\n    for oppression, and committing violence.",
      "18": "Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning\nJehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah:\n    They will not mourn for him,\n“Oh, my brother! Oh, my sister!”\nThey will not mourn for him,\n“Oh, my master! Oh, his glory!”",
      "19": "He will be buried with the burial of a donkey—\ndragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.",
      "20": "Go up to Lebanon and cry out.\nLift your voice in Bashan.\nCry out from Abarim,\nbecause all your lovers have been destroyed.",
      "21": "I spoke to you when you were at peace,\nbut you said, “I will not listen.”\nThis has been your way since your youth.\nYou have never listened to me.",
      "22": "Your shepherds will be herded by the wind.\nYour lovers will go into exile.\nThen you will be ashamed and humiliated because of all your evil.",
      "23": "You who live in Lebanon,\nyou who make your nest in the cedars,\nhow you will groan when pains come upon you,\npains like those of a woman in labor!",
      "24": "As I live, declares the Lord, even if you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off.",
      "25": "I will deliver you into the hand of those who want to take your life, those you fear. I will deliver you into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans.",
      "26": "I will throw you and the mother who bore you into another country, where neither of you were born, and there you will die.",
      "27": "They will never return to the land to which they long to return.",
      "28": "Is this man Coniah a despised broken pot?\nIs he a jar no one wants?\nWhy are he and his children thrown out,\ncast into a land they do not know?",
      "29": "Land, land, O land!\nHear the word of the Lord!",
      "30": "This is what the Lord says.\nRecord this man as childless,\na man who will not prosper in his lifetime.\nNone of his offspring will prosper\n    by sitting on David’s throne and ruling in Judah."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! declares the Lord.",
      "2": "Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who shepherd my people.\nYou have scattered my flock.\nYou have driven them away.\nYou have not taken care of them,\nbut I will certainly take care of you,\nbecause of the evil things you have done,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "3": "I will gather what is left of my flock\n    out of all the countries where I have driven them,\nand I will bring them back to their pastures.\nThey will be fruitful and multiply.",
      "4": "I will raise up shepherds over them\n    who will shepherd them.\nThey will no longer be afraid or terrified,\nnor will any be missing, declares the Lord.",
      "5": "Listen, the days are coming, declares the Lord,\nwhen I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,\nwho will reign wisely as king\nand establish justice and righteousness on earth.",
      "6": "In his days Judah will be saved\nand Israel will dwell securely.\nThis is his name by which he will be called:\n    The Lord Our Righteousness.",
      "7": "So, mark my words, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no longer be said, “As surely as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,”",
      "8": "but, “as surely as the Lord lives who brought up the descendants of the house of Israel and led them out of a land in the north and from all the countries where I had driven them.” Then they will dwell in their own land.",
      "9": "Concerning the prophets:\nMy heart is broken inside me.\nAll my bones tremble.\nI am like a drunken man,\nlike a man overcome by wine,\nbecause of the Lord,\nand because of his holy words.",
      "10": "Look, the land is full of adulterers.\nBecause of the curse, the land mourns.\nThe pastures in the wilderness are dried up.\nTheir way of life is evil,\nand their use of power is unjust.",
      "11": "Both prophet and priest are godless.\nI have found their wickedness even in my House,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "12": "Therefore, they will discover that their path\nis like slippery places in the darkness.\nThey will be driven away,\nand they will fall there,\nbecause I will bring disaster on them,\nthe year of their punishment, declares the Lord.",
      "13": "Among the prophets of Samaria\nI saw something offensive.\nThey prophesied by Baal\nand led my people Israel astray.",
      "14": "Now among the prophets of Jerusalem\nI have seen something horrifying.\nThey commit adultery and walk in lies.\nThey strengthen the hands of evildoers,\nso that no one turns away from his wickedness.\nThey have all become like Sodom to me.\nThe people who live there are like Gomorrah.",
      "15": "So this is what the Lord of Armies says concerning the prophets.\nWatch, I will feed them wormwood\nand give them bitter water to drink,\nbecause from the prophets of Jerusalem\nungodliness has gone out into all the land.",
      "16": "This is what the Lord of Armies says.\nDo not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you.\nThey are giving you false hope.\nThey proclaim visions that come from their own hearts\nand not from the mouth of the Lord.",
      "17": "They keep saying to those who despise me,\n“The Lord has said that you will have peace.”\nAnd to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart,\nthey say, “No harm will come to you.”",
      "18": "But have any of them stood in the council of the Lord,\n    to see and hear his word?\nWho has listened to his word and heard it?",
      "19": "Look, a storm from the Lord!\nHis wrath has gone out,\nlike a whirlwind twisting down,\nwhirling over the heads of the wicked.",
      "20": "The Lord’s anger will not turn back until he has completely fulfilled the purposes of his heart. In later days you will understand it fully.",
      "21": "I did not send these prophets, yet they ran.\nI did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.",
      "22": "But if they had stood in my council,\nthey would have made my people hear my words,\nand they would have turned them from their evil ways\nand from their evil deeds.",
      "23": "Am I a God who is only nearby, declares the Lord,\nand not a God far away?",
      "24": "Can anyone hide in secret places\nso that I cannot see him? declares the Lord.\nDo I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.",
      "25": "I have heard what the prophets who prophesy lies in my name have said. They say, “I have had a dream! I have had a dream!”",
      "26": "How long will this be in the hearts of these lying prophets? These prophets proclaim the fantasies of their own hearts.",
      "27": "They think they can make my people forget my name with the dreams each one tells his neighbor, the way their fathers forgot my name because of Baal.",
      "28": "Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream. But let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully.\nWhat has chaff to do with grain? declares the Lord.",
      "29": "Is not my word like a fire? declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?",
      "30": "Therefore listen to this, declares the Lord. I am against the prophets who steal my words from each other.",
      "31": "Indeed, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their own tongues to say, “This is what the Lord declares!”",
      "32": "Yes, I am against those who prophesy about lying dreams, declares the Lord. I am against those who tell lying dreams to lead my people astray with their extravagant lies. But I did not send them or command them. They provide no benefit for this people, declares the Lord.",
      "33": "When these people or a prophet or a priest asks you, “What is the message from the Lord?” say to them, “What is the message? This is the Lord’s message: I will abandon you.”",
      "34": "As for the prophet, the priest, or anyone who says “the message from the Lord,” I will punish that man and his household.",
      "35": "Each man will ask his neighbor, “What has the Lord answered?” or “What has the Lord said?”",
      "36": "But do not refer to “the message of the Lord” anymore, because each man’s word has become his own message, because you have perverted the words of the Living God, the Lord of Armies, our God.",
      "37": "You say this to the prophet: “What has the Lord answered you?” or “What has the Lord said?”",
      "38": "But if you say that you have the message of the Lord, this is what the Lord says to you: Since you say “the message of the Lord,” although I have sent a message telling you not to say “the message of the Lord,”",
      "39": "watch out, because I will completely forget you and throw you out of my presence. I will abandon you and this city, which I gave to your fathers.",
      "40": "I will bring everlasting scorn and everlasting shame that will not be forgotten."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting in front of the Lord’s temple. This took place after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had exiled Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem, along with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the smiths, and had brought them to Babylon.",
      "2": "One basket had very good figs, like early figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad they could not be eaten.",
      "3": "Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”\n“Figs,” I said. “The good figs are very good, and the bad ones are very bad, so bad they cannot be eaten.”",
      "4": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "5": "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I will treat the exiles from Judah like these good figs, those exiles that I sent out from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.",
      "6": "I will keep my eye on them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not uproot them.",
      "7": "I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God. They will return to me with their whole heart.",
      "8": "But like the bad figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten—this is what the Lord says—this is how I will deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and with those who live in the land of Egypt.",
      "9": "I will make them an object of horror and disaster among all the nations of the earth. They will be a disgrace, a proverb, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I banish them.",
      "10": "I will send the sword, famine, and plague against them until they have perished from the soil that I have given to them and to their fathers."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "This is the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah. This was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.",
      "2": "Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to everyone who lived in Jerusalem.",
      "3": "For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah, to this very day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again. But you have not listened.",
      "4": "The Lord sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, but you have not listened or paid attention.",
      "5": "The Lord said: Turn, each of you, from your evil way of life and from the evil things you do. Live on the land the Lord gave to you and to your forefathers long ago to be yours forever.",
      "6": "Do not follow after other gods or serve them or worship them, and do not provoke me to anger with the work of your hands. Then I will do you no harm.",
      "7": "But you would not obey me, declares the Lord. So you kept provoking me to anger with the work of your hands, and you have hurt yourselves.",
      "8": "Therefore this is what the Lord of Armies says. Because you have not obeyed my words,",
      "9": "watch out! I will send for all the clans of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and derision. The land will be ruins forever.",
      "10": "I will take the sound of joy away from them and the sound of gladness. I will take away the voice of the bride and groom, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.",
      "11": "This whole land will become a desolation and a ruin, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.",
      "12": "When the seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the Lord. I will make it desolate forever.",
      "13": "I will bring on that land all my words which I have spoken against it, everything that is written in this book, in which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.",
      "14": "For many nations and great kings will make slaves of them, but I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.",
      "15": "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath, and make all the nations, to whom I send you, drink it.",
      "16": "They will drink, stagger, and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.”",
      "17": "So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand and made all the nations to whom he had sent me drink from it—",
      "18": "to destroy them and to make them an object of horror and derision, and to make them a curse, as they are today. They are:\nJerusalem, all the cities of Judah, its kings and officials,",
      "19": "Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his officials, and all his people,",
      "20": "also all the various foreigners there,\nalso all the kings of the land of Uz,\nall the kings of the Philistines (Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and\n    the remnant of Ashdod),",
      "21": "Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites,",
      "22": "all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon,\nand the kings of the islands across the sea,",
      "23": "Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who live on the edge of the desert,",
      "24": "all the kings of Arabia,\nall the kings of the various peoples who live in the wilderness,",
      "25": "all the kings of Zimri,\nall the kings of Elam, all the kings of the Medes,",
      "26": "all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another,\nand all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth.\nThen after them, the king of Sheshak will drink.",
      "27": "You are to tell them that this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Drink and get drunk. Vomit! Fall and rise no more, because of the sword I will send among you.”",
      "28": "But if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink, then tell them, “This is what the Lord of Armies says. You must drink it.",
      "29": "See, I am beginning to bring disaster to the city called by my name. Will you somehow go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I will call for a sword on all who live on the earth, declares the Lord of Armies.”",
      "30": "Prophesy all these words against them. Say to them:\nThe Lord will roar from on high,\nand he will thunder from his holy dwelling.\nHe will roar mightily against his flock.\nHe will shout against all who live on the earth,\nlike those who tread grapes.",
      "31": "The roaring will reach the ends of the earth,\nfor the Lord will bring charges against the nations.\nHe will judge all flesh\nand put the wicked to the sword, declares the Lord.",
      "32": "This is what the Lord of Armies says.\nLook! Disaster is moving from nation to nation,\nand a great storm is rising from the ends of the earth.",
      "33": "On that day those slain by the Lord will lie scattered\n    from one end of the earth to the other.\nThey will not be mourned.\nThey will not be gathered up.\nThey will not be buried.\nThey lie on the ground like manure.",
      "34": "Wail, you shepherds, and cry.\nRoll in the dust, you leaders of the flock,\nfor the day for you to be slaughtered has come.\nYou will be shattered,\nand you will fall like fine pottery.",
      "35": "The shepherds will have nowhere to flee.\nThe leaders of the flock will have no escape.",
      "36": "Hear the cry of the shepherds\nand the wailing of the leaders of the flock,\nfor the Lord is destroying their pasture.",
      "37": "The peaceful meadows are silenced,\nbecause of the fierce anger of the Lord.",
      "38": "He has left his lair like a lion,\nand their land will become desolate,\nbecause of the fierceness of the oppressor,\nand because of his fierce anger."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, the following word came from the Lord.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord says. Stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s house, and speak to people from the cities and towns of Judah who have come to worship at the House of the Lord. Tell them everything I have commanded you to tell them. Do not hold back a single word.",
      "3": "Maybe they will listen, and everyone will turn from his evil way. Then I will relent and not bring about the disaster that I was planning because of the evil things they have done.",
      "4": "You are also to say this to him.\nThis is what the Lord says. If you will not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you,",
      "5": "and if you do not listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I have sent to you again and again (but you have not listened),",
      "6": "then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make the name of this city a curse word for all the nations of the earth.",
      "7": "The priests, the prophets, and all the people listened as Jeremiah spoke these words at the House of the Lord.",
      "8": "When Jeremiah had finished saying everything the Lord had commanded him to say to all the people, then the priests, the prophets, and all the people seized him and said, “You must die!",
      "9": "Why do you prophesy in the name of the Lord that this house will be like Shiloh and that this city will be desolate with no one living here?” All the people crowded around Jeremiah in the House of the Lord.",
      "10": "When the officials of Judah heard about these things, they came up from the king’s house to the House of the Lord and sat in the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s house.",
      "11": "Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death because he has been prophesying against this city, as you heard with your own ears.”",
      "12": "Then Jeremiah said to all the officials and to all the people, “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the things that you have heard.",
      "13": "Now reform your ways and your actions, and obey the Lord your God. Then the Lord will relent and not bring about the disaster he has pronounced against you.",
      "14": "But as for me, look, I am in your hands. Do with me whatever seems good and right in your eyes.",
      "15": "But you can be certain of this. If you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on those who live here, for it is true that the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing.”",
      "16": "Then the officials and the people said to the priests and to the prophets, “This man does not deserve to die. He has spoken in the name of the Lord our God.”",
      "17": "Some of the elders of the land got up and spoke to all the assembled people.",
      "18": "Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. He proclaimed this to all the people of Judah.\nThis is what the Lord of Armies says.\nZion will be plowed like a field,\nJerusalem will become a ruin,\nand the temple mount will be a high place overgrown with trees.",
      "19": "Did Hezekiah king of Judah or anyone at all in Judah put him to death? Didn’t he fear the Lord and seek his favor? And didn’t the Lord relent from the disaster he had pronounced against them? We would be committing a great evil against our own souls that way!",
      "20": "(There had also been another man who prophesied in the name of the Lord, Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim. He prophesied against this city and against the land the same things that Jeremiah did.",
      "21": "When King Jehoiakim, all his strong warriors, and all his officials heard his words, the king wanted to put him to death. But Uriah heard about it and fled in fear to Egypt.",
      "22": "Then King Jehoiakim sent Elnathan son of Akbor and some other men to Egypt.",
      "23": "They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him put to death with a sword and had his body thrown into the grave of the common people.)",
      "24": "But Ahikam son of Shaphan used his authority to protect Jeremiah, who was not handed over to the people to be put to death."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "Early in the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, this message came to Jeremiah from the Lord.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord said to me.\nMake a yoke and straps and put them on your neck.",
      "3": "Then send word to the kings of Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, Tyre, and Sidon, through the messengers who came to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah.",
      "4": "Give them a message for their masters. Tell them the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Tell your masters:",
      "5": "By my great power I made the earth, the people, and the animals that are on it. I give it to anyone I please.",
      "6": "Now I will give all these lands to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I will even make the wild animals serve him.",
      "7": "All the nations will serve him, his son, and his grandson, until the time for his own land comes. Then he will serve many nations and great kings.”",
      "8": "The Lord also said:\nI will punish any nation or kingdom that will not submit to this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, that will not put their necks under the yoke of Babylon’s king. I will punish that nation with sword, famine, and plague, until I have consumed them by his hand.",
      "9": "So do not listen to your prophets, to your omen readers, to your dream interpreters, to your mediums, or to those who cast spells for you. Do not listen to those who tell you, “You will not serve the king of Babylon,”",
      "10": "because they are prophesying lies to you in order to remove you from your land. I will drive you out, and you will perish.",
      "11": "But if a nation bows its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him, I will let that nation remain on its own land. They will plow the soil and live on it, declares the Lord.",
      "12": "I also said all these things to Zedekiah king of Judah.\nBow your neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon. Serve him and his people, and you will live.",
      "13": "Why do you and your people want to die by sword, famine, and plague, as the Lord said would come upon any nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?",
      "14": "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are telling you not to serve the king of Babylon. They are prophesying a lie to you,",
      "15": "for I have not sent them, declares the Lord. They are prophesying falsely in my name, so I will drive you out, and you will perish, you and the prophets who are prophesying to you.",
      "16": "I also spoke to the priests and to all of the people.\nThe Lord says this. Do not listen to the words of your prophets who are prophesying to you that the vessels of the Lord’s house will soon be brought back again from Babylon, because they are prophesying a lie to you.",
      "17": "Do not listen to them. Serve the king of Babylon and live. Why should this city become a ruin?",
      "18": "If they really are prophets, and if the word of the Lord is with them, then let them intercede with the Lord of Armies, so that the vessels which are left in the house of the Lord, in the house of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem, will not go to Babylon.",
      "19": "For this is what the Lord of Armies says about the pillars, the Sea, the carts for water, and the rest of the vessels that are left in the city,",
      "20": "which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had not taken away when he exiled Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem—",
      "21": "yes, this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says concerning the vessels that are still in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah in Jerusalem:",
      "22": "They will be taken to Babylon, and there they will remain until the day I come for them, declares the Lord. Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "That same year, in the fifth month of the fourth year (early in the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah), the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, spoke to me in the House of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people. He said,",
      "2": "“The Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this. I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.",
      "3": "When two full years have passed, I will bring back all the vessels of the Lord’s house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried off to Babylon.",
      "4": "I will also bring back Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah along with all the exiles of Judah who went to Babylon, declares the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.”",
      "5": "Then the prophet Jeremiah replied to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the House of the Lord.",
      "6": "He said, “Amen! May the Lord do that! May the Lord fulfill the words you have prophesied and bring back the vessels of the Lord’s house, and may he bring all the exiles back from Babylon to this place.",
      "7": "Nevertheless, listen now to what I have to say in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people.",
      "8": "The prophets from ancient times, who came before you and me, prophesied war, famine, and plague against many countries and great kingdoms.",
      "9": "As for the prophet who prophesies peace, only when the word of the prophet actually comes true will that prophet become known as someone whom the Lord has truly sent.”",
      "10": "Then the prophet Hananiah took the yoke off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it.",
      "11": "In the presence of all the people, Hananiah said, “This is what the Lord says. This is how I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from off the neck of all the nations within two full years.” So the prophet Jeremiah went on his way.",
      "12": "After the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah:",
      "13": "“Go and tell Hananiah that this is what the Lord says. You have broken a wooden yoke, but in its place you will receive an iron yoke.",
      "14": "For the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says, I will put an iron yoke on the neck of all these nations so that they will serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. Yes, they will certainly serve him. I have even given him the wild animals.”",
      "15": "Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord has not sent you, yet you are making this people trust in a lie.",
      "16": "Therefore this is what the Lord says. Watch, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This very year you will die, because you have preached rebellion against the Lord.”",
      "17": "In the seventh month of that same year, Hananiah the prophet died."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "This is the text of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the remnant of the elders in exile, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.",
      "2": "(This was after Jeconiah, the queen mother, the secretaries, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalworkers had gone into exile from Jerusalem.)",
      "3": "The letter was delivered by Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemaraiah son of Hilkiah when Zedekiah king of Judah sent them to Babylon, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. The letter said:",
      "4": "The Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this to all the exiles whom I have deported from Jerusalem to Babylon.",
      "5": "Build houses and settle in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit.",
      "6": "Get married and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there, and do not decrease in number.",
      "7": "Seek the peace of the city where I have exiled you. Pray to the Lord for that city, because when it has peace and prosperity, you will have peace and prosperity.",
      "8": "The Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this. Do not let the prophets and fortune tellers who are among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams they dream for you.",
      "9": "For they prophesy falsely in my name, but I did not send them, declares the Lord.",
      "10": "This is what the Lord says. After seventy years have passed in Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious word to bring you back to this place.",
      "11": "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future.",
      "12": "Then you will call on me and come to pray to me, and I will listen to you.",
      "13": "When you seek me, you will find me, when you will seek me with all your heart.",
      "14": "I will let you find me, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back from your exile. I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have sent you as exiles, declares the Lord. I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.",
      "15": "Because you say, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,”",
      "16": "this is what the Lord says concerning the king who sits on David’s throne and concerning all the people who remain in this city, your brothers who were not carried away into exile with you.",
      "17": "Yes, this is what the Lord says. Watch, I am going to send sword, famine, and plague against them, and I will make them like rotten figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten.",
      "18": "I will pursue them with sword, famine, and plague, and I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, a curse, a terror, a thing to be hissed at, and a disgrace among all the nations where I have driven them,",
      "19": "because they have not obeyed my words, declares the Lord, words I sent them again and again through my servants the prophets. And you have not listened, either, declares the Lord.",
      "20": "Therefore hear the word of the Lord, all you exiles whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon.",
      "21": "The Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Ma’aseiah, who are prophesying a lie in my name: Watch, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your eyes.",
      "22": "All the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse because of them:\nMay the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and like Ahab,\nwhom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire.",
      "23": "This is because they have done sinful things in Israel. They have committed adultery with their neighbor’s wives, and they have spoken lies in my name, things I did not tell them to do. I am the one who knows. I am the witness, declares the Lord.",
      "24": "Tell Shemaiah the Nehelamite",
      "25": "that this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.\nYou have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, to Zephaniah son of Ma’aseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, and you told them the following:",
      "26": "The Lord has made you priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, so that there will be officers in the Lord’s house who can deal with every crazy man who calls himself a prophet. You should put him in the stocks and in shackles.",
      "27": "So why have you not rebuked Jeremiah from Anathoth, who makes himself out to be a prophet among you?",
      "28": "Jeremiah sent this message to us in Babylon: It will be a long time. Build houses and settle in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit.",
      "29": "Zephaniah the priest read this letter so that Jeremiah the prophet could hear the reading.",
      "30": "Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.",
      "31": "Send the following message to all the exiles.\nThis is what the Lord says about Shemaiah the Nehelamite. Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, but I did not send him, and he has led you to trust in a lie,",
      "32": "the Lord says this. Watch, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. He will have no one left to live among this people. He will never see the good things I will do for my people, declares the Lord, because he has preached rebellion against the Lord."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.",
      "2": "The Lord, the God of Israel, says,\nWrite all the words that I have spoken to you in a book.",
      "3": "Look, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity. I will restore them to the land I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it, says the Lord.",
      "4": "These are words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah.",
      "5": "This is what the Lord says.\n“We have heard cries of fear,\nof terror, and not of peace.”",
      "6": "Ask and see.\nCan a man give birth to a child?\nWhy then do I see every strong man\n    with his hands on his belly like a woman in labor?\nWhy has every face turned pale?",
      "7": "That day is so terrible that there is none like it!\nIt will be a time of trouble for Jacob,\nbut he will be saved out of it.",
      "8": "In that day, declares the Lord of Armies,\nI will break the yoke off your neck.\nI will tear away your bonds.\nStrangers will no longer enslave Israel,",
      "9": "but they will serve the Lord their God\nand David their king, whom I will raise up for them.",
      "10": "Therefore do not be afraid, my servant Jacob, declares the Lord.\nDo not be terrified, Israel,\nbecause I will certainly save you from a faraway place.\nI will save your descendants from the land where they are captive.\nJacob will return.\nHe will enjoy quiet and be at ease,\nand no one will make him afraid.",
      "11": "I am with you to save you, declares the Lord.\nI will completely destroy all the nations\n    among which I have scattered you,\nbut I will not completely destroy you.\nI will discipline you with justice,\nyet I will not regard you as entirely innocent.",
      "12": "So this is what the Lord says.\nYour wound is incurable.\nYour injury is severe.",
      "13": "There is no one to plead your cause,\nno one to bind your wounds.\nThere are no healing medicines.",
      "14": "All who loved you have forgotten you.\nThey do not ask about you.\nI have wounded you as an enemy would.\nI have punished you as the cruel would,\nbecause your guilt is so great,\nbecause your sins are so many.",
      "15": "Why are you crying over your injury,\nover your incurable wound?\nIt is because of your great guilt,\nbecause of your many sins,\nthat I have done these things to you.",
      "16": "Yet all who devour you will be devoured.\nAll your enemies, every one of them, will go into captivity.\nThose who plunder you will be plundered.\nAll who prey on you will become prey.",
      "17": "For I will restore your health,\nand I will heal your wounds, declares the Lord,\nbecause they have called you an outcast,\nsaying, “It is Zion—for whom no one cares.”",
      "18": "This is what the Lord says.\nLook, I will end the captivity of Jacob’s tents\nand have compassion on his dwellings.\nThe city will be rebuilt on the mound of its ruins,\nand the citadel will stand in its rightful place.",
      "19": "Thanksgiving will come out of them,\n    along with the sound of rejoicing.\nI will multiply them,\nand they will not decrease in number.\nI will glorify them,\nand they will not be insignificant.",
      "20": "Their children will be as they were long ago,\nand their community will be established in my presence.\nI will punish all who oppress them.",
      "21": "Their strong leader will be one of their own,\nand their ruler will arise from among them.\nI will summon him to come near,\nand he will approach me,\nfor who would be bold enough to approach me?\nsays the Lord.",
      "22": "You shall be my people,\nand I will be your God.",
      "23": "Look, a storm is coming from the Lord!\nHis wrath has gone out,\nlike a whirlwind twisting down,\nwhirling over the heads of the wicked.",
      "24": "The Lord’s anger will not turn back\nuntil he has completely fulfilled the purposes of his heart.\nIn later days you will understand it."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "At that time, declares the Lord,\nI will be the God of all the families of Israel,\nand they will be my people.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord says.\nThe people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness.\nIsrael had continual rest.",
      "3": "The Lord appeared to me from a distance, saying:\nI have loved you with an everlasting love.\nI have drawn you with mercy.",
      "4": "I will build you up again,\nand you will be built up, O Virgin Israel.\nYou will pick up your drums again,\nand you will go out to dance with those who are joyful.",
      "5": "Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria.\nThe planters will plant and will enjoy its fruit.",
      "6": "For there will be a day\nwhen the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry out,\n“Come, let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.”",
      "7": "This is what the Lord says.\nSing with joy for Jacob,\nand shout for the greatest of the nations.\nMake your praises heard and say,\n“Lord, save your people,\nthe remnant of Israel!”",
      "8": "Watch, I will bring them from a land in the north\nand gather them from the ends of the earth.\nThe blind and the lame will be there,\nthe pregnant woman together with the woman in labor.\nThey will return as a huge community.",
      "9": "They will come weeping.\nThey will pray as I bring them back.\nI will lead them beside streams of water,\non a level path where they will not stumble.\nFor I am a father to Israel.\nEphraim is my firstborn.",
      "10": "Hear the word of the Lord, you nations.\nDeclare it in the distant islands.\nSay that he who scattered Israel will gather him\nand watch over him like a shepherd watching his flock.",
      "11": "For the Lord will ransom Jacob\nand redeem him from the hand of the one who is stronger than him.",
      "12": "They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion,\nand they will rejoice in the goodness of the Lord,\nfor the grain, the new wine, the oil,\nand the young of the flocks and herds.\nTheir lives will thrive like a well-watered garden.\nThey will not grow weak anymore.",
      "13": "Then the virgin will rejoice and dance.\nThe young men and the old will be glad together,\nfor I will turn their mourning into joy.\nI will comfort them\nand give them joy instead of sorrow.",
      "14": "I will satisfy the priests with abundance,\nand my people will be filled with my goodness,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "15": "This is what the Lord says.\nA voice is heard in Ramah,\nweeping and great mourning.\nRachel is weeping for her children.\nShe refuses to be comforted for her children,\nbecause they are no more.",
      "16": "This is what the Lord says.\nStop your crying.\nDo not shed tears,\nbecause your work will be rewarded, declares the Lord.\nThey will return from the land of the enemy.",
      "17": "There is hope for your future, declares the Lord.\nYour children will return to their own borders.",
      "18": "I have certainly heard Ephraim grieving:\n“You have disciplined me.\nI was disciplined like an untrained calf.\nCause me to turn, and I will turn,\nbecause you are the Lord my God.",
      "19": "After I turned away, I was sorry.\nAfter I was instructed, I slapped my thigh in grief.\nI was ashamed and humiliated,\nbecause I bore the disgrace of my youth.”",
      "20": "Isn’t Ephraim my dear son?\nIsn’t he my darling child?\nI often speak against him,\nbut I still remember him.\nMy heart longs for him.\nI will certainly be compassionate to him, declares the Lord.",
      "21": "Set up road signs.\nMake guideposts.\nDirect your attention toward the highway,\ntoward the way by which you came.\nTurn back, Virgin Israel.\nTurn back to your cities.",
      "22": "How long will you turn away,\nyou unfaithful daughter?\nThe Lord has created a new thing on the earth:\nA female will surround a man.",
      "23": "This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.\nWhen I bring them back from captivity,\nthey will once again say in the land of Judah and in its cities:\n“The Lord bless you, you righteous dwelling place,\n        you holy mountain.”",
      "24": "Judah and all its cities will live there together,\nthe farmers and those who follow their flocks.",
      "25": "I will satisfy the thirsty,\nand I will give rest to everyone who is weary.",
      "26": "Just after this I woke up and looked around.\nMy sleep had been pleasant for me.",
      "27": "Look, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal.",
      "28": "Just as I have watched over them to uproot and to tear down, to overthrow, destroy, and afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the Lord.",
      "29": "In those days they will no longer say,\n“The fathers have eaten sour grapes,\nand the children’s teeth are set on edge.”",
      "30": "But everyone will die for his own guilt.\nEveryone who eats sour grapes—\nhis own teeth will be set on edge.",
      "31": "Yes, the days are coming, declares the Lord,\nwhen I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel\nand with the house of Judah.",
      "32": "It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers,\nwhen I took them by the hand\nand led them out of the land of Egypt.\nThey broke that covenant of mine,\nalthough I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.",
      "33": "But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel\n        after those days,\ndeclares the Lord.\nI will put my law in their minds,\nand I will write it on their hearts.\nI will be their God,\nand they will be my people.",
      "34": "No longer will each one teach his neighbor,\nor each one teach his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,”\nbecause they will all know me,\nfrom the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord,\nfor I will forgive their guilt,\nand I will remember their sins no more.",
      "35": "This is what the Lord says,\nthe Lord, who gives the sun for light by day,\nwho regulates the moon and stars for light by night,\nwho stirs up the sea so that its waves roar,\nwhose name is the Lord of Armies:",
      "36": "Only if these ordinances could vanish from my sight,\n    only then could the seed of Israel cease to be a nation before me,\n    declares the Lord.",
      "37": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Only if someone could measure what is above the sky,\n    only if someone could explore what is below the foundations\n            of the earth,\n    only then would I reject all the seed of Israel\n    for all that they have done, declares the Lord.",
      "38": "Look, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the city will be rebuilt for the Lord from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.",
      "39": "The measuring line will stretch from there straight out to the Hill of Gareb and turn toward Goah.",
      "40": "The whole valley with the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields out to the Kidron Valley, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, will be holy to the Lord. It will not be uprooted or torn down ever again."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.",
      "2": "At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the courtyard of the guard in the palace of the king of Judah.",
      "3": "Zedekiah king of Judah had confined him there.\nZedekiah had said, “Why do you prophesy and say that the Lord says that he will certainly give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and that he will capture it?",
      "4": "Why do you say that Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape from the hand of the Chaldeans, but will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and that he will speak with him face-to-face and see him eye-to-eye?",
      "5": "Why do you say that he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, to remain there until the Lord deals with him? declares the Lord. And that even though I fight with the Chaldeans, I will not succeed?”",
      "6": "Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "7": "Watch for this. Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you and tell you to buy his field in Anathoth, because the right of redemption is yours. So buy it.”",
      "8": "Then Hanamel my cousin came to me in the courtyard of the guard, just as the Lord had said, and he told me to buy his field in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, because the right to redeem it and take possession of it was mine. He told me to buy it for myself.\nThen I knew that this was the word of the Lord.",
      "9": "I purchased the field in Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver.",
      "10": "I signed the deed, sealed it, called witnesses, and weighed out the silver on the scales.",
      "11": "Then I took the deed of the purchase containing the terms and conditions, both the sealed copy and an unsealed copy,",
      "12": "and I gave them to Baruch son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, and in the presence of the witnesses who had signed the deed, and in the presence of all the Jews sitting in the courtyard of the guard.",
      "13": "I gave Baruch instructions in their presence. I told him",
      "14": "that this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, said: “Take these deeds, the sealed deed of purchase and the unsealed copy, and put them in a clay jar so that they will be preserved for a long time.",
      "15": "For the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this: Houses and fields and vineyards will again be purchased in this land.”",
      "16": "After I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord:",
      "17": "Ah, Lord God! You are the one who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing that is too difficult for you.",
      "18": "You show mercy to thousands, but you repay the guilt of the fathers into the laps of their children after them. Great and powerful God, the Lord of Armies is your name!",
      "19": "You give sound guidance, and your deeds are mighty. Your eyes are open to all the ways of mankind. You reward everyone according to what he has done, according to what his deeds deserve.",
      "20": "Up to this day you have performed signs and wonders—in the land of Egypt, in Israel, and even among all mankind—and you made a name for yourself as it is today.",
      "21": "You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror.",
      "22": "You gave them this land that you swore to give to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.",
      "23": "They came in and took possession of it, but they did not obey you or follow your law. They have not done everything that you commanded them to do. Therefore you have brought all this disaster upon them.",
      "24": "You see that the siege ramps have come up to the city to capture it. The city will be handed over to the Chaldeans, who fight against it by means of sword, famine, and plague. What you said has taken place, as you see.",
      "25": "Lord God, you said to me, “Buy the field with silver and call witnesses,” even though the city was being handed over to the Chaldeans.",
      "26": "Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.",
      "27": "Listen to me. I am the Lord, the God who rules over all flesh. Is there anything that is too difficult for me?",
      "28": "Therefore, this is what the Lord says. Watch, I am going to hand over this city to the Chaldeans and to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will capture it.",
      "29": "The Chaldeans who attack this city will come and set fire to it. They will burn it, along with the houses. People offered incense to Baal on those rooftops, and they poured out drink offerings to other gods there, and they provoked me to anger.",
      "30": "For the people of Israel and the people of Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight ever since their youth. The people of Israel have committed only evil with what their hands have made, declares the Lord.",
      "31": "Because this city has aroused my anger and wrath from the day it was built until now, I will remove it from my sight.",
      "32": "The people of Israel and the people of Judah have provoked me by all the evil they have done—they, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the people of Jerusalem.",
      "33": "They have turned their backs to me and not their faces. Though I taught them again and again, they did not listen to me or accept correction.",
      "34": "They set up their disgusting things in the house that bears my name, and they defiled it.",
      "35": "They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to make their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Molek, something I did not command them to do. It did not enter my mind that they would do such a disgusting thing and cause Judah to sin.",
      "36": "About this city, you have been saying, “It will be handed over to the king of Babylon by sword, famine, and plague.” But now this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:",
      "37": "Watch, I will gather them from all the lands where I have driven them in my furious anger and great wrath. Then I will bring them back again to this place. I will let them live in safety.",
      "38": "Then they will be my people, and I will be their God.",
      "39": "I will give them one heart and direct them in one way, so that they always fear me. This will be for their good and for the good of their children after them.",
      "40": "I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will never stop doing good for them. I will put this fear in their hearts so that they will not turn away from me.",
      "41": "I will rejoice in doing good for them. I will plant them in this land with all my heart and all my soul.",
      "42": "This is what the Lord says. Just as surely as I brought this great catastrophe on this people, so I will be the one to bring them all the good that I have promised them.",
      "43": "Once again fields will be purchased in this land, which you say is desolate, without man or animal, and which you say is handed over to the Chaldeans.",
      "44": "Men will buy fields for silver, sign the deeds, seal them, and call witnesses in the land of Benjamin and in the places around Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the Shephelah, and in the cities of the Negev. I will restore them from their captivity, declares the Lord."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time. This was while he was still locked up in the courtyard of the guard.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord, who made the earth, says, the Lord who formed it and who established it—the Lord is his name.",
      "3": "Call on me and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious things you did not know.",
      "4": "For the Lord, the God of Israel, says this concerning the houses of this city and the palaces of the kings of Judah (which were being torn down to build up defenses against the siege ramps and the sword",
      "5": "during the fight against the Chaldeans): I will fill them with the corpses of men whom I have killed in my anger and my wrath. I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness.",
      "6": "But watch! I will bring it health and healing. I will heal them and reveal an abundance of peace and truth to them.",
      "7": "I will cause the captives of Judah and the captives of Israel to return, and I will build them up as they were in the beginning.",
      "8": "I will cleanse them from all the guilt they incurred by sinning against me. I will pardon all the guilt they incurred by sinning against me and by their rebellion against me.",
      "9": "This will provide a name of joy, praise, and glory for me, in the presence of all the nations of the earth. They will hear about all the good that I do for this city, and they will tremble in awe because of the good and because of the peace I provide for it.",
      "10": "This is what the Lord says. You say that this place is a wasteland, without man or animal, and that there is no man living in the cities of Judah or in the desolate streets of Jerusalem, not even an animal.",
      "11": "But the sound of joy, the sound of gladness, and the voice of the bride and groom will be heard there once again. A voice will again be heard that says, “Give thanks to the Lord of Armies, for the Lord is good, and his mercy endures forever,” as they bring thank offerings into the House of the Lord. For I will restore the fortunes of the lands as they were in the beginning, says the Lord.",
      "12": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. In this place, which is desolate, without man and without animal, in all its cities there will once again be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks.",
      "13": "In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the Shephelah, in the cities of the Negev, in the land of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, flocks will once again pass under the hand of the one who counts them, says the Lord.",
      "14": "Listen, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promises that I have spoken to the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah.",
      "15": "In those days and at that time,\nI will cause a righteous Branch to grow up from David’s line.\nHe will establish justice and righteousness on earth.",
      "16": "In those days Judah will be saved,\nand Jerusalem will dwell securely.\nThis is what she will be called:\nThe Lord Our Righteousness.",
      "17": "This is what the Lord says.\nDavid will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.",
      "18": "Neither will the priests, who are Levites, fail to have a man to stand before me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to offer sacrifices continually.",
      "19": "The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.",
      "20": "This is what the Lord says. If you could break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that there would no longer be day or night at their appointed times,",
      "21": "only then could my covenant with my servant David be broken, so that he would not have a son to reign on his throne. Only then could my covenant with the priests who are Levites, my ministers, be broken.",
      "22": "Just as the stars of the sky cannot be counted and the sand of the seashore cannot be measured, in the same way I will multiply the offspring of my servant David and the Levites who minister before me.",
      "23": "The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.",
      "24": "Have you not considered what these people are saying—that the Lord rejected the two families that he chose? They despise my people in this way, and they do not consider them a nation.",
      "25": "The Lord says: If I have not established my covenant with day and night, or the ordinances of heaven and earth,",
      "26": "only then will I reject the offspring of Jacob and of my servant David, and only then will I fail to choose one of his sons to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So I will restore them from captivity, and I will have mercy on them."
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, along with all his army, all the kingdoms of the earth, and all the peoples that were subject to him were fighting against Jerusalem and against all its cities.",
      "2": "The Lord, the God of Israel, says:\nGo to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him this is what the Lord says. I certainly am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it.",
      "3": "You will not escape his grasp. You will surely be taken and handed over to him. You will see the king of Babylon eye-to-eye, and he will speak with you face-to-face. You will go to Babylon.",
      "4": "Even so, hear the word of the Lord, Zedekiah king of Judah.\nThe Lord says concerning you: You will not die by the sword.",
      "5": "You will die in peace. Just as people made a funeral fire in honor of your fathers who were kings before you, so they will make a fire for you. They will lament for you, saying, “Alas, master!” This is my word, declares the Lord.",
      "6": "Jeremiah the prophet said all these things to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem",
      "7": "when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against the cities of Judah that still remained, namely, Lachish and Azekah (for these alone remained from all of Judah’s fortified cities).",
      "8": "The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem proclaiming freedom for the slaves.",
      "9": "Everyone was to free his Hebrew slaves, male and female. No one was to keep a fellow Jew in slavery.",
      "10": "All the officials and all the people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would set their male and female slaves free, and that no one would keep them in slavery anymore. They obeyed the agreement and set them free.",
      "11": "But after this they changed their minds. They took back the slaves they had set free, and they made them serve as male and female slaves once again.",
      "12": "It was after this that the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.",
      "13": "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I made a covenant with your fathers on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery. I said that",
      "14": "every seven years you are to set free any fellow Hebrew who has sold himself to you. After he has served you six years, you are to set him free. But your fathers did not listen to me or pay attention to me.",
      "15": "Now, after you repented and did what is right in my sight, each of you proclaimed freedom for his neighbor. You made a covenant before me in the house that bears my name,",
      "16": "but you have turned around and profaned my name. Each of you has taken back and enslaved his male and female slaves, whom you had set free to go where they wished. You forced them back into slavery, to serve as your male and female slaves.",
      "17": "Therefore this is what the Lord says. You have not listened to me by proclaiming freedom for your brothers and your neighbors. So I am proclaiming freedom to you, says the Lord. Freedom to fall by the sword, plague, and famine! I will make you a horror among all the kingdoms of the earth.",
      "18": "I am going to make the men who walked between the covenant pieces, but who did not keep the terms of the covenant that they had made in my presence, just like the calf they cut in two and then walk between its pieces.",
      "19": "The officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the government ministers, the priests, and all the people of the land who walked between the parts of the calf,",
      "20": "I will hand over to their enemies, to those who seek their lives. Their corpses will be food for the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the land.",
      "21": "I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials to those who seek their lives and to the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you. Watch, I will give a command, says the Lord, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, capture it, and burn it down. I will make the cities of Judah desolate so that no one can live there."
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah.",
      "2": "“Go to the house of the Rekabites, and bring them into one of the rooms in the House of the Lord, and give them wine to drink.”",
      "3": "So I took Ja’azaniah son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah, along with his brothers and all his sons—the whole house of the Rekabites—",
      "4": "and I brought them into the House of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, the man of God. It was next to the room of the officials that was above the room of Ma’asaiah son of Shallum, the doorkeeper.",
      "5": "I set bowls of wine and some cups before the men of the house of the Rekabites, and I said to them, “Drink some wine.”",
      "6": "But they said, “We do not drink wine. Our ancestor Jonadab son of Rekab commanded us: ‘You are not to drink wine, neither you nor your descendants, not ever.",
      "7": "Also, you are not to build houses, sow seed, plant vineyards, or own any of these things. You must always live in tents. Then you will live a long time on the land where you live as nomads.’",
      "8": "We have obeyed what Jonadab son of Rekab, our ancestor, commanded us. We have never drunk wine—we, our wives, our sons, and our daughters.",
      "9": "We have never built houses to live in. We have no vineyards, fields, or crops.",
      "10": "We have lived in tents, and we have obeyed everything that Jonadab our ancestor commanded us.",
      "11": "But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land, we said, ‘Come on, we have to go to Jerusalem to escape the armies of the Chaldeans and the Arameans.’ That is why we are living in Jerusalem.”",
      "12": "Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.",
      "13": "This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Go ask the men of Judah and those living in Jerusalem: Will you learn a lesson and obey my words? declares the Lord.",
      "14": "Jonadab son of Rekab commanded his sons not to drink wine, and this command has been kept. To this day they drink no wine, for they have obeyed their ancestor’s command. But I keep speaking to you, again and again, and you have not obeyed me.",
      "15": "I have sent my servants the prophets to you again and again. They told you to turn from your evil ways, to reform your actions, and to stop following other gods in order to serve them. Then you would live on the land I have given to you and your fathers. But you have not paid attention or listened to me.",
      "16": "The sons of Jonadab son of Rekab have kept this command which their father gave them, but these people have not obeyed me.",
      "17": "Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Watch this. I am going to bring down on Judah and everyone who lives in Jerusalem every disaster I have pronounced against them. I have spoken to them, but they have not listened. I have called them, but they have not answered.",
      "18": "Jeremiah said to the house of the Rekabites, “The Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this. Because you have obeyed the command of Jonadab your father and kept all his instructions and done everything he commanded you,",
      "19": "the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says that Jonadab will never fail to have a man to serve me.”"
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord:",
      "2": "Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, concerning Judah and all the other nations, from the day I began speaking to you in the days of Josiah until now.",
      "3": "Perhaps when the house of Judah hears about all the disaster I am planning for them, each of them will turn from his evil ways. Then I will forgive their guilt and their sin.",
      "4": "So Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah. While Jeremiah dictated all the words that the Lord had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them on the scroll.",
      "5": "Then Jeremiah gave an order to Baruch, saying, “I am restricted from going into the House of the Lord,",
      "6": "so you will have to go. Read from the scroll you have written at my dictation. Read it in the hearing of all the people of Judah who have come from their cities on a day of fasting.",
      "7": "Perhaps they will make a request to the Lord, and each of them will turn from his evil ways, for the Lord has planned great anger and wrath against this people.”",
      "8": "Baruch son of Neriah did everything that Jeremiah the prophet had commanded him. He read the words of the Lord from the scroll in the House of the Lord.",
      "9": "Later, in the ninth month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, all the people of Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah proclaimed a fast before the Lord.",
      "10": "Then Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the scroll in the House of the Lord, in the hearing of all the people. This was at the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan, the secretary, which was in the upper courtyard at the entrance of the New Gate of the House of the Lord.",
      "11": "When Micaiah son of Gemariah, son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the Lord from the scroll,",
      "12": "he went into the secretary’s room in the king’s palace. All the officials happened to be sitting there: Elishama the secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Akbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials.",
      "13": "Micaiah reported to them all the words he had heard when Baruch read the scroll in the hearing of the people.",
      "14": "Then all the officials sent Jehudi son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to tell Baruch, “Bring the scroll you have read in the hearing of the people, and come here.”\nSo Baruch son of Neriah brought the scroll in his hand and went to them.",
      "15": "They said, “Please sit down and read it to us.” So Baruch read it to them.",
      "16": "When they had heard everything, they turned to one another in fear. They said to Baruch, “We have to report all of these things to the king.”",
      "17": "They asked Baruch, “Tell us, how did you come to write all of this? Did Jeremiah dictate this to you?”",
      "18": "Baruch answered, “He dictated all of these things to me, and I wrote them with ink on the scroll.”",
      "19": "Then the officials said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah go and hide. Do not let anyone know where you are.”",
      "20": "They put the scroll in the room of Elishama the secretary, and then they went to the king in the court. They repeated all of these words to the king.",
      "21": "Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. After he took it from the room of Elishama the secretary, Jehudi read it to the king in the hearing of all the officials who stood beside the king.",
      "22": "Now the king was sitting in the winter house (it was the ninth month), and there was a metal heating pan with a fire of burning coals in front of him.",
      "23": "Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king would cut it off with a scribe’s knife and throw it into the fire until the entire scroll was burned up in the fire.",
      "24": "Neither the king nor his attendants who heard all these words were afraid. They did not tear their clothing.",
      "25": "Even when Elnathan and Delaiah pleaded with the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.",
      "26": "Instead, the king commanded Jerahme’el the king’s son, along with Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abde’el, to arrest Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet. But the Lord hid them.",
      "27": "After the king had burned the scroll containing the words that Baruch had written at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah:",
      "28": "Take another scroll, and write all the earlier words on it that were on the first scroll, the one that Jehoiakim king of Judah burned.",
      "29": "Concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, say: This is what the Lord says. You yourself have burned this scroll. You asked, “Why did you write on it that the king of Babylon would certainly come and destroy the land and cut off both men and animals?”",
      "30": "That is why the Lord says this about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on David’s throne. His dead body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.",
      "31": "I will punish him, his offspring, and his servants for their guilt. I will bring on them and on everyone who lives in Jerusalem and the men of Judah every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they did not listen.",
      "32": "Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to his scribe Baruch son of Neriah, who wrote on it all the same words that had been on the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them."
    },
    "37": {
      "1": "King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, made Zedekiah son of Josiah king in place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim.",
      "2": "But neither Zedekiah nor his attendants nor the people of the land obeyed the word of the Lord that he spoke through the prophet Jeremiah.",
      "3": "Nevertheless, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah with Zephaniah son of Ma’aseiah, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah to request, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us.”",
      "4": "Jeremiah was still moving about freely among the people, for they had not yet put him into prison.",
      "5": "Pharaoh’s army had come out of Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.",
      "6": "Then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Jeremiah.",
      "7": "The Lord, the God of Israel, says to tell this to the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me. Be warned. Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, will go back to Egypt, to their own land.",
      "8": "Then the Chaldeans will return and attack this city. They will capture it and burn it down.",
      "9": "The Lord says: “Do not deceive yourselves by saying, ‘The Chaldeans will surely leave us.’ They will not.",
      "10": "For even if you would defeat the whole Chaldean army attacking you, and there were only wounded men left who were confined to their tents, they would still get up and burn this city down.”",
      "11": "When the Chaldean army had withdrawn from Jerusalem to face Pharaoh’s army,",
      "12": "Jeremiah left Jerusalem to go to the territory of Benjamin to claim his share of the property among the people there.",
      "13": "But as he arrived at the Benjamin Gate, the sentry who was in charge there, named Irijah son of Shelemiah, son of Hananiah, seized Jeremiah the prophet. He said, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans!”",
      "14": "But Jeremiah said, “That is false! I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.”\nBut Irijah did not listen to him. He seized Jeremiah and brought him to the officials.",
      "15": "Angry with Jeremiah, they beat him, and they imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the scribe, because they were using that house as a prison.",
      "16": "Jeremiah was kept in a vaulted cistern for a long time.",
      "17": "Then King Zedekiah sent for him and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, “Is there any word from the Lord?”\nJeremiah answered, “There is. He said, ‘You will be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.’”",
      "18": "Jeremiah also said to King Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison?",
      "19": "Where are your prophets now, who prophesied to you, ‘The king of Babylon will not attack you or this land’?",
      "20": "Now, my lord the king, please listen to me. Let my petition come before you: Please do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, or I will die there.”",
      "21": "Then Zedekiah the king ordered that Jeremiah be placed in the courtyard of the guard. Every day they gave him a loaf of bread from the street of the bakers until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard."
    },
    "38": {
      "1": "Shephatiah son of Mattah, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malkijah heard what Jeremiah had told the people when he said,",
      "2": "“This is what the Lord says. Whoever remains in this city will die by sword, famine, and plague, but whoever goes over to the Chaldeans will live. He will escape with his life, and he will live.",
      "3": "This is what the Lord says. This city will surely be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it.”",
      "4": "Then the officials said to the king, “This man should be put to death because he is demoralizing the soldiers who are left in the city. He is demoralizing all the people by saying these things to them. This man is not seeking the welfare of the people. He wants to hurt them.”",
      "5": "King Zedekiah answered, “Very well. He is in your hands. The king cannot do anything to stop you.”",
      "6": "So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They let Jeremiah down by ropes. There was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.",
      "7": "Ebed Melek the Cushite, an official in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate,",
      "8": "Ebed Melek left the palace and said to the king,",
      "9": "“My lord the king, everything that these men have done to Jeremiah the prophet is evil. They have thrown him into a cistern, where he is likely to die because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city.”",
      "10": "Then the king gave orders to Ebed Melek the Cushite: “Take thirty men from here under your command and lift Jeremiah the prophet up out of the cistern before he dies.”",
      "11": "So Ebed Melek took command of the men and entered a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn-out clothing from there, and he lowered them with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern.",
      "12": "Ebed Melek the Cushite said to Jeremiah, “Put these rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.” After Jeremiah did that,",
      "13": "they lifted him up with the ropes and pulled him out of the cistern. After this Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.",
      "14": "King Zedekiah then sent for Jeremiah and brought him to the third entrance of the temple of the Lord. He said to Jeremiah, “I am going to ask you something. Do not hide anything from me.”",
      "15": "Jeremiah replied, “Won’t you put me to death if I tell you the truth? If I give you advice, you won’t listen to me.”",
      "16": "So King Zedekiah swore a secret oath to Jeremiah: “As surely as the Lord lives, who gave us our lives, I will not put you to death, and I will not hand you over to the men who seek your life.”",
      "17": "Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The Lord, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: If you surrender to the Babylonian king’s officials, your life will be spared, and this city will not be burned. You will live, and your family will live.",
      "18": "But if you will not surrender to the Babylonian king’s officials, then this city will be handed over to the Chaldeans. They will burn it down, and you will not escape from their hands.”",
      "19": "King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have defected to the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans may turn me over to them, and they will torture me.”",
      "20": "But Jeremiah said, “They will not turn you over to them. Please obey the Lord by doing what I tell you. It will go well with you, and your life will be spared.",
      "21": "But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me.",
      "22": "All the women who are left in the palace of the king of Judah will certainly be brought out to the officials of the Babylonian king. Those women will say to you, ‘Those trusted friends of yours misled you and led you to defeat. Your feet have sunk down into the mud, and they all have deserted you.’",
      "23": "They will bring all your wives and children to the Chaldeans. You yourself will not escape their grasp. You will be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned down.”",
      "24": "Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “If you do not let anyone know about this conversation, you will not die.",
      "25": "But if the officials hear that I have spoken with you, they will come and ask you, ‘Tell us what you said to the king. Do not hide it from us, and we will not put you to death—just tell us what the king said to you.’",
      "26": "Tell them, ‘I was humbly begging the king not to return me to the house of Jonathan to die there.’”",
      "27": "All the officials then came to Jeremiah. When they began to question him, he said everything just the way the king had commanded. Then they stopped questioning him, since no one had heard the conversation.",
      "28": "So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured. He was still there when Jerusalem fell."
    },
    "39": {
      "1": "In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it.",
      "2": "In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city wall.",
      "3": "All the officers of the king of Babylon entered and sat down in the middle gate: Nergal Sharezer the staff officer, Nebo Sarsekim a chief officer, Nergal Sharezer a high official, and all the other officials of the king of Babylon.",
      "4": "When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled and left the city at night by way of the king’s garden through the gate between the two walls. Then they went toward the Arabah.",
      "5": "But the Chaldean army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains by Jericho. After they had captured him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath and passed judgment on him.",
      "6": "The king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in front of his eyes at Riblah, and he also killed the nobles of Judah.",
      "7": "Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles and sent him to Babylon.",
      "8": "The Chaldeans burned down the king’s palace and the houses of the people. They also broke down the walls of Jerusalem.",
      "9": "Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried into exile the rest of the people who remained in the city, along with those who had deserted, as well as the rest of the people.",
      "10": "But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing, and he then gave them vineyards and fields.",
      "11": "Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave orders to Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, concerning Jeremiah. He said,",
      "12": "“Take him, look after him, and do him no harm. Do for him whatever he wants.”",
      "13": "So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, Nebushazban the chief officer, Nergal Sharezer a high official, and all the other officials of the king of Babylon",
      "14": "sent for Jeremiah and had him taken out of the courtyard of the guard. They entrusted him to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, to take him to his house. So he remained among his people.",
      "15": "While Jeremiah had still been imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the Lord had come to him:",
      "16": "“Go and tell Ebed Melek the Cushite that this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Watch, I am going to fulfill my words against this city for evil and not for good. They are going to be fulfilled before your eyes.",
      "17": "But I will deliver you on that day, declares the Lord, and you will not be handed over to those you fear.",
      "18": "I will certainly save you. You will not fall by the sword. You will escape with your life, because you have put your trust in me, declares the Lord.”"
    },
    "40": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had released him at Ramah. Jeremiah had been captured and bound in chains with all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were being carried into exile in Babylon.",
      "2": "When the captain of the guard found Jeremiah, he said to him, “The Lord your God pronounced this disaster on this place,",
      "3": "and the Lord has brought it about and has done what he said he would do. This took place because you people sinned against the Lord and did not obey him.",
      "4": "But now, today, I am removing the chains from your wrists. If you wish, come with me to Babylon. I will take care of you. But if this does not seem good to you, then don’t come. The whole land is before you. If there is a place that seems good and right to you, go there.”",
      "5": "But before Jeremiah turned away, he added, “Or you can go to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan. The king of Babylon has made him governor over the cities of Judah. You can live with him among the people. Go wherever it seems right for you to go.”\nThen the commander of the guard gave him a gift and some food and released him.",
      "6": "Jeremiah went to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah and lived with him among the people who had been left behind in the land.",
      "7": "All the army officers who were still in the field and all their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam to be governor of the land, and that he had given him authority over the men, women, children, and over the poorest people of the land—those who were not carried away into exile in Babylon.",
      "8": "They and their men went to Gedaliah at Mizpah—Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Ja’azaniah the son of the Ma’acathite.",
      "9": "Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, swore an oath in the presence of them and their men. He said, “Do not be afraid of the Chaldeans. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.",
      "10": "As for me, I will certainly stay at Mizpah to represent you before the Chaldeans who come to us. As for you, store up wine, summer fruit, and oil, put it into your jars, and live in the towns you have taken over.”",
      "11": "When all the Jews who were in Moab, among the Ammonites, in Edom, and in other lands heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant in Judah, and that he had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, over them,",
      "12": "all those Jews returned from all the places they had been scattered. They returned to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah at Mizpah. There they stored up a large amount of wine and summer fruit.",
      "13": "Then Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers who were still in the field came to Gedaliah at Mizpah",
      "14": "and said to him, “Do you know that Baalis king of the Ammonites has sent Ishmael son of Nethaniah to assassinate you?” But Gedaliah son of Ahikam did not believe them.",
      "15": "Then Johanan son of Kareah spoke secretly to Gedaliah at Mizpah, “I urge you, let me go and kill Ishmael son of Nethaniah. No one will know. Why should he assassinate you and cause all the Jews who are gathered around you to be scattered and the remnant of Judah to perish?”",
      "16": "But Gedaliah son of Ahikam said to Johanan son of Kareah, “Do not do this! What you are saying about Ishmael is false.”"
    },
    "41": {
      "1": "In the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, a descendant of the royal family and one of the chief officers of the king, came with ten men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah. While they were eating a meal together there,",
      "2": "Ishmael son of Nethaniah got up and struck down Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, with a sword, killing the man the king of Babylon had appointed as governor over the land.",
      "3": "Ishmael also struck down all the Jews who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah and also the Chaldean soldiers they found there.",
      "4": "The next day, the day after Gedaliah was assassinated, before anyone knew about it,",
      "5": "men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria—eighty men in all—with their beards shaved, their clothing torn, and their bodies gashed. They came bringing grain offerings and incense to the House of the Lord.",
      "6": "Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping as he came. As he met them he said, “Come to Gedaliah son of Ahikam.”",
      "7": "When they got to the middle of the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and the men with him began to kill them, throwing their bodies into a cistern.",
      "8": "But ten of them said to Ishmael, “Don’t kill us! We have food hidden in the countryside: wheat, barley, oil, and honey!”\nSo he stopped and did not murder them along with the others.",
      "9": "Now the cistern into which Ishmael threw all the dead bodies of the murdered men was a large one, which had been built by King Asa to defend against Ba’asha king of Israel. Ishmael son of Nethaniah filled it with the murdered men.",
      "10": "Then Ishmael made prisoners of all the people who were left in Mizpah, including the king’s daughters and the others who were left there in Mizpah—people whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, had placed under the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam. Ishmael son of Nethaniah took them as prisoners and set out to cross over to the Ammonites.",
      "11": "But when Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him heard about all the crimes that Ishmael son of Nethaniah had committed,",
      "12": "they took all of their men and went to attack Ishmael son of Nethaniah. They caught up with him by the great pool at Gibeon.",
      "13": "When all the people with Ishmael saw Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers who were with him, they were glad.",
      "14": "All of the people whom Ishmael had taken prisoner turned back and went to Johanan son of Kareah.",
      "15": "But Ishmael son of Nethaniah and eight of his men escaped from Johanan and went over to the Ammonites.",
      "16": "Then Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers with him took all the survivors from Mizpah, whom he had recovered from Ishmael son of Nethaniah after Ishmael had killed Gedaliah son of Ahikam—the soldiers, the women, the children, and the court officials that Johanan had brought back from Gibeon.",
      "17": "They left there and stayed at Geruth Kimham near Bethlehem. They were on the way to Egypt",
      "18": "because they were afraid of the Chaldeans, since Ishmael son of Nethaniah had killed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed as governor over the land."
    },
    "42": {
      "1": "Then all the army officers, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest approached Jeremiah.",
      "2": "They said to him, “Please hear our request and pray to the Lord your God for us, for this group of survivors. As you can see, only a few of us are left, though once there were many.",
      "3": "Pray that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go and what we should do.”",
      "4": "Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Certainly, I will pray to the Lord your God as you have asked. I will tell you whatever the Lord answers. I will keep nothing back from you.”",
      "5": "Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not do everything the Lord your God directs you to tell us.",
      "6": "Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, of whom you are inquiring for us. May it go well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.”",
      "7": "Ten days later, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.",
      "8": "He called Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him, along with all of the people from the least to the greatest,",
      "9": "and he reported this to them:\nThe Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your request, says this:",
      "10": "If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down. I will plant you and not uproot you, for I am grieving over the disaster I brought upon you.",
      "11": "Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear. Do not be afraid of him, declares the Lord, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand.",
      "12": "I will be merciful to you so that he will be merciful to you and will send you back to your own land.",
      "13": "But if you say, “We will not remain in this land,” and if you disobey the voice of the Lord your God,",
      "14": "and if you say, “No, we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will see no war, hear no battle signal from the ram’s horn, and experience no hunger for bread, and we will live there,”",
      "15": "then hear the word of the Lord, you survivors from Judah. This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. If you are determined to go and live in Egypt,",
      "16": "then the sword you fear will overtake you in Egypt, the famine you dread will follow you there in Egypt, and you will die there.",
      "17": "This is what will happen to everyone who is determined to go into Egypt. All of them will die by the sword, famine, and plague. None of them will survive or escape from the disaster I am going to bring on them.",
      "18": "This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. As my anger and my wrath have been poured out on those who live in Jerusalem, so will my wrath be poured out on you when you go to Egypt. You will be an object of horror and derision, an object of cursing and ridicule. You will never see this place again.",
      "19": "This is what the Lord says concerning you, you remaining survivors from Judah: Do not go to Egypt. You can be certain about this. I am warning you today",
      "20": "that you have put your own souls in danger by sending me to the Lord your God and saying, “Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us everything the Lord our God says, and we will do it.”",
      "21": "I have told you this today, but you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God in anything he sent me to tell you.",
      "22": "Therefore, be certain about this. You will die by the sword, famine, and plague in the place where you want to go and live."
    },
    "43": {
      "1": "When Jeremiah finished telling the people all the words of the Lord their God (everything the Lord had sent him to tell them),",
      "2": "Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying. The Lord our God did not send you to tell us, ‘Do not go to Egypt to settle there.’",
      "3": "Baruch son of Neriah has turned you against us, in order to hand us over to the Chaldeans, so that they may kill us or carry us away to Babylon as captives.”",
      "4": "So Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers disobeyed the voice of the Lord, who was commanding them to remain in the land of Judah.",
      "5": "Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers took away everyone who remained in Judah, everyone who had returned to live in the land of Judah from the nations where they had been driven:",
      "6": "the men, women, and children, the king’s daughters, and everyone else that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and also Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah.",
      "7": "They entered the land of Egypt, disobeying the voice of the Lord, and they went as far as Tahpanhes.",
      "8": "In Tahpanhes the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. The Lord said,",
      "9": "“Take some large stones in your hand while the men of Judah are watching, and bury them in the mudbrick pavement at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace at Tahpanhes.",
      "10": "Tell them that this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Be sure of this. I will send for my servant, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and I will set his throne on these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his royal canopy over them.",
      "11": "He will come and attack Egypt, bringing death to those doomed to death, captivity to those doomed to captivity, and the sword to those doomed to the sword.",
      "12": "I will set fire to the temples of the gods of Egypt. He will burn them—or carry them away to captivity. He will wrap Egypt around himself as a shepherd wraps a cloak around himself. Then he will go away in peace.",
      "13": "He will smash the sacred obelisks in the temple of the sun in the land of Egypt, and he will burn down the temples of the Egyptian gods.”"
    },
    "44": {
      "1": "The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who lived in the land of Egypt—in Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis, and also in Upper Egypt:",
      "2": "This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. You have seen the disaster I brought on Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah. You see that today they are desolate and no one lives there",
      "3": "because they committed evil and provoked me to anger. They burned incense to serve other gods that neither they, nor you, nor your fathers knew.",
      "4": "I kept sending my servants the prophets to you again and again, saying, “Do not do this detestable thing that I hate.”",
      "5": "But they did not listen or pay attention. They did not turn away from their wickedness or stop burning incense to other gods.",
      "6": "Therefore, my wrath and anger were poured out and ignited against the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and they were laid waste and desolate, as they are this day.",
      "7": "Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Why are you doing such an evil thing to yourselves? You are cutting off from Judah man and woman, children and infants, leaving no one remaining.",
      "8": "Why are you provoking me to anger with the idols your hands have made? Why are you burning incense to other gods in Egypt where you have gone to live? You will cut yourselves off, making yourselves an object of cursing and ridicule among all the nations of the earth.",
      "9": "Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, the wickedness of the king of Judah, the wickedness of their wives, your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?",
      "10": "They have not humbled themselves even to this day. They have not feared me or walked in my law or in my statutes that I set before you and your fathers.",
      "11": "Therefore the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I will certainly set my face against you to bring disaster, to cut off all Judah.",
      "12": "I will remove the survivors of Judah who are determined to go to Egypt and settle there, and they will be consumed. In the land of Egypt they will fall. They will be consumed by sword and famine. They will die, from the least to the greatest, by sword and famine. They will become an object of horror and derision, an object of cursing and ridicule.",
      "13": "I will punish those who go to live in the land of Egypt as I punished Jerusalem—with the sword, famine, and plague—",
      "14": "so that none of the survivors of Judah who have gone to live in Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah, to which they long to return in order to live there, because none of them will return, except a few refugees.",
      "15": "Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, and all the women who were standing there—a large crowd—and all the people living in Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt answered Jeremiah:",
      "16": "“We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord,",
      "17": "but instead we will continue doing everything that we said we would do. We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and we will pour out drink offerings to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our officials used to do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. Then we had plenty of food. We were prosperous, and we had no troubles.",
      "18": "But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and stopped pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing at all, and we have been consumed by sword and famine.”",
      "19": "Then the women said, “When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make the cakes in her image and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands’ approval?”",
      "20": "Then Jeremiah said to all the people, both men and women, who were answering him,",
      "21": "“Do you think the Lord did not remember the incense you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem—you, your ancestors, your kings and officials, and the people of the land? Do you think this did not enter his mind?",
      "22": "When the Lord could no longer bear your evil acts and the disgusting things you did, your land became a desolate wasteland, a cursed land, with no one living there to this day.",
      "23": "It is because you have burned incense and sinned against the Lord, because you have not obeyed him or walked in his law, his statutes, and his decrees, that this disaster has come upon you now.”",
      "24": "Jeremiah then said to all the people, including the women, “Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah in Egypt.”",
      "25": "The Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this. You and your wives have declared with your words and your actions that you will keep the vows you made to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her. Do what you promised! By all means, fulfill your vows!",
      "26": "But hear the word of the Lord, all you Jews living in Egypt. Listen! I swear by my great name, declares the Lord, that my name will no longer be spoken by anyone from Judah living anywhere in Egypt, nor will they swear, “As surely as the Lord God lives.”",
      "27": "Look at this! I am watching over them to bring disaster, not good, and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will be consumed by sword and famine until they are all gone.",
      "28": "Those who escape the sword and return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah will be very few. Then all the remnant of Judah who entered Egypt to live there will know whose word will stand—mine or theirs.",
      "29": "This will be a sign to you, declares the Lord. I will punish you in this place. Then you will know that my warnings to bring disaster upon you will stand.",
      "30": "This is what the Lord says. Watch me. I am handing Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt, over to his enemies who seek his life, just as I handed Zedekiah king of Judah over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the enemy who sought his life."
    },
    "45": {
      "1": "This is the message that Jeremiah the prophet gave to Baruch son of Neriah when he was writing down on a scroll the words that Jeremiah was dictating. This was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you, Baruch.",
      "3": "You said, “Woe is me! The Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am worn out with groaning and I have found no rest.”",
      "4": "This is what the Lord says. Tell him that I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted throughout the whole world.",
      "5": "So should you then be seeking great things for yourself? Stop seeking them. I will certainly bring disaster on every living thing, declares the Lord. But in every place you go, I will let you hang on to your life like a prize of war."
    },
    "46": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations:",
      "2": "Concerning Egypt:\nConcerning the strong army of Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated at Carchemish on the Euphrates River in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah:",
      "3": "Arrange your shields, both large and small,\nand march out for battle!",
      "4": "Harness the horses!\nMount up, you horsemen!\nTake up your stations with your helmets on.\nPolish your spears.\nPut on your armor!",
      "5": "But what do I see?\nThey are terrified.\nThey are turning back.\nTheir warriors are beaten.\nThey are fleeing without looking back.\nThere is terror on every side! declares the Lord.",
      "6": "There is no chance for the swift to flee.\nThere is no escape for the strong.\nIn the north, near the River Euphrates,\nthey stumble and fall.",
      "7": "Who is this, rising like the Nile,\nlike rivers with surging waters?",
      "8": "It is Egypt that rises like the Nile,\nlike rivers with surging waters.\nEgypt said, “I will rise.\nI will cover the earth.\nI will destroy cities\nand those who live in them.”",
      "9": "Horses, charge!\nCharioteers, drive like madmen!\nForward, you warriors,\nyou men of Cush and Put who carry the shield,\nyou men of Lud who grasp and bend the bow!",
      "10": "That day is the day of the Lord, the God of Armies.\nIt is a day of vengeance,\nwhen he will take vengeance on his foes.",
      "11": "Go up to Gilead and get balm,\n    virgin daughter of Egypt!\nYou have tried many medicines with no results.\nThere is no healing for you.",
      "12": "The nations have heard of your shame,\nand your cry fills the earth.\nWarrior stumbles against warrior,\nand the two of them fall together.",
      "13": "This is the word the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet about the coming of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to strike the land of Egypt.",
      "14": "Declare this in Egypt. Proclaim it in Migdol.\nProclaim it in Memphis and Tahpanhes.\nSay, “Take your positions and get ready.\nThe sword is going to devour those around you.”",
      "15": "Why are your mighty ones laid low?\nThey cannot stand, for the Lord has pushed them down.",
      "16": "He made many stumble.\nThey fall against each other.\nThey say, “Get up! Let’s go back to our people\nand to the land of our birth,\naway from the sword of our oppressor.”",
      "17": "There they will cry out,\n“Pharaoh king of Egypt is only a loud noise.\nHe has missed his opportunity.”",
      "18": "As surely as I live, declares the King,\nwhose name is the Lord of Armies,\nsomeone is coming who is like Tabor among the mountains,\nand like Carmel by the sea.",
      "19": "Get your bags ready to go into exile,\n    you daughter who dwells in Egypt,\nfor Memphis will become a desolation\nand lie in ruins without an inhabitant.",
      "20": "Egypt is a lovely heifer,\nbut a horsefly has come against her out of the north.",
      "21": "The mercenaries in her ranks are like fattened calves.\nThey will turn and flee together.\nThey will not stand,\nfor the day of disaster has come upon them,\nthe time for their punishment.",
      "22": "Egypt will hiss like a snake,\nbecause the enemy will advance as an army.\nIt will come against her with axes,\nlike men who cut down trees.",
      "23": "They will cut down her forest, declares the Lord,\nthough it is impenetrable,\neven though they are more numerous than locusts,\neven though they are too many to count.",
      "24": "The daughter of Egypt will be put to shame,\nhanded over to the people from the north.",
      "25": "The Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Watch, I will punish Amon god of Thebes, along with Pharaoh, with Egypt, her gods, and her kings—Pharaoh and those who trust in him.",
      "26": "I will hand them over to those who seek their lives, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and his officers.\nBut afterward Egypt will be inhabited as in former days, declares the Lord.",
      "27": "But do not be afraid, my servant Jacob.\nDo not be terrified, Israel,\nbecause I will save you from a faraway place,\nand I will rescue your descendants from the land where\n        they are captives.\nJacob will return.\nHe will enjoy quiet and be at ease,\nand no one will make him afraid.",
      "28": "Do not be afraid, my servant Jacob, declares the Lord,\nfor I am with you.\nI will completely destroy all the nations\n    among which I have scattered you,\nbut I will not completely destroy you.\nI will discipline you with justice,\nand I will not regard you as entirely innocent."
    },
    "47": {
      "1": "This is the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before Pharaoh struck Gaza.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord says.\nSee, waters rise up out of the north,\nand they will become an overflowing stream.\nThey will overflow the land and everything in it,\nthe cities and those who live there.\nThe people will cry out,\nand everyone who lives in the land will wail",
      "3": "at the sound of the stamping hoofs of his steeds,\n    at the rumbling of his chariots,\n    at the roar of his wheels.\nFathers will not turn back for their sons,\nbecause their hands will hang limp,",
      "4": "on account of the day that is coming to destroy all the Philistines,\nto cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper who survives.\nFor the Lord will destroy the Philistines,\nthe surviving remnant from the shores of Caphtor.",
      "5": "Baldness is coming to Gaza.\nAshkelon will be destroyed.\nYou survivors left on the plain,\nhow long will you cut yourselves?",
      "6": "O sword of the Lord!\nHow long until you rest?\nReturn to your scabbard.\nRest and be still.",
      "7": "How can you rest since the Lord has commanded this?\nAgainst Ashkelon and against the shore of the sea,\n        he has assigned the sword."
    },
    "48": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.\nWoe to Nebo! It will be destroyed.\nKiriathaim will be disgraced and captured.\nThe stronghold will be disgraced and broken down.",
      "2": "There will no longer be any praise for Moab.\nThey have plotted evil against her in Heshbon:\n“Come, let us destroy that nation!”\nYou will be silenced, O Madmen.\nThe sword will pursue you.",
      "3": "The sound of a cry from Horonaim,\ndesolation and great destruction!",
      "4": "Moab is destroyed.\nHer little ones will cry out.",
      "5": "Now they go up the ascent to Luhith,\n    weeping continually.\nAnd on the descent of Horonaim\nthey have heard the cry of distress\n    caused by the destruction.",
      "6": "Flee! Save your lives!\nBe like a juniper bush in the wilderness.",
      "7": "Because you trusted in your works and treasures,\nyou too will be taken.\nChemosh will go into exile,\ntogether with his priests and officials.",
      "8": "The destroyer will come against every city,\nand no city will escape.\nThe valley will also perish,\nand the tableland will be destroyed, as the Lord has spoken.",
      "9": "Give Moab a blossom, but it will blow away completely.\nHer cities will become desolate\nwith no one to live in them.",
      "10": "Cursed is the one who is negligent in doing the Lord’s work.\nCursed is the one who holds back his sword from bloodshed.",
      "11": "Moab has been at peace since its youth,\nundisturbed, like wine on its dregs,\nnever poured from one vessel to another.\nIt has never gone into captivity.\nThat is why it tastes the same as it always did,\nand its aroma is unchanged.",
      "12": "Therefore, know this: the days are coming, declares the Lord,\nwhen I will send to Moab people who pour,\nand they will pour it out.\nThey will drain its containers\nand smash its jars.",
      "13": "Moab will be ashamed of Chemosh,\nas the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, in which they trusted.",
      "14": "How can you say, “We are mighty warriors,\ncourageous soldiers?”",
      "15": "Moab is laid waste,\nand they have gone up into its cities.\nIts finest young men have gone down to be slaughtered.\nThe declaration of the King,\nwhose name is the Lord of Armies:",
      "16": "The destruction of Moab is approaching,\nand its disaster hurries swiftly.",
      "17": "Mourn for it, all you surrounding nations.\nAll you who know its name say,\n“How the mighty scepter is broken,\nthe glorious staff!”",
      "18": "Come down from your glory,\nand sit on the parched ground,\nyou who dwell in Dibon.\nMoab’s destroyer has come up against you.\nHe has destroyed your strongholds.",
      "19": "Stand beside the road and watch,\nyou who dwell in Aroer.\nAsk him who flees, ask her who escapes,\n“What has happened?”",
      "20": "Moab is withered,\nfor it is broken down.\nWail and cry!\nTell it by the Arnon, that Moab has been destroyed.",
      "21": "Judgment has come upon the tableland, on Holon, on Jahzah, on Mepha’ath,",
      "22": "on Dibon, on Nebo, on Beth Diblathaim,",
      "23": "on Kiriathaim, on Beth Gamul, on Beth Meon,",
      "24": "on Kerioth, on Bozrah, and on all the towns of the land of Moab, far and near.",
      "25": "The horn of Moab is cut off,\nand his arm is broken, declares the Lord.",
      "26": "Make him drunk,\nbecause he exalted himself against the Lord.\nMoab will wallow in his vomit,\nand he will be ridiculed.",
      "27": "Was not Israel ridiculed by you?\nWas Israel caught among thieves,\nso that whenever you speak of him,\nyou shake your head?",
      "28": "You who live in Moab, abandon the cities and dwell in the rocks.\nBe like a dove that makes her nest over the mouth of a chasm.",
      "29": "We have heard about the pride of Moab.\nHe is very arrogant.\nHe is smug, he is conceited,\nhe is proud, and his heart is haughty.",
      "30": "I know his insolence, says the Lord.\nIt is empty, and so are his deeds.",
      "31": "Therefore I will wail for Moab.\nI will cry out for all of Moab.\nI will mourn for the men of Kir Hareseth.",
      "32": "I will weep for you, vine of Sibmah,\nmore than Jazer.\nYour branches passed over the sea.\nThey reached to the Sea of Jazer.\nThe destroyer has fallen on your summer fruit\nand on your grapes.",
      "33": "Gladness and joy have been taken from the fertile field\nand from the land of Moab.\nI have stopped the flow of wine from the winepresses.\nNo one will tread them with shouts of joy.\nThe shouting is not shouting for joy.",
      "34": "There is an outcry from Heshbon to Elealeh.\nThey raise their voices as far as Jahaz,\nfrom Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath Shelishiyah,\nand even the waters of Nimrim have dried up.",
      "35": "In Moab, declares the Lord,\nI will stop the one who presents offerings on the high places\nand burns incense to his gods.",
      "36": "Therefore, my heart wails like a flute for Moab,\nand for the men of Kir Hareseth my heart wails like a flute.\nEven the wealth they have acquired is gone.",
      "37": "Every head is shaved, and every beard is clipped.\nEvery hand is cut, and there is sackcloth around their waists.",
      "38": "On all the rooftops of Moab\nand in its streets there is wailing,\nbecause I have broken Moab like an unwanted jar,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "39": "How broken she is!\nHow they wail!\nHow Moab turns her back in shame!\nSo Moab will be ridiculed\nand be a horror to all around.",
      "40": "For the Lord says:\nWatch, he will fly like an eagle,\nand he will spread his wings against Moab.",
      "41": "Kerioth is taken,\nand the strongholds are seized.\nOn that day the hearts of Moab’s strong warriors\n    will be like the heart of a woman in labor.",
      "42": "Moab will be destroyed as a nation\nbecause he has defied the Lord.",
      "43": "Panic, pit, and peril are before you,\nyou who live in Moab, declares the Lord.",
      "44": "Whoever flees from the panic will fall into the pit.\nWhoever gets out of the pit will be trapped in the snare,\nfor I will bring on Moab the year of their punishment,\nsays the Lord.",
      "45": "Those who fled stand helpless under the shadow of Heshbon,\nbecause a fire has gone out from Heshbon,\nand a flame from the midst of Sihon.\nIt has burned the foreheads of Moab,\nand the tops of the heads of those who boast.",
      "46": "Woe to you, O Moab!\nThe people of Chemosh are destroyed,\nfor your sons are taken away captive,\nand your daughters go into exile.",
      "47": "Nevertheless, I will reverse the captivity of Moab in days to come,\n    declares the Lord.\nThis is the conclusion of the judgment against Moab."
    },
    "49": {
      "1": "Concerning the people of Ammon, this is what the Lord says:\nHas Israel no sons?\nHas he no heir?\nWhy then does Milcom possess Gad?\nWhy do his people live in Israel’s cities?",
      "2": "Watch, the days are coming, declares the Lord,\nwhen I will sound a battle cry against Rabbah of the Ammonites,\nand it will become a desolate heap.\nHer villages will be burned down,\nand then Israel will possess those who possessed him,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "3": "Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste!\nCry, you daughters of Rabbah!\nPut on sackcloth and mourn.\nRun back and forth behind the walls,\nbecause Milcom is about to go into captivity,\nwith his priests and his officials.",
      "4": "Why do you boast about your valleys,\nyour flowing valley, you backsliding daughter?\nYou trusted in your treasures, saying,\n“Who will come against me?”",
      "5": "Look out! I will bring terror upon you,\nsays the Lord God of Armies,\nterror from every side.\nAll of you will be completely driven out,\nand there will be no one to gather together the fugitives.",
      "6": "But afterward I will restore the captives of the Ammonites,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "7": "Concerning Edom, this is what the Lord of Armies says:\nIs there no more wisdom in Teman?\nHas counsel perished from the prudent?\nHas their wisdom vanished?",
      "8": "Flee! Turn back!\nDwell in the depths, you who live in Dedan,\nfor I will bring the disaster of Esau on him when I punish him.",
      "9": "If grape pickers came to you,\nwouldn’t they leave some grapes for gleaning?\nIf thieves came by night,\nwouldn’t they stop when they had stolen enough?",
      "10": "But I have stripped Esau bare.\nI have uncovered his secret places,\nand he will not be able to hide himself.\nHis offspring are destroyed,\nalong with his brothers and his neighbors,\nand he is no more.",
      "11": "Leave your fatherless children.\nI will preserve their lives.\nLet your widows trust in me.",
      "12": "For the Lord says: If those who did not deserve to drink from the cup must drink it, will you escape unpunished? No, you will not remain unpunished. You must drink.",
      "13": "For I have sworn by myself, declares the Lord, that Bozrah will become a horror, a disgrace, ruins, and a curse. All its cities will be perpetual ruins.",
      "14": "I have heard news from the Lord,\nand a messenger has been sent to the nations:\n“Gather yourselves together,\nand come against her!\nRise up for the battle!”",
      "15": "Look, I have made you small among the nations\nand despised among mankind.",
      "16": "The terror you instill has deceived you,\nthe pride of your heart.\nYou who dwell in the clefts of the rock,\nwho occupy the high point of the hill,\neven though you make your nest as high as the eagle’s nest,\nI will bring you down from there, declares the Lord.",
      "17": "Edom will become a horror.\nEveryone who passes by it will be shocked,\nand they will hiss because of all its disasters.",
      "18": "As Sodom and Gomorrah\nand their neighboring cities were overthrown,\nsays the Lord,\nno one will live there.\nNot one person will dwell in it.",
      "19": "Watch this.\nLike a lion coming out of the thickets of the Jordan\n    into the pastures that are always green,\nI will suddenly chase Edom away from its land,\nand I will appoint whomever I choose over it.\nFor who is like me?\nWho can challenge me?\nWhat shepherd can stand before me?",
      "20": "Therefore, hear what the Lord has planned for Edom,\nwhat he intends to do against the people of Teman.\nEven the little ones of the flock will be dragged away.\nHe will make their pasture desolate because of them.",
      "21": "The earth will tremble at the noise of their fall.\nTheir cry will be heard all the way to the Red Sea.",
      "22": "Watch, he will come up and fly like an eagle.\nHe will spread out his wings against Bozrah.\nIn that day the hearts of the strong warriors of Edom\n    will be like the heart of a woman during her labor pains.",
      "23": "Concerning Damascus:\nHamath and Arpad are troubled,\nfor they have heard bad news.\nThey melt in fear.\nLike a troubled sea,\nthey cannot find rest.",
      "24": "Damascus has become feeble.\nShe turns to flee.\nPanic has seized her.\nAnguish and sorrows have taken hold of her,\n    like those of a woman in labor.",
      "25": "Why is this famous city not yet forsaken,\nthe joyful city?",
      "26": "Therefore, her young men will fall in her streets,\nand all her warriors will be destroyed on that day,\ndeclares the Lord of Armies.",
      "27": "I will set fire to the walls of Damascus,\nand it will devour the citadels of Ben Hadad.",
      "28": "Concerning Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck, this is what the Lord says:\nArise, go up to Kedar,\nand destroy the people of the East.",
      "29": "Their tents and their flocks will be taken,\ntheir tent curtains and everything in their tents.\nTheir camels will be taken away from them,\nand men will shout to them, “Terror on every side!”",
      "30": "Quick, fly away!\nHide in deep caves, you who live in Hazor,\ndeclares the Lord,\nbecause Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has plotted against you,\nand he has made plans to defeat you.",
      "31": "Arise! Attack a nation at ease, that lives without care,\ndeclares the Lord,\na nation that has neither gates nor bars, that lives by itself.",
      "32": "Their camels will be plunder,\nand their vast herds of livestock a prize.\nI will scatter to all the winds those who live in distant places,\nand I will bring disaster on them from every side,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "33": "Hazor will be a place where jackals live,\na desolate place forever.\nNo man will live there.\nNo one will live in that place even as a temporary resident.",
      "34": "This is the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam, early in the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah:",
      "35": "This is what the Lord of Armies says.\nLook, I will break the bow of Elam,\nthe main source of its power.",
      "36": "I will bring against Elam the four winds,\nfrom the four corners of the sky.\nI will scatter its people to the four winds.\nThere will not be a nation\n    where the outcasts of Elam do not go.",
      "37": "I will make Elam terrified of their enemies,\nthose who seek their lives.\nI will bring disaster on them,\nnamely, my fierce anger, declares the Lord,\nand I will send the sword after them,\nuntil I have consumed them.",
      "38": "I will set up my throne in Elam,\nand there I will destroy their king and officials,\ndeclares the Lord.",
      "39": "Yet I will reverse the captivity of Elam in days to come,\ndeclares the Lord."
    },
    "50": {
      "1": "The word that the Lord spoke concerning Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet:",
      "2": "Declare and proclaim this among the nations.\nSet up a signal flag.\nProclaim and do not hide it.\nSay this:\nBabylon has been taken.\nBel has been put to shame.\nMarduk is terrified.\nBabylon’s images have been put to shame.\nHer filthy idols are terrified.",
      "3": "A nation has come up against her out of the north.\nIt will make her land desolate,\nand no one will dwell in it.\nBoth man and animal have wandered away.\nThey are gone.",
      "4": "In those days, and in that time, declares the Lord,\nthe people of Israel will come,\nthey and the people of Judah together with them.\nThey will come weeping,\nand they will seek the Lord their God.",
      "5": "They will ask the way to Zion and turn toward it,\nsaying, “Come, join yourselves to the Lord\n    in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.”",
      "6": "My people have been lost sheep.\nTheir shepherds have led them astray.\nThey have turned them aside on the mountains.\nThey have gone from mountain to hill.\nThey have forgotten their resting place.",
      "7": "All who found them have devoured them.\nTheir enemies said, “We are not guilty,\nbecause they sinned against the Lord,\nwho is their rightful pasture,\nthe Lord, the hope of their fathers.”",
      "8": "Flee from Babylon!\nLeave the land of the Chaldeans.\nBe like the male goats that lead the flock.",
      "9": "Watch, I will stir up and bring against Babylon\n    an assembly of great nations from the land of the north.\nThey will array themselves against her,\nand she will be taken away captive from there.\nTheir arrows will be like those of a skilled warrior\n    who does not return empty-handed.",
      "10": "Chaldea will be plundered.\nAll who prey on her will have their fill, declares the Lord.",
      "11": "Because you are glad and rejoice,\nyou who plunder my inheritance,\nbecause you leap like a heifer that treads out the grain,\nand you neigh like strong horses,",
      "12": "your mother will be completely put to shame.\nShe who gave birth to you will be humiliated.\nWatch, she will become the least of the nations,\na wilderness, a desert, a wasteland.",
      "13": "Because of the Lord’s wrath she will not be inhabited.\nShe will be completely desolate.\nEveryone who passes by Babylon will be astonished.\nEveryone will mock her because of all her wounds.",
      "14": "Line up for battle against Babylon and surround her.\nAll you who bend the bow, shoot at her.\nDon’t save any arrows,\nbecause she has sinned against the Lord.",
      "15": "Shout against her from all sides.\nShe surrenders!\nHer fortifications have fallen.\nHer walls have been thrown down.\nThis is the vengeance of the Lord.\nTake vengeance on her!\nDo to her as she has done to others!",
      "16": "Cut off the sower from Babylon,\nand the one who swings the sickle at harvest time.\nThey will each return to their own people.\nThey will each flee to their own land\n    because they fear the sword of the oppressor.",
      "17": "Israel is a scattered flock of sheep that lions have chased away.\nFirst, the king of Assyria devoured him.\nNow, the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.",
      "18": "Therefore this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says:\nI will certainly punish the king of Babylon and his land,\nas I punished the king of Assyria.",
      "19": "I will restore Israel to his pasture.\nHe will feed on Carmel and in Bashan.\nHis soul will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.",
      "20": "In those days and at that time, declares the Lord,\nthe guilt of Israel will be sought,\nbut there will be none.\nThe sins of Judah will be sought,\nbut they will not be found,\nfor I will forgive the survivors whom I spare.",
      "21": "Go up against the land of Merathaim\nand against those who live in Pekod.\nKill them and destroy them, declares the Lord.\nDo everything I have commanded you.",
      "22": "The noise of battle is in the land,\nthe noise of great destruction.",
      "23": "How the hammer of the whole earth\n    is smashed and broken to pieces!\nHow Babylon has become a horror among the nations!",
      "24": "I set a trap for you, Babylon,\nand you were caught before you knew it.\nYou were found and captured,\nbecause you fought against the Lord.",
      "25": "The Lord has opened his arsenal\nand brought out his weapons of wrath,\nfor the Lord God of Armies has work to do\n    in the land of the Chaldeans.",
      "26": "Come against her from far away.\nOpen up her granaries,\nand pile her up like heaps of grain.\nDestroy her completely.\nLet nothing be left.",
      "27": "Kill all her young bulls.\nLet them go down to the slaughter.\nWoe to them, for their day has come,\nthe time for their punishment.",
      "28": "Listen to the fugitives and refugees from Babylon!\nThey proclaim in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God,\nvengeance for what was done to his temple.",
      "29": "Call the archers to Babylon,\nall those who bend the bow.\nSet up camp all around her.\nDon’t let her escape.\nPay her back for her deeds.\nDo to her what she has done,\nbecause she has defied the Lord,\nthe Holy One of Israel.",
      "30": "Therefore her young men will fall in the streets.\nAll her soldiers will be silenced in that day, declares the Lord.",
      "31": "Look, I am against you, you proud one, declares the Lord God of Armies.\nYour day has come,\nthe time for your punishment.",
      "32": "The proud king will stumble and fall,\nand no one will help him up.\nIn his cities I will start a fire\n    that will consume everyone around him.",
      "33": "This is what the Lord of Armies says.\nThe children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed.\nAll their captors hold them fast.\nThey refuse to let them go.",
      "34": "But their Redeemer is strong.\nThe Lord of Armies is his name.\nHe himself will take up their cause\n    so that he may bring rest to the earth,\n    and unrest to those who live in Babylon.",
      "35": "A sword against the Chaldeans, declares the Lord,\nand against those who live in Babylon,\nagainst her officials and her wise men!",
      "36": "A sword against her empty boasters!\nThey will become fools.\nA sword against her strong warriors!\nThey will be filled with terror.",
      "37": "A sword against their horses and chariots!\nAll the foreigners in her ranks will become as weak as women.\nA sword against her treasures!\nThey will be looted.",
      "38": "A sword against her waters!\nThey will be dried up,\nbecause it is a land of idols,\nand they are driven mad by those dreadful images.",
      "39": "That is why desert animals and hyenas will live there,\nand shrieking ostriches will dwell there.\nIt will never again be inhabited.\nIt will never be lived in from generation to generation.",
      "40": "Just as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah\nand their neighboring cities, declares the Lord,\nno one will dwell there.\nNo one will live there even as a temporary resident.",
      "41": "Look! A people comes from the north!\nA great nation and many kings are being stirred up\n    from the ends of the earth.",
      "42": "They take up bow and spear.\nThey are cruel and merciless.\nTheir roar sounds like the sea.\nThey ride on horses,\narrayed in battle formation against you, daughter of Babylon.",
      "43": "The king of Babylon has heard the report about them,\nand his hands hang limp.\nAnguish grips him,\npains like a woman in labor.",
      "44": "Watch this!\nLike a lion coming out of the thickets of the Jordan\n    into the pastures that are always green,\nI will suddenly chase Babylon away from its land,\nand I will appoint whomever I choose over it.\nFor who is like me?\nWho can challenge me?\n    What shepherd can stand before me?",
      "45": "Therefore hear what the Lord has planned for Babylon,\nand what he intends to do against the land of the Chaldeans:\nEven the little ones of the flock will be dragged away.\nHe will make their pasture desolate because of them.",
      "46": "The earth will tremble at the noise of Babylon’s fall.\nTheir cry will be heard among the nations."
    },
    "51": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord says:\nWatch, I will stir up a destroying wind against Babylon\nand against the people who live in Leb Kamai.",
      "2": "I will send foreigners to Babylon\n    to winnow her and empty her land.\nThey will oppose her on every side in the day of trouble.",
      "3": "Bend your bow against anyone who bends a bow\nand against anyone who stands in armor.\nDo not spare the young men.\nCompletely destroy her army.",
      "4": "They fall down, slain in the land of Chaldea,\nmortally wounded in her streets.",
      "5": "Israel and Judah are not forsaken by God, the Lord of Armies,\nthough their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel.",
      "6": "Flee from the midst of Babylon!\nEveryone, save your lives!\nDo not be cut off because of her guilt,\nfor it is the time for the Lord’s vengeance.\nHe will punish them as they deserve.",
      "7": "Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand.\nShe made the whole world drunk.\nThe nations have drunk her wine,\nand now they have gone mad.",
      "8": "Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is broken.\nWail for her.\nTake balm to her for her pain.\nPerhaps she can be healed.",
      "9": "We would have healed Babylon,\nbut she cannot be healed.\nLeave her! Everyone go to his own land,\nbecause her judgment reaches to the heavens.\nIt rises up to the clouds.",
      "10": "The Lord has brought our vindication.\nCome, let us declare in Zion what the Lord our God has done.",
      "11": "Sharpen the arrows!\nHang on to the shields!\nThe Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes,\nbecause his purpose is to destroy Babylon.\nThis is the vengeance of the Lord,\nvengeance for his temple.",
      "12": "Raise a signal flag against the walls of Babylon!\nStrengthen the guard!\nSet the watch,\nand prepare an ambush!\nThe Lord has done what he said he would do\n    against the inhabitants of Babylon.",
      "13": "You who live by many waters,\nyou who are rich in treasures,\nyour end has come,\nthe full measure of your violence.",
      "14": "The Lord of Armies has sworn by himself:\nSurely I will fill you with men,\nas if I were filling you with locusts.\nThey will raise the shout of victory over you.",
      "15": "He is the One who made the earth by his power\nand established the world by his wisdom.\nBy his understanding he stretched out the heavens.",
      "16": "He thunders, and the waters in the heavens roar.\nHe makes storm clouds rise from the ends of the earth.\nHe makes lightning for the rain,\nand he brings the wind out from his warehouses.",
      "17": "But as for mankind, they are all stupid.\nTheir knowledge has dried up.\nEvery goldsmith is embarrassed by his idols.\nThe images he makes are false.\nThere is no breath in them.",
      "18": "They are worthless,\nan achievement to be mocked.\nAt the time of their punishment, they will perish.",
      "19": "He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these,\nbecause he is the Maker of all things,\nincluding the tribe that is his possession.\nThe Lord of Armies is his name.",
      "20": "You are my hammer, my war weapon.\nWith you I shatter nations.\nWith you I destroy kingdoms.",
      "21": "With you I shatter horse and rider.\nWith you I shatter chariot and driver.",
      "22": "With you I shatter man and woman.\nWith you I shatter the old and the young.\nWith you I shatter the young man and the virgin.",
      "23": "With you I shatter the shepherd and his flock.\nWith you I shatter the plowman and the team in his yoke.\nWith you I shatter governors and officials.",
      "24": "Before your very eyes I will repay Babylon and everyone who lives in Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion, declares the Lord.",
      "25": "Look, I am against you, declares the Lord.\nYou destroying mountain,\nyou destroy the whole world.\nI will stretch out my hand against you.\nI will roll you off the cliffs,\nand I will make you a burned-out volcano.",
      "26": "No rock will be taken from you for a cornerstone,\nnor as a foundation stone.\nYou will be desolate forever, declares the Lord.",
      "27": "Raise a signal flag in the land!\nBlow the ram’s horn among the nations!\nSet apart the nations against her!\nCall together against her the kingdoms of Ararat,\n    Minni, and Ashkenaz!\nAppoint a field marshal against her!\nBring up horses like a thick swarm of locusts!",
      "28": "Consecrate the nations against her—\nthe kings of the Medes, their governors, all their officials,\nand all the land under their dominion.",
      "29": "The land trembles and writhes\nbecause the Lord’s intentions against Babylon stand.\nHe will make the land of Babylon a desolation with no one living there.",
      "30": "The strong warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting.\nThey stay in their strongholds.\nTheir power has failed.\nThey have become as weak as women.\nHer dwellings are set on fire.\nThe bars of the gates are broken.",
      "31": "Runner follows runner,\nand messenger follows messenger\n    to announce to the king of Babylon\n    that his city is taken in every quarter.",
      "32": "The fords have been captured,\nthe marshes are on fire,\nand the soldiers are in a panic.",
      "33": "This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.\nThe daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor when it is trampled.\nIn just a little while, the time of her harvest will come.",
      "34": "Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured us.\nHe has crushed us\nand made us like an empty jar.\nLike a monster, he has swallowed us,\nfilled his stomach with our tastiest parts,\nand spit out the rest.",
      "35": "“May the violence done to us and to our children be upon Babylon,”\nsays she who dwells in Zion.\n“May our blood be on those who live in Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.",
      "36": "Therefore this is what the Lord says:\nWatch! I will defend your cause\nand take revenge for you.\nI will dry up her sea\nand make her springs dry.",
      "37": "Babylon will become a heap of ruins,\na haunt for jackals,\na horror and a target of contempt,\nand no one will live there.",
      "38": "They will all roar together like young lions.\nThey will growl like lion cubs.",
      "39": "When they are ravenous, I will spread a feast.\nI will make them drunk,\nso that they will celebrate,\nand then they will go to sleep forever\nand never wake up, declares the Lord.",
      "40": "I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,\nlike rams and goats.",
      "41": "How Sheshak is captured!\nThe pride of the whole earth is seized!\nBabylon has become an object of horror among the nations.",
      "42": "The sea has come all the way up to Babylon,\nand she is covered with its rolling waves.",
      "43": "Her cities have become desolate,\na desert and a wasteland,\na land in which no one lives,\na land through which no man passes.",
      "44": "I will punish Bel in Babylon\nand make his mouth spit out what he has swallowed.\nThe nations will no longer stream to him.\nThe wall of Babylon will fall.",
      "45": "Come out of her, my people!\nSave yourselves, every one of you,\n    from the Lord’s fierce anger.",
      "46": "Do not be faint of heart.\nDo not fear the rumors you will hear in the land.\nRumors will come one year,\nand the next year another rumor will come:\n“Violence in the land!”\n“Ruler against ruler!”",
      "47": "For the days are coming when I will punish the idols of Babylon.\nHer whole land will be disgraced,\nand all her slain will fall within her.",
      "48": "Then the heavens and the earth and all that is in them\n    will rejoice over Babylon.\nThe destroyers will attack her from the north, declares the Lord.",
      "49": "Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain,\njust as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.",
      "50": "You who have escaped the sword, go!\nDo not delay!\nRemember the Lord from afar,\nand think of Jerusalem.",
      "51": "We are disgraced,\nbecause we have heard a taunt.\nDishonor covers our faces,\nbecause strangers have come into the holy places of\n        the House of the Lord.",
      "52": "So keep watch. The days are coming, declares the Lord,\nwhen I will punish all her idols.\nThrough her whole land the wounded will groan.",
      "53": "Even if Babylon could reach the sky\nand fortify the very heights of her stronghold,\nI would still send destroyers to her, declares the Lord.",
      "54": "The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,\nthe sound of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans.",
      "55": "The Lord is destroying Babylon,\nand he will silence her mighty voice.\nWaves roar like many waters.\nThe sound of their noise rises!",
      "56": "The destroyer has come against her, against Babylon.\nHer mighty warriors are captured.\nTheir bows are broken,\nfor the Lord is a God of retribution.\nHe will repay in full.",
      "57": "I will make her officials and her wise men drunk,\nand her governors, officers, and strong warriors as well.\nThey will sleep for a long time,\nand they will not wake up,\ndeclares the King, whose name is the Lord of Armies.",
      "58": "This is what the Lord of Armies says.\nThe thick walls of Babylon will be leveled,\nand her high gates will be set on fire.\nThe people will toil for nothing.\nThe work of the nations will be nothing but fuel for the fire.\nThey will be worn out.",
      "59": "These are the instructions Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. (Seraiah was Zedekiah’s personal aide.)",
      "60": "Jeremiah had written on a scroll about all the disaster that was coming to Babylon—all of these things that had been written about Babylon.",
      "61": "Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see to it that you read all these words aloud.",
      "62": "Say, ‘O Lord, you have spoken against this place, announcing that you would destroy it, that no one will live here anymore, neither man nor animal, and that it will be desolate forever.’",
      "63": "When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and throw it in the middle of the Euphrates.",
      "64": "Then say, ‘In this same way, Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster that I will bring on her. And her people will be worn out.’”\nThe words of Jeremiah end here."
    },
    "52": {
      "1": "Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king. He ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.",
      "2": "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just like everything that Jehoiakim had done.",
      "3": "All this took place in Jerusalem and Judah because of the anger of the Lord, until he cast them out of his presence.\nZedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.",
      "4": "In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army. They set up camp around the city and built siege works all around it.",
      "5": "The city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.",
      "6": "By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was so severe in the city that there was no bread for the people of the land.",
      "7": "Then a breach was made in the city wall, and all the men in the army fled. Since the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, the men left it at night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They fled toward the Arabah,",
      "8": "but the Chaldean army pursued the king. They caught up with King Zedekiah in the plain near Jericho, where his whole army was scattered,",
      "9": "and he was captured and taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah in Hamath. There the king of Babylon passed judgment on him.",
      "10": "The king of Babylon slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes. He also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah.",
      "11": "Then the king of Babylon put out the eyes of Zedekiah and put him in bronze shackles. He brought him to Babylon and put him in prison until the day he died.",
      "12": "On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.",
      "13": "He burned the temple of the Lord, the king’s palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He burned down every important building.",
      "14": "The whole Chaldean army under his command broke down all the walls around Jerusalem.",
      "15": "Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried off some of the poorest of the people, some of the survivors left in the city, some of the people who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen.",
      "16": "But Nebuzaradan captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and farms.",
      "17": "The Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars that were in the Lord’s temple, along with the carts for water and the bronze Sea, and carried away all the bronze to Babylon.",
      "18": "They also took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the bowls, the dishes, and all the bronze articles used in the temple service.",
      "19": "The commander of the guard took away the bowls, fire pans, sprinkling bowls, pots, lampstands, dishes, and the drink offering bowls—the best of the gold and the best of the silver.",
      "20": "The two pillars, the Sea, and the twelve bronze bulls under the basins, which King Solomon had made for the temple of the Lord, were made of more bronze than could be weighed.",
      "21": "As for the pillars, each pillar was twenty-seven feet high and eighteen feet in circumference. Each was four fingers thick and hollow.",
      "22": "Each had a bronze capital, seven and a half feet high, with a network and pomegranate decorations on the capital all around, all of bronze. The other pillar with its pomegranates was just like it.",
      "23": "There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides. There was a total of one hundred pomegranates above the surrounding network.",
      "24": "The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers.",
      "25": "From the people left in the city, he took the officer in charge of the fighting men and seven royal advisors he found in the city. He also took the scribe of the military officer who conscripted the people of the land, along with sixty of his men who were found in the city.",
      "26": "Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.",
      "27": "The king of Babylon struck them down and executed them at Riblah in the land of Hamath.\nSo Judah was carried away into exile from its native soil.",
      "28": "This is a tally of people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile:\nIn the seventh year, 3,023 Jews.",
      "29": "In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, 832 people from Jerusalem.",
      "30": "In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away 745 Jews into exile.\nThere were 4,600 people in all.",
      "31": "In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the first year of the reign of Evil Merodak king of Babylon, he elevated Jehoiachin king of Judah and released him from prison on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month.",
      "32": "He spoke kindly to him and gave him a throne higher than the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon.",
      "33": "Jehoiachin changed from his prison clothes and ate his meals in the king’s presence continually all the days of his life.",
      "34": "For his provisions, a regular allowance was given to him by the king of Babylon, a set amount each day until the day of his death, all the days of his life."
    }
  },
  "Lamentations": {
    "1": {
      "1": "How lonely the city sits, which once was full of people!\nShe, who was great among the nations, is now a widow.\n    She, who was a princess among the provinces, now works as a slave.",
      "2": "At night she weeps bitterly, and her tears linger on her cheek.\n    Not one of her lovers is there to comfort her.\n    All her friends have betrayed her. They are now her enemies.",
      "3": "Judah has gone into exile. She endures affliction and harsh labor.\n    She lives among the nations. She finds no rest.\n    All her pursuers caught up with her when she was in great distress.",
      "4": "The roads to Zion are mourning,\n    because there are no travelers going to the appointed assemblies.\n    All her gates are deserted. Her priests groan.\n    Her virgins grieve. Her grief is bitter.",
      "5": "Her foes have risen to the top. Her enemies prosper.\n    Because of her many acts of rebellion, the Lord has brought grief to her.\n    Her children have gone into captivity in the presence of the foe.",
      "6": "The daughter of Zion has lost all her splendor.\n    Her officials have become like deer that find no pasture.\n    Powerless, they fled before the pursuer.",
      "7": "Jerusalem remembers the days of her affliction and her homeless wandering.\n    She remembers all her precious things which were hers from long ago.\n    When her people fell under the hand of the foe, there was no one to help her.\n    Foes saw her and laughed at the end she has come to.",
      "8": "Jerusalem has sinned terribly, so she is unclean.\n    All who once honored her now despise her, because they have seen her nakedness.\n    She can only sigh and turn away.",
      "9": "Her flow of blood stains her skirt. She did not consider the outcome of her sin.\n    Her collapse was astonishing. There was no one to comfort her.\n    Look, Lord, at my affliction, for the enemy has done awful things.",
      "10": "The foe has laid hands on all her precious things.\n    She has even seen nations enter her sanctuary,\n    nations about whom you commanded, “They shall not enter your assembly.”",
      "11": "All her people are sighing as they search for bread.\n    They traded their precious things for food in order to stay alive.\n    Look, Lord, and see that I have become despised.",
      "12": "But nothing like this is happening to you, all you who pass me by.\n    Look and see if there is any pain like my pain, which was dealt out to me,\n    which the Lord caused me to suffer on the day of his burning anger.",
      "13": "From on high he sent fire into my bones and overpowered me.\n    He spread a net for my feet. He turned me back.\n    He made me desolate. I was sick all day long.",
      "14": "The yoke of my sinful rebellion is fastened to my neck.\n    My sins are bound together by his hand.\n    They have risen up as high as my neck. He has weakened my strength.\n    The Lord has given me into the hands of people I cannot resist.",
      "15": "The Lord has tossed aside all the strong men in my midst.\n    He called an assembly against me to break my best young men.\n    The Lord has trampled the virgin daughter of Judah in a winepress.",
      "16": "Because of these things, I am weeping. My eye, my eye flows with water,\n    because the comforter, the one who restores my soul, is far away from me.\n    My children have become desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.",
      "17": "Zion spreads out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her.\n    The Lord has commanded those who surround Jacob to be his foes.\n    Among them, Jerusalem has become an unclean thing.",
      "18": "The Lord is righteous. I am the one who rebelled against the word from his mouth.\n    Please listen, all you peoples, and see my pain.\n    My virgins and my best young men have gone into captivity.",
      "19": "I called to my lovers, but they deceived me.\n    My priests and my elders perished in the city,\n    as they sought food for themselves to restore their lives.",
      "20": "See, Lord, I am in distress. My emotions are in turmoil.\n    My heart turns over inside me, because I have been very rebellious.\n    Outside, the sword takes away my children.\n    Inside, there is death.",
      "21": "People have heard that I am groaning. There is no one who comforts me.\n    All my enemies have heard about my misery, and they rejoiced that you did this.\n    Bring on the day that you have announced, so that they may become like me.",
      "22": "May all their wickedness come before you. Deal harshly with them,\n    just as you dealt harshly with me because of all my rebellion.\n    Yes, my groans are many, and my heart is sick."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "How the Lord, in his anger, has covered the daughter of Zion with a dark cloud!\n    He threw down the beauty of Israel from heaven to earth.\n    He did not remember his footstool in the day of his anger.",
      "2": "The Lord swallowed up and did not spare the pastures of Jacob.\n    In his fury he tore down the fortifications of the daughter of Judah.\n    He brought them down to the ground. He brought dishonor to the kingdom and its officials.",
      "3": "He completely chopped off the horn of Israel in burning anger.\n    He withdrew his right hand in the presence of the enemy.\n    He burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, which consumed all around.",
      "4": "He bent his bow like an enemy. His right hand was ready like a foe,\n    and he killed everyone who was precious in his eyes.\n    On the tent of the daughter of Zion, he poured out his wrath like fire.",
      "5": "The Lord was like an enemy. He swallowed up Israel.\n    He swallowed up all her citadels. He left her fortresses in ruins.\n    He increased mourning and lamenting for the daughter of Judah.",
      "6": "He dealt violently with his shelter like a shed in a garden. He ruined his meeting place.\n    The Lord has caused the appointed assembly and the Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion.\n    In his indignation and anger he showed contempt for king and priest.",
      "7": "The Lord rejected his altar. He abandoned his holy place.\n    He delivered her walls and palaces into the hand of the enemy.\n    They gave a shout in the House of the Lord,\n    like that on the day of an appointed assembly.",
      "8": "The Lord had in mind to ruin the wall of the daughter of Zion.\n    He stretched out a measuring line. He did not restrain his hand from swallowing her up.\n    He made its rampart and wall mourn. Together they became weak.",
      "9": "Her gates have sunk down to the ground. He destroyed and shattered her bars.\n    Her king and her officials are exiled among the nations. There is no law.\n    Even her prophets have not received a vision from the Lord.",
      "10": "The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground and are silent.\n    They throw dust on their heads and put on sackcloth.\n    The virgins of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground.",
      "11": "My eyes are worn out with tears. I am troubled in my heart.\n    I am emotionally drained over the breaking of the daughter of my people,\n    while children and infants grow weak in the public squares of the city.",
      "12": "They ask their mothers, “Where are the grain and wine?”\n    while they faint in the public squares of the city, like someone wounded,\n    while they take their last breath in their mothers’ laps.",
      "13": "What testimony can I give on your behalf?\n    What can I compare to you, daughter of Jerusalem?\n    What can I place next to you, so that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion?\n    Your wound is as wide as the sea. Who can heal you?",
      "14": "Your prophets saw visions for you, but they were empty and worthless.\n    They did not reveal your guilt, in order to turn away your captivity.\n    They saw oracles for you that were empty and misleading.",
      "15": "All who passed by clapped their hands over you.\n    They hissed and shook their head over the daughter of Jerusalem:\n    “Is this the city that was said to be the perfection of beauty,\n    the joy of the whole earth?”",
      "16": "All your enemies opened their mouth against you.\n    They hissed and gnashed their teeth. They said, “We swallowed her up.\n    Yes, this is the day we were waiting for. We found it. We saw it.”",
      "17": "The Lord has done what he planned. He carried out his word,\n    which he commanded long ago. He tore down and did not spare.\n    He let the enemy rejoice over you. He raised up the horn of your foes.",
      "18": "Their heart cried out to the Lord.\n    O wall of the daughter of Zion,\n    let your tears flow like a torrent, day and night.\n    Do not let yourself become numb. Do not let your eye stop crying.",
      "19": "Get up! Shout out during the night, as the night watches begin!\n    Pour out your heart like water before the Lord’s face.\n    Lift up your hands to him to pray for the life of your children,\n    who are faint with hunger at every street corner.",
      "20": "Look, Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt so harshly?\n    Should women eat the children they produced,\n    the children they played with on their knee?\n    Should priest and prophet be killed in the Lord’s holy place?",
      "21": "In the streets young and old lie dead on the ground.\n    My virgins and my best young men have fallen by the sword.\n    You killed them on the day of your anger. You slaughtered and did not spare.",
      "22": "As you do on a day of assembly, you summoned from every side the things I dread.\n    On the day of the Lord’s anger, there was no one who escaped or survived.\n    The enemy destroyed the children I played with on my knee and raised."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "I am the man who has experienced affliction under the rod of his fury.",
      "2": "He drove me off and brought me into darkness instead of light.",
      "3": "See how he turns against me. He turns his hand against me all day long.",
      "4": "He wore out my flesh and my skin. He shattered my bones.",
      "5": "He built siege works against me. He surrounded me with bitterness\n    and hardship.",
      "6": "He made me dwell in dark places, like people who died long ago.",
      "7": "He walled me in, so I cannot leave. He made my chains heavy.",
      "8": "Even when I call and cry out, he shuts out my prayer.",
      "9": "He has blocked my way with a stone wall. He has made my paths crooked.",
      "10": "He is about to ambush me like a bear, like a lion lying in wait.",
      "11": "He diverted me off my path and tore me to pieces. He made\n    me desolate.",
      "12": "He bent his bow and set me up as a target for the arrow.",
      "13": "He shot the arrows from his quiver into my heart.",
      "14": "I was a laughingstock to all my people, the target of their song\n    all day long.",
      "15": "He has made me eat bitter food and drink my fill of wormwood.",
      "16": "He broke my teeth with gravel. He pushed me down into the ashes.",
      "17": "You deprived my soul of peace. I have forgotten what well-being is.",
      "18": "I said, “My endurance has vanished, along with my hope from\n    the Lord.”",
      "19": "Remember my affliction and my homeless wandering,\n    the wormwood and bitterness.",
      "20": "My soul always remembers, and it has sunk within me.",
      "21": "Nevertheless, I keep this in my heart. This is the reason I have hope:",
      "22": "By the mercies of the Lord we are not consumed, for his compassions do not fail.",
      "23": "They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.",
      "24": "My soul says, “The Lord is my portion. Therefore, I will hope in him.”",
      "25": "The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.",
      "26": "It is good to hope quietly for the salvation of the Lord.",
      "27": "It is good for a man that he bears a yoke early in his life.",
      "28": "Let him sit alone and be silent, because the Lord has laid this upon him.",
      "29": "Let him stick his face in the dust. Perhaps there still is hope.",
      "30": "Let him turn his cheek toward the one who strikes him. Let him be filled with disgrace.",
      "31": "For the Lord will not push us away forever.",
      "32": "Even though he brings grief, he will show compassion on the basis of his great mercy.",
      "33": "Certainly it is not what his heart desires when he causes affliction,\n    when he brings grief to the children of men.",
      "34": "To crush all the land’s prisoners under his feet,",
      "35": "to deny a man’s right before the face of the Most High,",
      "36": "to undermine a man in his legal dispute—\n    the Lord does not look with favor on these things.",
      "37": "Who can speak something and have it happen, unless the Lord commands it?",
      "38": "Don’t the bad things and the good both come from the mouth of the Most High?",
      "39": "How can any living man complain?\n    How can someone complain about the consequences of his sins?",
      "40": "Let us explore and examine our ways, and let us return to the Lord.",
      "41": "Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven.",
      "42": "We were disobedient and rebelled, so you did not forgive.",
      "43": "You covered yourself with anger and pursued us. You killed and did not spare.",
      "44": "You covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer passes through.",
      "45": "You make us like scraps and garbage among the peoples.",
      "46": "All our enemies opened their mouth against us.",
      "47": "Panic and the pit were ours, devastation and destruction.",
      "48": "Streams of water run down from my eyes,\n    because of the breaking of the daughter of my people.",
      "49": "My eye pours without stopping. It will not cease,",
      "50": "until the Lord looks down so that he sees from heaven.",
      "51": "What I see makes my soul ache for all the daughters of my city.",
      "52": "For no reason, my enemies hunted me like a bird.",
      "53": "They ended my life in the pit and threw stones at me.",
      "54": "Water flowed above my head, and I said, “I am cut off!”",
      "55": "I called on your name, Lord, from the deepest pit.",
      "56": "You heard my voice: “Do not hide your ear from my cry for relief!”",
      "57": "The day I called to you, you came near and said, “Do not fear.”",
      "58": "Lord, you pleaded my soul’s case. You redeemed my life.",
      "59": "Lord, you saw how I was wronged. Judge my case.",
      "60": "You saw all their vengeance, all their plans against me.",
      "61": "You heard their scorn, Lord, all their plans against me.",
      "62": "You heard the lips of those who rise up against me\n    and their plots against me all day long.",
      "63": "Watch them when they sit down and when they get up.\n    I am the target of their mocking song.",
      "64": "You will pay them back, Lord, according to what their hands have done.",
      "65": "You will give them a stubborn heart. Your curse is on them.",
      "66": "You will pursue them in anger\n    and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "How dull the gold has become! How the fine gold has lost its shimmer!\nSacred stones are poured out at the corner of every street.",
      "2": "The precious sons of Zion, who were worth their weight in gold,\n    now are treated like clay jars, the work of a potter’s hands!",
      "3": "Even jackals offer a breast and nurse their young,\n    but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.",
      "4": "The baby’s tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth because of thirst.\n    Children ask for bread, but no one shares with them.",
      "5": "Those who ate delicacies have become desolate in the streets.\n    Those who were dressed in scarlet have embraced piles of trash.",
      "6": "The guilt of the daughter of my people was greater than the sin of Sodom,\n    which was overthrown in a moment, though no hands turned against her.",
      "7": "Her consecrated ones were brighter than snow. They were whiter than milk.\n    Their bones were redder than rubies; their facets shined like sapphires.",
      "8": "Now their faces have become the darkest black. They cannot be recognized in the streets.\n    Their skin has shriveled on their bones. It is as dry as a stick of wood.",
      "9": "Those cut down by the sword are better off than those cut down by hunger,\n    those who waste away, pierced with pain, with no crops to eat from the field.",
      "10": "The hands of compassionate women boiled their children.\n    Their children became their food when the daughter of my people was broken.",
      "11": "The Lord carried out his wrath. He poured out his burning anger.\n    He kindled a fire in Zion, and it consumed her foundations.",
      "12": "The kings of the earth and the world’s inhabitants never believed\n    that foe and enemy would enter the gates of Jerusalem.",
      "13": "The reason this happened was the sin of her prophets and the guilt of her priests,\n    who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.",
      "14": "Those blind men staggered in the streets. They were defiled with blood,\n    so people could not touch their garments.",
      "15": "“Go away! Unclean!” people shouted to them. “Go away! Go away! Do not touch us!”\n    When they fled, when they staggered, people among the nations said,\n    “They may not stay here anymore.”",
      "16": "The face of the Lord scattered them. He has no regard for them anymore.\n    Priests were shown no consideration. Elders were shown no favor.",
      "17": "Our eyes are still worn out, looking in vain for our help.\n    In our watchtowers we watched for a nation that could not save us.",
      "18": "They hunted our steps, preventing us from going into the public squares of our city.\n    Our end has drawn near. Our days are finished, for our end has come.",
      "19": "Our pursuers were faster than eagles in the sky.\n    On the mountains they were in hot pursuit of us. In the wilderness they waited to ambush us.",
      "20": "The life breath for our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was caught in their pits.\n    We had said of him, “In his shadow we will live among the nations.”",
      "21": "Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, who dwells in the land of Uz.\n    A cup will also come to you. You will become drunk and naked.",
      "22": "The punishment for your guilt is finished, daughter of Zion. He will not send you into exile again.\n    Daughter of Edom, he punishes your guilt. He reveals your sins."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Remember, Lord, what happened to us. Look and see our disgrace.",
      "2": "Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.",
      "3": "We have become orphans without a father. Our mothers are widows.",
      "4": "We pay money to drink our own water. We must buy firewood for a price.",
      "5": "Our pursuers are at our throat. We are exhausted. We are given no rest.",
      "6": "We have made a deal with Egypt and Assyria to have enough bread.",
      "7": "Our fathers sinned. They are no more, and we have borne their guilt.",
      "8": "Slaves rule over us. No one rescues us from their hand.",
      "9": "We get bread at the risk of our life because of the sword in the wilderness.",
      "10": "Our skin is as hot as an oven because of fever from hunger.",
      "11": "Women in Zion have been violated, virgins in the cities of Judah.",
      "12": "Officials have been hung up by their hands. The dignity of elders has not been respected.",
      "13": "The best young men must grind grain, and boys stumble under loads of wood.",
      "14": "Elders are no longer seated in the city gate. The best young men no longer play music.",
      "15": "The joy of our hearts has ceased. Our dancing has turned into mourning.",
      "16": "The crown has fallen off our head. Woe to us, because we have sinned!",
      "17": "Our heart is sick over this. Over these things our eyes have grown dim—",
      "18": "over Mount Zion, which is devastated, so that jackals prowl on it.",
      "19": "You, Lord, remain forever. Your throne remains for generation after generation.",
      "20": "Why do you forget us completely? Why do you abandon us for so long?",
      "21": "Lord, turn us back to you, and we will return. Renew our days like long ago,",
      "22": "unless you have completely rejected us and you will be angry at us without limit."
    }
  },
  "Ezekiel": {
    "1": {
      "1": "In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, when I was among the exiles by the Kebar Canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.",
      "2": "On the fifth of that month, in the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin,",
      "3": "the word of the Lord came in a dramatic way upon Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, the priest, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the Kebar Canal, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there.",
      "4": "As I watched, I noticed a windstorm coming from the north. There was a large cloud, with fire flashing through it, and there was a bright light all around it. In the middle of it, there was something that looked like glowing metal in the middle of the fire.",
      "5": "In the middle of it I saw what looked like four living creatures. This was what they looked like. Each of them had a human appearance,",
      "6": "but each one had four faces, and each of them had four wings.",
      "7": "Each of their legs was straight, and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like polished bronze.",
      "8": "They had human hands under their wings on all four of their sides. All four of them had faces and wings.",
      "9": "Their wings were touching one another. The creatures did not turn from side to side as they moved, but each one faced straight ahead.",
      "10": "This is what their faces looked like. Each one had a face like a man’s face. On the right side of their heads, all four of them had a face like a lion. On the left side, all four of them had a face like an ox. All four of them also had a face like an eagle.",
      "11": "Those were their faces.\nTheir wings were stretched upward. Each of them had one pair of wings which touched the wings of each of the cherubs next to it and another pair of wings which covered their bodies.",
      "12": "Each one faced straight ahead as it moved. They went in whatever direction the spirit wanted to go. They did not turn as they moved ahead.",
      "13": "The appearance of the living creatures was like red-hot coals, like the appearance of blazing torches. Fire was moving back and forth among the living creatures. The fire was bright, and lightning was coming out of the fire.",
      "14": "The creatures darted back and forth. They looked like jagged bolts of lightning.",
      "15": "As I looked at the living creatures, I noticed one wheel on the ground beside each one of the living creatures that had four faces.",
      "16": "The appearance of the wheels and their design were like the sparkle of topaz, and the four of them looked alike. Their appearance and their design were like a wheel within a wheel.",
      "17": "They could go in any of the four directions when they moved, but the wheels did not turn from side to side when they moved.",
      "18": "As for their rims, they were high and intimidating, and their rims were full of eyes all the way around—all four of them.",
      "19": "Whenever the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them, and whenever the living creatures would rise from the ground, the wheels rose too.",
      "20": "Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they would go. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, the wheels would rise together with them, because the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.",
      "21": "Whenever the living creatures moved, the wheels would move. Whenever the living creatures stood still, the wheels would stand still. Whenever the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels would rise together with them, because the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.",
      "22": "There was something above the heads of the living creatures like the dome of a vaulted ceiling. It looked like ice. It was spectacular. It stretched out above their heads.",
      "23": "Under the dome, two of their wings were stretched out to touch the wing of another one of the creatures. Each of the creatures also had two wings covering themselves, each had two wings covering themselves—covering their bodies.",
      "24": "I heard the sound of their wings, like the sound of rushing water. It was like the voice of the Almighty when they moved—a sound of commotion, like the noise in an army camp. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.",
      "25": "A voice came from above the dome that was over their heads. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.",
      "26": "Above the dome that was over their heads, there was something that appeared to be a sapphire that was shaped like a throne. Seated on that throne-like form there was a figure that looked like a man.",
      "27": "I saw something like the gleam of glowing metal with fire in it and all around it. It extended upward from what appeared to be the man’s waist. Below what appeared to be his waist, I saw what appeared to be fire, and a bright light surrounded him.",
      "28": "The bright light that surrounded him looked like the rainbow that is in the clouds on a rainy day.\nThis was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the Lord. When I saw this, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice speaking."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "He said to me, “Son of man, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you.”",
      "2": "The Spirit entered into me as he spoke to me and brought me up to my feet. Then I heard him speaking to me.",
      "3": "He said to me, “Son of man, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to disloyal nations, who have been disloyal to me. They and their fathers have rebelled against me to this very day.",
      "4": "These children of mine are brazen-faced and hard-hearted. I am sending you to them, and you are to tell them that this is what the Lord God says.",
      "5": "Then, whether they listen or do not listen—for they are a rebellious house—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.",
      "6": "But you, son of man, do not be afraid of them, and do not be afraid of their words. Even though briers and thorns surround you and you are living with scorpions, do not be afraid of their words, and do not be intimidated by the look on their faces, for they are a rebellious house.",
      "7": "You are to speak my words to them whether they listen or they do not, for they are rebellious.",
      "8": "But you, son of man, listen to what I am telling you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.”",
      "9": "Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out toward me, and in it there was a rolled-up scroll.",
      "10": "He unrolled it in front of me, and there was writing on both sides. Written on it was: Laments, Groaning, and Woe."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat what you have received. Eat this scroll, and then go, speak to the house of Israel.”",
      "2": "I opened my mouth, and he fed me the scroll.",
      "3": "Then he said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll that I am giving you.” I ate, and in my mouth it was sweet like honey.",
      "4": "He then said to me, “Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak my words to them.",
      "5": "For you are not being sent to a people who have incomprehensible speech or a difficult language, but you are being sent to the house of Israel.",
      "6": "Nor are you being sent to many peoples who have incomprehensible speech and difficult languages, whose words you cannot understand. Certainly, if I were to send you to such people, they would listen to you.",
      "7": "But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me, because the whole house of Israel is hard-headed and hard-hearted.",
      "8": "Look, I have made your face just as hard as their faces and your forehead just as hard as their foreheads.",
      "9": "I have made your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not fear them, and do not be intimidated by their looks, for they are a rebellious house.”",
      "10": "Then he said to me, “Son of man, receive into your heart all my words that I will speak to you, and hear them with your ears.",
      "11": "Go now to the exiles, to your own people. You shall speak to them and say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says,’ whether they listen or they do not.”",
      "12": "Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a loud rushing sound behind me—Blessed be the Glory of the Lord in its dwelling place!—",
      "13": "It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures beating against each other and the sound of the wheels beside them, a loud rumbling sound.",
      "14": "The Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and so I went, bitter and heated in my spirit, and the hand of the Lord was upon me with power.",
      "15": "I came to the exiles at Tel Aviv, who were living by the Kebar Canal—there where they were living. I sat among them for seven days—stunned.",
      "16": "At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me and said:",
      "17": "Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for the house of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, you must give them a warning from me.",
      "18": "When I announce to a wicked man, “You shall surely die,” if you do not warn him, and you do not speak up to warn the wicked man against his wicked way so that he can live, then that wicked man will die because of his guilt, and I will hold you responsible for his blood.",
      "19": "But you, if you warn the wicked man, and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die because of his guilt, but you will have saved your own life.",
      "20": "Or when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and becomes unrighteous, and I place a stumbling block in front of him, he shall die. If you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he had done will not be remembered, and I will hold you responsible for his blood.",
      "21": "But you, if you do warn that righteous man not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall certainly live because he heeded the warning, and you will have saved your own life.",
      "22": "Then the hand of the Lord was upon me there, and he said to me, “Get up, go out to the center of the river valley, and there I will speak with you.”",
      "23": "So I got up and went out to the center of the valley, and suddenly there it was! The Glory of the Lord was standing there, just like the Glory that I had seen by the Kebar Canal, and I fell on my face.",
      "24": "But the Spirit entered into me and brought me to my feet.\nThen he spoke to me and said to me, “Go, shut yourself up inside your house.",
      "25": "And this is what will happen to you, son of man. They will certainly place ropes upon you and tie you up with them, so that you will not be able to go out among them.",
      "26": "I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth, so that you will be speechless, and you will not be able to rebuke them, for they are a rebellious house.",
      "27": "But whenever I speak to you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says.’ Whoever listens, let him listen. Whoever refuses to listen, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.”"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Now you, son of man, take a brick for yourself, place it in front of you, and sketch on it a city, which is Jerusalem.",
      "2": "Lay siege against it, build a siege wall against it, heap up a ramp against it, set up camps against it, and station battering rams against it, all the way around it.",
      "3": "And you, take an iron griddle and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Direct your face toward it, so that it will be under siege as you besiege it. This will be a sign for the house of Israel.",
      "4": "And you, lie down on your left side, and place the guilt of the house of Israel on it. For as many days as you lie on your side, you shall bear their guilt.",
      "5": "I will assign to you the number of days you are to lie on your side on the basis of the number of years of their guilt: three hundred ninety days. So you shall bear the guilt of the house of Israel.",
      "6": "When you have finished these days, you shall lie down a second time on your right side, and you shall bear the guilt of the house of Judah for forty days. I have assigned to you one day for each year.",
      "7": "You shall direct your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against it.",
      "8": "See, I have placed ropes upon you, so that you will not turn from your one side to your other side until you finish the days of your siege.",
      "9": "And you, take some wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and emmer wheat for yourself. You shall put them in a single dish and make bread for yourself with them. During the whole number of days that you are lying on your side—three hundred ninety days—you shall eat it.",
      "10": "You shall weigh out the food you eat—half a pound a day. You are to eat it at set times each day.",
      "11": "You shall measure the water you drink—a pint and a half a day. You are to drink it at set times each day.",
      "12": "You are to eat it as you would eat flat bread made of barley, and you are to bake it over balls of human excrement in their sight.",
      "13": "Then the Lord said, “This is how the people of Israel will eat their food: They will be ceremonially unclean among the nations where I will banish them.”",
      "14": "Then I said, “Oh no, Lord God, I have never made myself unclean. I have never eaten a carcass or something torn by wild animals, from my youth until now. Neither has any meat which is ceremonially unclean ever entered my mouth.”",
      "15": "Then he answered me, “Very well, I will let you use droppings of cattle instead of balls of human excrement, and you shall bake your bread over them.”",
      "16": "He also said this to me: “Son of man, watch for this! I am about to take away the bread supply from Jerusalem, and they will measure out their bread by weight and eat it with anxiety, and they will measure out their water and drink it with horror.",
      "17": "So they will lack food and water, and they will be horrified, each man and his brother, and they will waste away because of their guilt.”"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "You, son of man, get a sharp sword for yourself. You shall use it on yourself like a barber’s razor. Use it on your head and on your beard. Then get scales for yourself so that you can weigh and divide the hair.",
      "2": "One third of it you shall burn with fire inside the city when the days of siege are completed. Then you shall take another third and strike it with the sword all around the city. Another third you shall scatter to the wind, but I will unsheathe the sword to pursue them.",
      "3": "But take a few hairs and wrap them in the folds of your robe.",
      "4": "Then take some of those and throw them into the middle of the fire and burn them up in the fire. From there a fire will spread to the whole house of Israel.",
      "5": "This is what the Lord God says. This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the midst of the nations, and all around her there are other countries.",
      "6": "But she rebelled against my ordinances, becoming more wicked than the nations, and she rebelled against my statutes more than the countries around her did, because the Israelites rejected my ordinances, and they did not walk in my statutes.",
      "7": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Because you have outdone the nations around you, and you have not walked in my statutes, and you have not performed what I judged to be right, and you have not even acted according to the standards of justice followed by the nations around you,",
      "8": "therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Watch out! I am against you. I myself will perform judgments among you in the sight of the nations.",
      "9": "I will do among you something that I have never done before and the likes of which I shall never do again, because of all your abominations.",
      "10": "That is why fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you, and I will scatter any of you who are left to every wind.",
      "11": "Therefore, as surely as I live, declares the Lord God, because you have defiled my sanctuary by all your detestable practices and all your abominations, I, yes I myself, will withdraw. My eye will not show pity, and I myself will have no compassion.",
      "12": "A third of you will die in the plague or perish during the famine in your midst. All around you, a third will fall by the sword, and a third I will scatter to every wind. Then I will unsheathe the sword in pursuit of them.",
      "13": "Finally, my anger will be finished. I will let my wrath against them rest, and I will be satisfied. Then they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in my jealousy—when I exhaust my wrath against them.",
      "14": "I will make you into a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by.",
      "15": "You, Jerusalem, will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and something horrifying to the nations around you, when I execute judgments upon you in anger, in wrath, and in furious punishments. I, the Lord, have spoken.",
      "16": "I will also send deadly arrows of famine against them, arrows that shall become a destroyer, arrows that I will send to destroy you. I will also increase the famine upon you and cut off your supply of bread.",
      "17": "I will send famine and dangerous wild animals against you, and they will take away your children from you. Plague and bloodshed will pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.",
      "3": "You shall say, “Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God.” This is what the Lord God says to the mountains and to the hills, to the streambeds and to the valleys. Without fail, I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.",
      "4": "Your altars will be demolished, and your incense altars will be smashed, and I will throw down your fallen bodies in front of your filthy idols.",
      "5": "I will lay out the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their filthy idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.",
      "6": "In all the places where you live, the towns will be laid waste, and the high places will be demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and demolished, your filthy idols will be crushed and cease to exist, your incense altars will be broken in pieces, and the things you have made will be wiped out.",
      "7": "The slain will fall in your midst, and then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "8": "Nevertheless, when you are scattered in various countries, I will preserve for you some survivors who escape the sword among the nations.",
      "9": "Then, those of you who escape will remember me in the nations where they have been carried as captives. They will remember how I was heartbroken by their lustful hearts, which turned away from me, and by their eyes, which lusted for their filthy idols. They will loathe themselves because of all the evils they have done, for all their abominations.",
      "10": "Then they will know that I, the Lord, did not speak about bringing this disaster on them without it having a result.",
      "11": "This is what the Lord God says. Clap your hands, stomp your feet, and say, “We are doomed,” on account of all the vile abominations of the house of Israel, for by the sword, famine, and plague they will fall.",
      "12": "Anyone who is far away will die of the plague, and anyone who is near will fall by the sword, and anyone who remains under siege will die of famine. In this way I will exhaust my wrath upon them.",
      "13": "Then you will know that I am the Lord, when their fallen bodies lie among their filthy idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every green tree and under every leafy oak, in every place where they offered fragrant sacrifice to appease all their filthy idols.",
      "14": "I will stretch out my hand against them, and I will make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Riblah, in all the places they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "And to you, son of man, this is what the Lord God says about the soil of Israel. An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.",
      "3": "Now that the end is upon you, I will unleash my anger against you. I will judge you according to your ways, and I will place on you the penalty for all your abominations.",
      "4": "My eye will not have pity on you, and I will have no compassion, for I will place on you the penalty for your ways, and the punishment for your abominations will be in your midst. Then you will know that I am the Lord!",
      "5": "This is what the Lord God says. Disaster! An unparalleled disaster! Watch, it is coming!",
      "6": "An end has come! The end has come! It has begun against you. Look, it is coming!",
      "7": "Doom has come upon you, you inhabitants of the land. The time has come, the day is near. A day of panic, not joy, is on the mountains.",
      "8": "Now very soon I will pour out my wrath upon you, and I will exhaust my anger against you. I will judge you according to your ways, and I will place on you the penalty for all your abominations.",
      "9": "My eye will not show pity, and I will have no compassion. According to your ways I will place the penalty on you, and the punishment for your abominations will be in your midst. Then you will know that I, the Lord, am the one who strikes you!",
      "10": "Look, the day is coming. It is here. Doom has broken out. The rod has budded. Insolence has blossomed.",
      "11": "Violence has grown into a rod against wickedness. None of them will remain—none of their noisy crowd, none of their wealth, not a thing of value among them.",
      "12": "The time has come; the day has arrived.\nThe buyer should not rejoice. The seller should not grieve, because wrath is coming upon the whole noisy crowd.",
      "13": "So sellers will not return to what they have sold, even if they survive. Yes, the vision concerning the whole noisy crowd will not be reversed, and each man, because of the guilt in his life, will have no strength.",
      "14": "They will blow a blast on the ram’s horn and make everything ready, but no one will go to battle, because my wrath is upon the whole noisy crowd.",
      "15": "The sword is outside, and plague and famine are inside. Anyone in the countryside will die by the sword, and anyone in the city—plague and famine will devour him.",
      "16": "Any who escape will flee to the mountains, mourning like doves from the valley, each of them in his guilt.",
      "17": "All hands will hang limp, and water will run down every knee.",
      "18": "They will put on sackcloth, and horror will cover them. Every face will be ashamed, and all their heads will be shaved bald.",
      "19": "They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be polluted by blood. Their silver and their gold will not be able to rescue them on the day of the Lord’s fury. The silver and gold will not satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs, because it was the cause of their guilt and their downfall.",
      "20": "From the silver and gold of the Lord’s beautiful ornaments, which were their pride, they made their abominations and their disgusting images.\nTherefore, for them I will make it a place polluted by blood.",
      "21": "I will hand it over to foreigners as loot. I will give it to the most wicked people on earth as plunder, and they will desecrate it.",
      "22": "I will turn my face away from my people so that the enemy may desecrate my treasured place, and so that robbers may enter it and desecrate it.",
      "23": "Prepare the chain, because the earth is full of judicial murder, and the city is full of violence.",
      "24": "I will bring the most wicked of the nations, and they will take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the pride of the mighty, and their so-called sanctuaries will be desecrated.",
      "25": "Terror is coming. They will seek peace, but there will be none.",
      "26": "Disaster after disaster will come, and one report will follow another. They will seek a vision from the prophet, but sound instruction will vanish from the priest and the ability to give advice from the elders.",
      "27": "The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with horror, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. On the basis of their own conduct I will deal with them, and by the standard they used to judge others I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting in front of me. The hand of the Lord God fell upon me there.",
      "2": "I looked, and there I saw a figure that looked like a man. From what appeared to be his waist down, he looked like fire, and from his waist up, he had the appearance of a dazzling light, something like glowing metal.",
      "3": "He reached out with what looked like a hand and seized me by a lock of hair. Then the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me to Jerusalem, while I was experiencing visions from God. He brought me to the entrance of the north gate into the inner courtyard of the Temple, where the idolatrous image of jealousy, which provokes jealousy, was located.",
      "4": "Then I looked, and there was the Glory of the God of Israel, as it was in the vision that I had seen in the middle of the river valley.",
      "5": "He said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” So I looked toward the north, and what did I see! There, north of the altar gate, was this idolatrous image of jealousy beside the entrance.",
      "6": "He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—what great abominations the house of Israel is practicing here, to distance themselves from my sanctuary! But you will see even greater abominations.”",
      "7": "Next, he brought me to the entrance to the courtyard, and I looked and saw that there was a hole in the wall.",
      "8": "He said to me, “Son of man, dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and there I saw a doorway.",
      "9": "He said to me, “Go in and observe the vile abominations that they are committing here.”",
      "10": "When I entered, I looked around, and what did I see! Every form of creeping creature and every kind of detestable animal and all the filthy idols of the house of Israel were engraved on the wall, all around.",
      "11": "Seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel—with Ja’azaniah son of Shaphan standing in the middle—were standing in front of the images, each with his censer in his hand, and the fragrance of the cloud of incense was ascending.",
      "12": "He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each in his chamber for carved images? Listen! They are saying, ‘The Lord does not see us. The Lord has forsaken the land.’”",
      "13": "Then he said to me, “You will see even greater abominations which they are practicing.”",
      "14": "Next, he brought me to the entrance of the gateway of the House of the Lord that is on the north side, and right there I saw women sitting and wailing for Tammuz.",
      "15": "He said to me, “Do you see, son of man? You will see even greater abominations than these.”",
      "16": "Finally, he brought me to the inner courtyard of the House of the Lord, and there at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar, were twenty-five men, showing their backsides to the temple of the Lord with their faces toward the east, and they were bowing down to the sun in the east.",
      "17": "Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it too trivial for the house of Judah to commit the abominations they are committing here? Do they also have to fill the land with violence, so that they provoke me more and more? They are even sticking the branch up my nose!",
      "18": "But I also will act in wrath. My eye will not show pity, and I will have no compassion. They will call out to my ears with a loud cry, but I will not hear them.”"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Then he called out with a loud voice in my hearing, “Bring the supervisors of the city here, each one of them with his weapon of destruction in his hand.”",
      "2": "Then I noticed six men coming from the direction of the upper gate that faces north, each with his weapon, a war club, in his hand. There was also one man in the middle, dressed in linen, with a scribe’s kit at his waist. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar.",
      "3": "Now the Glory of the God of Israel ascended from above the cherub, over whom it had been standing, and moved to the threshold of the temple building. He called out to the man who was dressed in linen, who had the scribe’s kit at his waist.",
      "4": "The Lord said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a cross mark on the foreheads of those who moan and lament over the abominations being committed in her.”",
      "5": "To the others he said in my hearing, “Follow him through the city and strike the people down. Do not let your eye show pity, and do not have compassion.",
      "6": "Old men and young men, virgins, little children, and women—you are to keep killing until you wipe them out completely. But do not go near anyone who has been marked with the cross. You are to begin at my sanctuary.”\nSo they began with the old men who were in front of the temple.",
      "7": "Then he said to them, “Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go!” So they went and struck them down throughout the city.",
      "8": "While they were striking them down, I was left alone and I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord God! Are you going to destroy everyone who is left in Israel, as you pour out your wrath upon Jerusalem?”",
      "9": "He said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is very, very great. The land is filled with bloodshed, and the city is full of injustice, because they say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land’ and ‘The Lord does not see.’",
      "10": "But I am determined that my eye will show no pity, and I will have no compassion. I will bring down their conduct on their own heads.”",
      "11": "Just then, I saw the man dressed in linen, who had the scribe’s kit at his waist. He was reporting, “I have done just as you commanded me.”"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Then I looked, and there, above the vaulted ceiling that was over the heads of the cherubim, there was something that looked like a sapphire, shaped like a throne. It could be seen above the cherubim.",
      "2": "The Lord said to the man dressed in linen, “Reach into the structure for the wheels that is beneath the cherubim, fill your cupped hands with fiery coals from among the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.” So he went in while I watched.",
      "3": "Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the temple while he, the man, approached, and the cloud filled the inner courtyard.",
      "4": "Then the Glory of the Lord rose from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple. The temple was filled with the cloud, and the courtyard was full of the radiance of the Glory of the Lord.",
      "5": "The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far away as the outer courtyard, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.",
      "6": "When he commanded the man dressed in linen, “Take fire from between the wheels, from between the cherubim,” the man went and stood beside the wheel.",
      "7": "Then a cherub stretched out his hand from among the cherubim and reached into the fire that was between the cherubim. He lifted up some coals, and he put them into the cupped hands of the man dressed in linen, and the man took them and went out.",
      "8": "The cherubim had something that seemed like the form of a human hand under their wings.",
      "9": "Then I looked, and right there beside the cherubim were four wheels, one wheel beside each cherub, and the wheels looked like topaz.",
      "10": "The four of them all looked alike—there was a wheel inside each wheel.",
      "11": "The cherubim could move in any of the four directions toward which one of them faced, without turning as they moved. They went straight ahead in the direction they faced, never turning from side to side.",
      "12": "Their entire body, their back, their hands, their wings, and the wheels were full of eyes all around. (I mean the wheels that belonged to the four of them.)",
      "13": "As for the wheels, they were called “wheelwork” in my hearing.",
      "14": "Each one of the cherubim had four faces. One face was the face of a cherub. The second face was the face of a man. The third was the face of a lion, and the fourth was the face of an eagle.",
      "15": "Then the cherubim rose. These were the living creatures that I had seen by the Kebar Canal.",
      "16": "Whenever the cherubim moved, the wheels moved alongside them, and whenever the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels did not turn away from their side.",
      "17": "When the cherubim stood still, the wheels would stand still, and when the cherubim rose, the wheels would rise with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.",
      "18": "Then the Glory of the Lord moved out from the threshold of the temple and took a position above the cherubim.",
      "19": "As I watched, the cherubim lifted up their wings and rose from the ground. As they went out, the wheels remained beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the House of the Lord, and the Glory of the God of Israel was above the cherubim.",
      "20": "These were the living creatures that I had seen beneath the God of Israel at the Kebar Canal, and I now knew that they were cherubim.",
      "21": "Each one had four faces, and each had four wings, with something like the hands of a man underneath their wings.",
      "22": "The faces looked like the faces that I had seen by the Kebar Canal—exactly the same. Each one went straight ahead."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the temple of the Lord, which faces east. There, at the entrance to the gateway, were twenty-five men, and among them I saw Ja’azaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, leaders of the people.",
      "2": "He said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who are plotting evil and giving wicked advice in this city,",
      "3": "who are saying, ‘We will not have to build houses anytime soon. The city is the pot, and we are the meat.’",
      "4": "Therefore, prophesy against them. Prophesy, son of man.”",
      "5": "Then the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and he told me to say this.\nThis is what the Lord says. This is what you are saying, house of Israel. I know what you have in mind.",
      "6": "You have killed many people in this city and filled its streets with the slain.",
      "7": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Your slain, which you have placed within the city, are the meat, and the city is the pot. But I will drive you out of it.",
      "8": "The sword is what you have feared, and I will bring the sword upon you, declares the Lord God.",
      "9": "I will drive you out from it, hand you over to foreigners, and execute judgments on you.",
      "10": "By the sword you will fall, and at the border of Israel I will judge you. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "11": "This city will not be a pot for you, and you will not be the meat inside it. At the border of Israel I will judge you.",
      "12": "Then you will know that I am the Lord, in whose statutes you have not walked and whose ordinances you have not obeyed, but instead you have acted according to the ordinances of the nations around you.",
      "13": "While I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice. I said, “Oh no, Lord God, you are making a complete destruction of the remaining survivors of Israel!”",
      "14": "Then the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "15": "Son of man, your brothers, your brothers who have the right to redeem your property, and the whole house of Israel—all of it—to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem are saying, “Stay far away from the Lord! This land has been given to us as a possession.”",
      "16": "Tell them that this is what the Lord God says.\nAlthough I have removed them far away among the nations, and I have indeed scattered them among the lands, I will be a sanctuary for them for a little while in the lands to which they have gone.",
      "17": "Therefore say, “This is what the Lord God says.” I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the lands where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.",
      "18": "When they arrive back there, they will remove from it all its loathsome things and all its abominations.",
      "19": "I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from their body and give them a heart of flesh,",
      "20": "so that they will walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and carry them out. They will be my people, and I will be their God.",
      "21": "But as for those whose heart goes after their disgusting things and their abominations, I will bring down their conduct on their own heads, declares the Lord God.",
      "22": "Then the cherubim lifted up their wings. The wheels were beside them, and the Glory of the God of Israel was positioned above them.",
      "23": "The Glory of the Lord went up from the middle of the city and stood on the mountain east of the city.",
      "24": "The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Chaldea, in the vision from the Spirit of God. Then the vision I had seen departed from me, and I told the exiles all the things from the Lord that he had shown to me."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, you are living in the middle of a rebellious house. They have eyes to see, but they do not see, and they have ears to hear, but they do not hear, because they are a rebellious house.",
      "3": "Therefore, you, son of man, pack your baggage for exile, and depart into exile during the daytime, while they are watching. You are to depart into exile from your place to another place, while they are watching. Perhaps they will see that they are a rebellious house.",
      "4": "You are to bring out your baggage, packed for exile, during the daytime, while they are watching. Then in the evening, while they are watching, you are to go out like someone going into exile.",
      "5": "While they are watching, dig through the wall, and bring out your baggage through it.",
      "6": "While they are watching, lift it up on your shoulder, and carry it out at dusk. Cover your face so that you cannot see the ground, for I have made you a warning sign to the house of Israel.",
      "7": "I did that, exactly as I was commanded. I brought out my baggage, packed for exile, during the daytime, and then in the evening I dug through the wall by hand. When it was getting dark, I brought my baggage out. I carried it on my shoulder while they were watching.",
      "8": "In the morning the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "9": "“Son of man, hasn’t the house of Israel, that rebellious house, asked you, ‘What are you doing?’",
      "10": "You are to tell them that this is what the Lord God says.”\nThis burdensome prophecy is about the burdensome prince in Jerusalem, together with the whole house of Israel who are in its midst.",
      "11": "Say to them, “I am a warning sign for you.”\nExactly what I have done will be done to them. Into exile, into captivity, they will go.",
      "12": "The prince who is in their midst will carry his baggage on his shoulder at dusk and go out. They will dig through the wall to bring him out through it. He will cover his face, so he will not see the ground with his own eyes.",
      "13": "I will spread out my net for him, and he will be caught in my trap. I will bring him to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans, but he will not see it, and there he will die.",
      "14": "All those who are around him, his aides and all his troops, I will scatter to every wind, and I will unsheathe my sword against them.",
      "15": "Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I scatter them among the nations and disperse them across many countries.",
      "16": "But from among them I will let a small number survive the sword, famine, and plague, in order that they may tell about all their abominations among the nations where they go. Then they will know that I am the Lord.",
      "17": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "18": "Son of man, you are to eat your food with trembling, and you are to drink your water with shuddering and anxiety.",
      "19": "You are to say to the people of the land: This is what the Lord God says about the inhabitants of Jerusalem on the soil of Israel. They will eat their food with anxiety and drink their water with horror, because everything that filled the land will be devastated because of the violence of all its inhabitants.",
      "20": "The inhabited cities will be laid waste, and the land will be devastated. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "21": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "22": "Son of man, what is this saying that you have about the homeland of Israel: “The days keep going by, and every vision fails”?",
      "23": "Therefore say this to them. This is what the Lord God says. I will put an end to this saying, and they will no longer use it as a saying in Israel. On the contrary, say to them, “The days are near when every vision will be fulfilled.”",
      "24": "For no longer will there be any empty, unreliable visions or slippery, misleading omens within the house of Israel.",
      "25": "For I am the Lord. Whatever word I speak will be fulfilled. It will be delayed no longer. For in your own days, you rebellious house, I will speak a word and fulfill it, declares the Lord God.",
      "26": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "27": "Son of man, listen to what the house of Israel is saying: “The vision that he is seeing is for many days in the future, and he is prophesying for distant times.”",
      "28": "Therefore, tell the Israelites this is what the Lord God says. None of my words will be delayed any longer, because I will speak a word and it will be fulfilled, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who are prophesying. You are to say to the prophets who prophesy from their own heart: Hear the word of the Lord.",
      "3": "This is what the Lord God says. Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and prophesy things which they have not seen.",
      "4": "Israel, your prophets are like jackals among the ruins.",
      "5": "You have not stepped up into the breaks in the wall, nor have you repaired the wall for the house of Israel, so that it could stand up in battle on the Day of the Lord.",
      "6": "They see empty visions and their omens predict lies—those who say, “The declaration of the Lord,” when the Lord has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfill their word.",
      "7": "Have you not, in fact, seen an empty vision and predicted lies when you say, “The declaration of the Lord,” when, in fact, I have not spoken?",
      "8": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Because you have spoken empty words and have seen a lying vision, therefore, I am surely against you, declares the Lord God.",
      "9": "My hand will come upon the prophets who see empty visions and predict a lie. They will not remain in the council of my people. They will not be recorded in the register of the house of Israel, and they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord God.",
      "10": "This will happen precisely because they have misled my people by saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace. When someone builds a flimsy wall, look how the false prophets daub it with a coat of mud plaster.",
      "11": "Tell those who are daubing with plaster that the wall will fall. There will be driving rain, large hailstones will fall, and a violent wind will break out,",
      "12": "and suddenly the wall will fall. Won’t they say to you, “Where is the mud plaster you daubed on now?”",
      "13": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. In my wrath I will make a violent wind break out, and there will be driving rain because of my anger. In my wrath I will send large hailstones that bring destruction.",
      "14": "I will demolish the wall that you have daubed with mud plaster. I will level it to the ground, so that its foundation will be exposed. It will fall, and you will perish within the city. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "15": "In this way I will exhaust my wrath against the wall and against those who daubed it with mud plaster, and I will say to you, “Gone is the wall, and gone are those who daubed on it—",
      "16": "those prophets of Israel who are prophesying about Jerusalem and who proclaim a vision of peace about her when there is no peace, declares the Lord God.”",
      "17": "You, son of man, are to set your face against the daughters of your people, who are prophesying ecstatically from their own hearts. You are to prophesy against them.",
      "18": "You are to say that this is what the Lord God says.\nWoe to those women who sew magic bands for all their wrists and who make veils of every size for people’s heads in order to trap souls. Will you women trap the souls of my people, but preserve your own souls?",
      "19": "You women profane me among my people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread, killing people who should not die and keeping people alive who should not live. You do this by your lying to my people—those who listen to lies.",
      "20": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says.\nListen. I am against your magic bands, with which you women trap souls like birds. I will tear them from your arms, and I will set free the souls that you trap like birds.",
      "21": "I will tear off your veils and rescue my people from your hand. They will no longer be in your hand like prey. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "22": "Because you have disheartened the righteous man with delusions, even though I have not intended to grieve him, and you have strengthened the hands of the wicked man, so that he does not repent of his evil way, and so he does not save his life,",
      "23": "therefore, you women will no longer proclaim empty words, and you will no longer deceive with false omens. I will rescue my people from your hand. Then you will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Some men from the elders of Israel came to me and sat down in front of me.",
      "2": "Then the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "3": "Son of man, these men have set up their filthy idols in their hearts, and they have placed a stumbling block that makes them guilty in front of their faces. So should I really let them consult me?",
      "4": "Therefore, speak with them and tell them this is what the Lord God says.\nWhenever anyone from the house of Israel sets up his filthy idols in his heart or sets the stumbling block that makes him guilty in front of his face and he then comes to a prophet, I, the Lord, will give him an answer appropriate to the multitude of his filthy idols,",
      "5": "so that I may capture the hearts of the house of Israel, for all of them have alienated themselves from me with their filthy idols.",
      "6": "Therefore, tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord God says. Repent and turn away from your filthy idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations.",
      "7": "Certainly, anyone from the house of Israel or an alien who is residing in Israel, if he alienates himself from me and sets up his filthy idols in his heart and puts the stumbling block that makes him guilty in front of his face, and he then comes to a prophet to seek my guidance for himself, I myself, the Lord, will give him an answer.",
      "8": "I will set my face against that man, and I will make him into a sign and a notorious example, and I will cut him off from among my people. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "9": "If a prophet acts like a fool and speaks a message, I, the Lord, have made a fool of that prophet. I will stretch out my hand against him, and I will destroy him from among my people Israel.",
      "10": "They will bear their guilt. The guilt of the one who seeks guidance will be the same as the guilt of the prophet,",
      "11": "so that the house of Israel will no longer stray from following me, and they will never again defile themselves by all their rebellious acts. They will be my people, and I will be their God, declares the Lord God.",
      "12": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "13": "Son of man, when a land sins against me by adding one act of infidelity to another, so that I stretch out my hand against it to cut off its bread supply, to send famine against it, and to cut off man and beast from it,",
      "14": "even if these three men were in its midst—Noah, Daniel, and Job—by their righteousness they would save only their own lives, declares the Lord God.",
      "15": "If I cause wild animals to pass through the land and they rob it of its children, so that it becomes desolate, and no one can pass through because of the wild animals,",
      "16": "and if these three men were in its midst, as I live, says the Lord God, they would not save either their sons or their daughters. They alone would be saved, but the land would be devastated.",
      "17": "Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, “A sword shall pass through the land,” and I cut off from it man and beast,",
      "18": "and these three men were in its midst, as I live, says the Lord God, they would not be able to save either their sons or their daughters, but they alone would be saved.",
      "19": "Or if I send a plague on that land, and with bloodshed I pour out my wrath on it to cut off man and beast from it,",
      "20": "and if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in its midst, as I live, says the Lord God, they would not be able to save either their sons or their daughters. By their righteousness they would save only their own lives.",
      "21": "For this is what the Lord God says. How much worse it will be when I send my four terrible judgments—sword, famine, wild animals, and plague—upon Jerusalem to cut off man and beast from it!",
      "22": "But wait! A group of survivors will be left in it, those sons and daughters who will be brought out. Look! They are coming out to you, and you shall see their ways and their actions. Then you will be comforted concerning the disaster that I brought upon Jerusalem, everything that I brought upon it.",
      "23": "And they will comfort you, because you will see their ways and their actions. Then you will know that it was not without cause that I did everything that I did against the city, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, what can be done with the wood of a grapevine compared to the wood from the branches of all the other trees in the forest?",
      "3": "Can its wood be used to make something useful? Can people make a peg from it to hang things on?",
      "4": "No, it is fed into the fire for fuel. The fire devours both ends of it, and its middle is burned up. Is it useful for any purpose then?",
      "5": "Since it could not be used for any purpose when it was undamaged, how much less can it be used to make anything useful after the fire has devoured it and it has been burned!",
      "6": "Therefore, this is what the Lord says. Like the wood of the grapevine from among the trees of the forest, which I have fed into the fire for fuel, in the same way I will feed the inhabitants of Jerusalem into the fire.",
      "7": "I will set my face against them. They have come out from the fire, but the fire will still devour them. Then you will know that I am the Lord when I set my face against them.",
      "8": "I will make the land desolate because they added one infidelity to another, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her abominations.",
      "3": "Tell them this is what the Lord God says to Jerusalem.\nYour origin and your birth were from the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.",
      "4": "This is the way it was at your birth. On the day you were born, your umbilical cord was not cut, and you were not washed with water to clean you up. You were not rubbed down with salt, nor were you tightly wrapped with cloths.",
      "5": "No eye looked at you with pity to do any of these things for you or to show compassion to you. On the day you were born, you were thrown out in the open field without regard for your life.",
      "6": "I passed by, and I saw you squirming in your blood. I said to you, “You there, lying there in your blood, live!” and I said to you, “You there, lying there in your blood, live!”",
      "7": "I made you grow like a sprout in the field. You grew up, you developed, and you became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed and your hair had appeared, but you were completely naked.",
      "8": "I passed by and saw you, and I noticed that you were old enough for love. So I spread the skirt of my robe over you and covered your nakedness. I swore an oath to you to enter into a covenant of marriage with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.",
      "9": "I washed you with water. I washed your blood off you. I anointed you with oil.",
      "10": "I clothed you with the finest embroidered material and gave you sandals of luxurious leather. I wrapped your head in the best linen and covered you with silk.",
      "11": "I adorned you with jewelry. I put bracelets on your wrists and a necklace around your neck.",
      "12": "I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears, and a glorious crown on your head.",
      "13": "So you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was made of the best linen, with silk and the finest embroidered material. You ate fine flour, honey, and olive oil. You were extraordinarily beautiful, and you attained the status of a queen.",
      "14": "Your fame spread throughout the nations because of your beauty. In fact, it was perfect because of my splendor, which I had bestowed upon you, declares the Lord God.",
      "15": "But you trusted in your beauty, and, relying on your fame, you acted like a prostitute. You lavished your lust on every man passing by—you became his.",
      "16": "You took some of your clothing and made colorful high places for yourself and acted like a prostitute on them. Such things should not happen. They should not be!",
      "17": "You took your glorious articles made from my gold and my silver, which I had given to you, and you made male idols for yourself, and you acted like a prostitute with them.",
      "18": "You took your clothing made of the finest embroidered material and covered the idols, and you set my oil and my incense in front of them.",
      "19": "Also my food which I gave you—the fine flour, oil, and honey which I fed you—you set in front of them as a fragrant sacrifice. This is what happened, declares the Lord God.",
      "20": "You even took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore for me, and sacrificed them as food for the idols. Was your continual prostitution not enough?",
      "21": "Did you have to slaughter my children and offer them to the idols by making them pass through the fire?",
      "22": "With all your abominations and your prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were completely naked, when you were squirming about in your blood.",
      "23": "So after all your wickedness—woe, woe to you, says the Lord God!—",
      "24": "you built for yourself a platform, and you made a pavilion for yourself in every public square.",
      "25": "At the corner of every street you set up your pavilion and made your beauty into a disgusting thing. You spread your legs for every man passing by, and you multiplied your acts of prostitution.",
      "26": "You acted like a whore with the sons of Egypt, your neighbors with their enlarged flesh, and you multiplied your acts of prostitution to enrage me!",
      "27": "Look at how I stretched out my hand against you. I reduced your territory. I gave you up to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were embarrassed by your lewd ways.",
      "28": "You acted like a whore with the sons of the Assyrians because you were insatiable. Even after your acts of prostitution with them, you were not satisfied.",
      "29": "So you extended your whoring ways to the land of merchants, to Chaldea, but even with this you were not satisfied.",
      "30": "How sick your heart is, says the Lord God, that you did all these things, the behavior of a woman who is a domineering whore!",
      "31": "When you built your platform at the corner of every street and you made your pavilion in every public square, you were not like an ordinary prostitute, because you refused payment.",
      "32": "You adulterous wife, who procures strange men instead of her husband,",
      "33": "to all prostitutes men pay a fee, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers. You bribed them to come to you from all around to join your whoring ways.",
      "34": "You were the opposite of the other women in your whoring ways. You were not solicited for prostitution, but you gave payment to your lovers. Instead of payment being given to you, you were the very opposite.",
      "35": "Therefore, you whore, hear the word of the Lord!",
      "36": "This is what the Lord God says. Because your moisture was poured out, and your nakedness was exposed during your whoring ways with your lovers, because of all your disgusting, filthy idols, and because of the blood of your children, whom you gave to them,",
      "37": "for all this, I am about to gather all your lovers to whom you were giving pleasure—all those you loved, as well as all those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around. I will expose your nakedness to them, and they will see your nakedness.",
      "38": "I will judge you with the judgments deserved by women who commit adultery and who shed blood. I will make you bloody in my wrath and jealousy.",
      "39": "I will deliver you into their hands, and they will tear down your platform, demolish your pavilion, strip you of your clothing, take away your glorious jewelry, and leave you completely naked.",
      "40": "They will bring up a mob against you, and they will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords.",
      "41": "They will burn down your houses with fire and carry out judgments against you in the sight of many women. I will make you stop being a whore, and you will never again give a payment.",
      "42": "Then I will lay to rest my wrath against you, and my jealousy will turn away from you. I will be calm and no longer be angry.",
      "43": "Because you did not remember the days of your youth, and you made me angry during all these actions, I myself will certainly bring your conduct down upon your head. That is the declaration of the Lord God! Haven’t you added lewdness to all your abominations?",
      "44": "Hear this! Everyone will speak this proverb about you: “Like mother, like daughter.”",
      "45": "You are a true daughter of your mother, who despises her husband and her children, and you are a true sister of your sisters, who despise their husbands and their children. The mother of all of you was a Hittite and your father was an Amorite.",
      "46": "Your older sister is Samaria, who along with her daughters lives north of you, and your younger sister, who lives south of you along with her daughters, is Sodom.",
      "47": "You did not merely walk in their ways or act according to their abominations, since in a very short time you became more depraved in all your ways than they were.",
      "48": "As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom along with her daughters has not done what you have done along with your daughters.",
      "49": "Look, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: Pride, overindulgence in food, and complacent ease were the way for her and her daughters, and she failed to strengthen the hands of the poor and needy.",
      "50": "They were haughty, and they committed abominations in my presence, and so I removed them when I saw it.",
      "51": "Samaria did not sin half as much as you did. You multiplied your abominations more than they did. You made your sisters appear righteous by all your abominations which you committed.",
      "52": "So you must bear your disgrace, because by your sins you appeared to plead your sisters’ case for them. Because of your sins—you acted more repulsively than they did—they appear more righteous than you. So you must be ashamed and bear your disgrace, because you made your sisters appear righteous.",
      "53": "I will bring about their restoration—the restoration of Sodom and her daughters, and the restoration of Samaria and her daughters, as well as your complete restoration in their midst,",
      "54": "so that you will bear your disgrace, and you will be ashamed of everything you did when you appeared to give them comfort.",
      "55": "Your sister Sodom and her daughters will return to their former state, and your sister Samaria and her daughters will return to their former state, and you and your daughters will return to your former state.",
      "56": "Wasn’t your sister Sodom a subject for gossip in your mouth during the days when you were so proud,",
      "57": "in the days before your own wickedness was exposed? So now in the same way you are subjected to scorn by the daughters of Edom and by all those around her and by the daughters of the Philistines, who scorn you from all sides.",
      "58": "Your lewdness and your abominations, you must now bear, declares the Lord.",
      "59": "So this is what the Lord God says. Shall I do with you just as you have done, you who despised your oath, thereby breaking the covenant?",
      "60": "No, just the opposite, I myself will remember my covenant I made with you during the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant for you.",
      "61": "Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters who are older than you, in addition to those who are younger than you, and I will give them to you as daughters, and not outside your covenant.",
      "62": "I myself will establish my covenant with you. Then you will know that I am the Lord,",
      "63": "so that you may remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your disgrace, when I make atonement for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, present a challenging parable to the house of Israel.",
      "3": "Tell the Israelites that this is what the Lord God says.\nA great eagle with powerful wings, with long feathers, and covered with multicolored plumes, came to Lebanon. He took the tip of a cedar.",
      "4": "He plucked off the newest shoot at the very top of the tree, and he carried it to a land of merchants. In a city of traders he planted it.",
      "5": "Then he took seed from the land and planted it in a fertile field, like a new plant beside plentiful water. He set it out like a willow twig,",
      "6": "so that it would sprout and become a spreading vine, low to the ground, so that its branches would turn toward the one who planted it and its roots would remain under him. So it became a vine and produced shoots and leaves and branches.",
      "7": "But there was another great eagle with powerful wings and many plumes. Look at how this vine bent its roots toward him! From the bed where it had been planted, it stretched out its branches toward him, so that he could water it.",
      "8": "It had been planted in good soil beside plentiful water to grow branches, to bear fruit, and to become a magnificent vine.",
      "9": "Tell them this is what the Lord God says. Will it thrive? Won’t he pull up its roots and strip off its fruit so that it dries up? Won’t all its new growth dry up? No strong arm or mighty army will be needed to pluck it by its roots.",
      "10": "Although it has been planted, will it thrive? When the east wind touches it, won’t it shrivel up completely? On the very bed where it had sprouted, it will wither away.",
      "11": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "12": "Tell this to the rebellious house.\nDon’t you know what these things mean? Tell them this. You saw how the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem. He took its king and its officials and brought them back to Babylon with him.",
      "13": "Then he took a member from the seed of the royal family, made a covenant with him, and put him under an oath. He took away the leading men of the land",
      "14": "so that it would be a lowly kingdom, so that it would not rebel but would keep the covenant with him, so that it could survive.",
      "15": "But the prince rebelled against that king by sending his envoys to Egypt to obtain horses and a large army. Will he thrive? Can someone who does such things escape? Can he break a covenant and still escape?",
      "16": "As I live, says the Lord God, in the land of the king who made him king, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke, in his presence in Babylon, he shall die.",
      "17": "He will not be joined by a mighty army or a great force during the war, because Pharaoh will not come when the enemy heaps up ramps and builds siege walls in order to cut off many lives.",
      "18": "The king despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Even though he had given his hand to seal the covenant, he did all these things. He shall not escape!",
      "19": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. As I live, because it was an oath taken in my name that the prince despised, I will bring down on his own head my covenant which he broke.",
      "20": "I will spread my net for him, and he will be caught in my trap. I will bring him to Babylon, and I will enter into judgment with him there for the treachery he has committed against me.",
      "21": "All his fugitives together with all his troops will fall by the sword, and the rest will be scattered to every wind. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken.",
      "22": "This is what the Lord God says. I myself will take part of the tip of the cedar and plant it. From the topmost of its shoots I will pluck off a tender sprig, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain.",
      "23": "On the high mountain of Israel I will plant it. It will produce branches, bear fruit, and become a magnificent cedar. Flying birds of every kind will live under it. In the shelter of its branches they will nest.",
      "24": "Then all the trees in the countryside will know that I, the Lord, bring down the high tree and raise up the low tree, that I make the green tree dry up, and I make the dried-up tree blossom. I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will carry it out."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "What do you mean, you who keep repeating this proverb concerning the soil of Israel, “Fathers eat sour grapes, and their sons’ teeth are set on edge”?",
      "3": "As surely as I live, declares the Lord God, you will never again use this proverb in Israel.",
      "4": "Indeed, all souls are mine. The soul of the father is mine just like the soul of the son. The soul who sins is the one who will die.",
      "5": "If a man is righteous and practices justice and righteousness,",
      "6": "if he does not eat on the mountains and does not lift up his eyes to the filthy idols of the house of Israel, if he does not defile his neighbor’s wife and does not approach a woman during her period,",
      "7": "if he does not exploit anyone but returns the collateral given to him for a loan, if he does not seize another person’s property by force but gives his own food to the hungry and covers the naked with clothing,",
      "8": "if he does not deduct a fee from the money he lends to someone and he does not demand that people repay more than he lent them, if he holds back his hand from unrighteousness and administers impartial justice between two parties,",
      "9": "that is, if he walks in my statutes and keeps my ordinances by acting faithfully, that man is righteous and he will surely live, declares the Lord God.",
      "10": "Now if he fathers a violent son, who sheds blood or who does any one of these evil things to a brother",
      "11": "(although the father did not do all these things), but the son goes so far as to eat on the mountains and even defiles his neighbor’s wife,",
      "12": "exploits the poor and the needy, seizes other people’s property by force, does not return the collateral on a loan, lifts up his eyes to the filthy idols, commits abominations,",
      "13": "and deducts a fee from the money he lends to someone and demands that people repay more than he lent them—will he live? He will not live! He committed all these abominations, so he will surely be put to death. His blood will be upon him.",
      "14": "But if that son himself fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has committed, and though he sees, he does not do likewise—",
      "15": "he does not eat on the mountains, he does not lift up his eyes to the filthy idols of the house of Israel, he does not defile his neighbor’s wife,",
      "16": "he does not exploit anyone, he does not require collateral for a loan, he does not seize another person’s property by force, he gives his own food to the hungry and he covers the naked with clothing,",
      "17": "he takes care not to harm the poor, he does not deduct a fee from the money he lends someone or demand that people repay more than he lent them, but he keeps my ordinances and walks according to my statutes—that man will not die because of his father’s guilt. He will surely live.",
      "18": "But his father, if he practices extortion, seizes his brother’s goods by force, and does what was not good among his own people, he will surely die because of his own guilt.",
      "19": "But you ask, “Why doesn’t the son share in the guilt of the father?” Because the son did what was just and right. He kept all my statutes and carried them out, so he will surely live.",
      "20": "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share in the guilt of the father, and the father will not share in the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous person will be credited to him alone, and the wickedness of the wicked person will be charged against him alone.",
      "21": "A wicked man, if he turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and carries out justice and righteousness, he will surely live. He will not die.",
      "22": "All of the rebellious acts that he had committed will not be remembered against him. Because of his righteousness that he has practiced, he will live.",
      "23": "Do I really find any pleasure in the death of the wicked? says the Lord God. Don’t I want him to turn from his ways and live?",
      "24": "But if a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and does what is unrighteous—namely, all the abominations that the wicked man practices—will he live? All the righteous deeds that he did will not be remembered. Because he added one infidelity to another and because of the sins that he has committed, because of them, he will die.",
      "25": "But you say, “The Lord’s way is not fair.” Listen now, house of Israel. Is it my way that is not fair? Is it not your ways that are not fair?",
      "26": "If a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and practices unrighteousness, he will die because of it. Because of the unrighteousness that he has practiced, he will die.",
      "27": "But if a wicked man turns from his wickedness that he has done and practices justice and righteousness, he will preserve his life.",
      "28": "Because he has seen and turned away from all the rebellious acts that he had committed, he will surely live, and he will not die.",
      "29": "But the house of Israel says, “The Lord’s way is not fair.” Is it really my ways that are not fair, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not fair?",
      "30": "Therefore, I will judge each one of you according to his ways, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn away from all your rebellious acts, so that you will not set out a stumbling block that makes you guilty.",
      "31": "Throw off from yourselves all your rebellious actions by which you have rebelled, and obtain a new heart and a new spirit for yourselves. Why should you die, O house of Israel?",
      "32": "For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord God. So repent and live!"
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Now you are to take up a lament for the princes of Israel.",
      "2": "This is what you are to say:\n    What a lioness your mother was!\n    She crouched among the lions.\n    Among the young lions she reared her cubs.",
      "3": "She raised up one of her cubs.\n    When he became a young lion,\n        he learned to tear his prey.\n    He even ate humans.",
      "4": "When the nations heard about him,\n        he was trapped in their pit.\n    With hooks they led him to the land of Egypt.",
      "5": "When she saw that she was waiting in vain,\n    that her hope was lost,\n        she took another of her cubs\n        and made him a young lion.",
      "6": "He prowled around among the lions,\n    because he too had become a young lion.\n    He learned to tear prey.\n    He even ate humans.",
      "7": "He knew how many widows he made\n        as he ravaged their cities.\n    The land and everyone in it were stunned\n        by the noise of his roaring.",
      "8": "Nations set upon him from the surrounding provinces.\n    They spread their net over him,\n    and he was trapped in their pit.",
      "9": "With hooks they put him in a wooden cage,\n    and they brought him to the king of Babylon.\n    They brought him into prison\n        so that his roar would no longer be heard\n        on the mountains of Israel.",
      "10": "Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard,\n    planted by water, fruitful and full of branches\n    because of plentiful waters.",
      "11": "Its strong branches became scepters for rulers.\n    It towered high, among the clouds.\n    It was outstanding because of its height,\n    and because of the abundance of its branches.",
      "12": "But the vine was uprooted in wrath,\n    and it was hurled to the ground.\n    The east wind dried up its fruit.\n    Its strong branch was torn off so that it dried up,\n    and fire devoured it.",
      "13": "Now it is planted in the wilderness,\n    in a dry and thirsty land.",
      "14": "Fire has come out from its main branch\n    and consumed its fruit,\n    so that it no longer has a strong branch,\n    no scepter fit for ruling.\nThis is a lament, and it was used as a lament."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "In the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, men came from the elders of Israel to consult the Lord, and they sat down in front of me.",
      "2": "Then the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "3": "“Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel and tell them this.”\nThis is what the Lord God says to them:\nAre you really coming to consult me? As I live, I will not let myself be consulted by you, declares the Lord God.",
      "4": "Will you put them on trial? Will you put them on trial, son of man? Remind them of the abominable practices of their fathers.",
      "5": "You are to tell them the following.\nThis is what the Lord God says. On the day when I chose Israel, when I swore with an uplifted hand to the descendants of the house of Jacob, when I made myself known to them in the land of Egypt, then I lifted up my hand to them in an oath. I said, “I am the Lord, your God.”",
      "6": "On that day I swore to them with an uplifted hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt to a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey. It was the most glorious of all the lands.",
      "7": "I said to them, “Each man must throw away the loathsome things he sets his eyes on. You must not defile yourselves with the filthy idols of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God.”",
      "8": "But they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me. Not one of them threw away the loathsome things which they set their eyes on. They did not forsake the filthy idols of Egypt, so I resolved to pour out my wrath on them and to exhaust my anger against them in the middle of the land of Egypt.",
      "9": "I acted for the sake of my name, so that it would not be profaned in the sight of the nations that were around them, the nations in whose sight I had made myself known by bringing the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.",
      "10": "So I brought them out of the land of Egypt and led them into the wilderness.",
      "11": "I gave them my statutes, and I made my ordinances known to them, ordinances by which a man will live if he observes them.",
      "12": "I also gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, so that they could know that I, the Lord, am the one who sanctifies them.",
      "13": "But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances (ordinances by which a man will live if he observes them), and they profaned my Sabbaths completely. So I threatened to pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness in order to annihilate them.",
      "14": "I acted for the sake of my name, so that it would not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out from Egypt.",
      "15": "I also swore to them with an uplifted hand in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land that I had given to them, a land flowing with milk and honey—it is the most glorious of all the lands—",
      "16": "because they rejected my ordinances and did not walk in my statutes. Instead, they profaned my Sabbaths. This happened because their hearts chase after their filthy idols.",
      "17": "Nevertheless, my eye had pity on them so that I did not destroy them, and I did not completely destroy them in the wilderness.",
      "18": "Then I said to their children in the wilderness: “Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers. Do not observe their ordinances, and do not defile yourselves with their filthy idols.",
      "19": "I, the Lord, am your God. Walk in my statutes, and observe my ordinances and practice them.",
      "20": "Keep my Sabbaths holy so that they may be a sign between me and you, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God.”",
      "21": "But the children too rebelled against me. They did not walk in my statutes. They did not observe my ordinances by practicing them, statutes by which a person will live if he observes them. They profaned my Sabbaths, so I resolved to pour out my wrath on them and to exhaust my anger on them in the wilderness.",
      "22": "Nevertheless, I held back my hand and acted for the sake of my name, so that it would not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out from Egypt.",
      "23": "However, I raised my hand in an oath to them in the wilderness and swore that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them among the countries",
      "24": "because they had not observed my ordinances. They despised my statutes. They profaned my Sabbaths, and they fixed their eyes on the filthy idols of their fathers.",
      "25": "So I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live.",
      "26": "I defiled them through their sacrificial gifts—when they made all their firstborn pass through the fire—in order to devastate them, so that they would know that I am the Lord.",
      "27": "Therefore, speak to the house of Israel, son of man, and tell them this.\nThis is what the Lord God says. In this too your fathers blasphemed me by committing infidelity after infidelity against me.",
      "28": "When I brought them to the land which I had sworn with an uplifted hand to give to them, whenever they saw any high hill or any leafy tree, they offered their sacrifices there. There they placed their offerings that provoke me. There they offered their fragrant sacrifices. There they poured out their drink offerings.",
      "29": "Then I said to them, “What is the high place to which you are going?” So it is called Bamah to this day.",
      "30": "Therefore, say this to the house of Israel.\nThis is what the Lord God says. Are you continuing to defile yourselves in the way your fathers did? Are you still whoring after their loathsome idolatries?",
      "31": "When you offer your gifts and make your sons pass through the fire, you continue to defile yourselves by all your filthy idols to this day. So should I let myself be consulted by you, house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord God, I will not let myself be consulted by you.",
      "32": "What you have in mind will definitely never take place. You are saying, “Let us become like the nations, like the clans in other countries, by worshipping wood and stone.”",
      "33": "As I live, says the Lord God, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with wrath outpoured, I will rule over you!",
      "34": "I will bring you out from the nations, and I will gather you from the countries among which you have been scattered. With a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with wrath outpoured,",
      "35": "I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples. There I will enter into judgment with you face-to-face.",
      "36": "As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I enter into judgment with you, declares the Lord God.",
      "37": "I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you under the binding terms of the covenant.",
      "38": "I will purge out from among you those who revolt and rebel against me. From the land where they are staying I will bring them out, but they shall not come into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "39": "But to you, house of Israel, this is what the Lord God says. Let each man go and worship his filthy idols, but after that, even if you will not listen to me, you will no longer profane my holy name with your gifts and with your filthy idols.",
      "40": "For on my holy mountain, on the high mountain of Israel, declares the Lord God, the whole house of Israel will worship me there—the whole nation in its homeland. There I will accept them. There I will request your offerings and your special gifts together with all your holy things.",
      "41": "I will accept you as a fragrant sacrifice when I bring you out from the nations and when I gather you from the lands among which you were scattered. Then through you, I will show that I am holy in the sight of the nations.",
      "42": "You will know that I am the Lord when I bring you back to the soil of Israel, to the land that I swore with an upraised hand to give to your fathers.",
      "43": "There you will remember your ways and all your deeds by which you defiled yourselves, and you will despise yourselves for all your evil deeds which you have done.",
      "44": "Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for the sake of my name and not according to your evil ways and your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God.",
      "45": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "46": "Son of man, set your face toward Teman. Preach against the Southland, and prophesy against the scrubby forest in the Negev.",
      "47": "Say this to the scrub forest in the Negev. Hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord God says. I am about to ignite a fire among you, and among you it will devour every green tree and every dry tree. The blazing flame will not be extinguished. Every face will be scorched by it, from south to north.",
      "48": "All flesh will see that I, the Lord, have ignited it. It will not be extinguished.",
      "49": "Then I said, “Oh, Lord God, they are saying about me, ‘Doesn’t he just talk in puzzling parables?’”"
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem. Preach against the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel.",
      "3": "Say this to the land of Israel.\nThis is what the Lord says. Hear this! I am against you, and I will draw my sword out of its scabbard, and I will cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked.",
      "4": "Because I have resolved to cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked, therefore my sword will come out of its scabbard against everyone from south to north.",
      "5": "Then all flesh will know that I, the Lord, have drawn my sword from its scabbard. It will not return to its sheath again.",
      "6": "Now you, son of man, groan as though you were doubled up in pain. Groan in front of them as though in bitter anguish.",
      "7": "When they ask you, “Why are you groaning?” say, “Because of the news that is coming.” Then every heart will melt, all hands will hang limp, and all knees will run with water. It is coming, and it will take place, declares the Lord God.",
      "8": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "9": "Son of man, prophesy and say that this is what the Lord says.\n    A sword, a sword has been sharpened.\n    It has also been polished.",
      "10": "It has been made very sharp for slaughter.\n    It has been polished to flash like lightning.\nSo shall we rejoice in the scepter of my son?\nThe sword despises every such stick of wood.",
      "11": "The sword has been set aside to be polished,\nto be grasped by the hand.\nIt has been sharpened, and it has been polished,\nto be put into the hand of a killer.",
      "12": "Cry out and wail, son of man,\nbecause the sword is against my people.\nIt is against all the princes of Israel.\nThey have been thrown to the sword together with my people.\nTherefore, slap your thigh.",
      "13": "Yes, testing is sure to come.\n    What if the scepter, which the sword despises, is no more?\n    This is the declaration of the Lord God.",
      "14": "Now you, son of man, prophesy.\n    Clap your hands together.\n    Let the sword strike two times or even three.\n    It is a sword for those who are to be slain,\n    a sword for great slaughter,\n    a sword that pursues even to the inner room,",
      "15": "so that hearts melt,\n    and those who stumble will be many.\n    At all their gates I have placed the point of the sword.\n    Yes, it is made to flash like lightning,\n        unsheathed for slaughter.",
      "16": "Slash to the right. Thrust to the left—\n    wherever your blade is directed.",
      "17": "Then I myself will clap my hands.\n    I will bring my wrath to an end.\n    I, the Lord, have spoken.",
      "18": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "19": "Now you, son of man, draw a map with two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to follow. Both of them should start from the same country. Make a signpost. Place it at the fork of the road to the city.",
      "20": "Draw a road for the sword to come either to Rabbah of the Ammonites or to Judah, to fortified Jerusalem,",
      "21": "because the king of Babylon will stand at the fork of the road, where the two roads branch off, in order to read the omens. He will shake the arrows, consult his family gods, and examine animal livers for omens.",
      "22": "In his right hand he will receive the omen for Jerusalem—to set up battering rams, to shout the command to slaughter, to sound the battle cry, to set battering rams against the gates, to throw up a ramp, to build a siege wall.",
      "23": "But to the people of Jerusalem it will seem like a false omen. They swore solemn oaths to him, so he will remind them of their guilt, and they will be captured.",
      "24": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Because you brought your guilt into the open by displaying your rebellious acts, so that your sins are revealed by all your deeds—because you have brought your guilt out into the open, you will be taken in hand.",
      "25": "You corpse, you wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come for the time of final punishment,",
      "26": "this is what the Lord God says. Remove the turban. Take off the crown. Everything will be changed. Raise what is low. Bring down the high.",
      "27": "Ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it. This ruin will not end until the one comes to whom judgment belongs, the one to whom I will give it.",
      "28": "Now you, son of man, prophesy and say that this is what the Lord God says concerning the Ammonites and their taunts. Say this:\nSword, O sword, unsheathed for slaughter, polished to consume, to flash like lightning!",
      "29": "Though empty visions were seen about you, though omens made deceptive forecasts about you, you will be applied to the necks of the corpses of wicked men, whose day has come for the time of final punishment.",
      "30": "Return, sword, to your scabbard. In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.",
      "31": "I will pour out my wrath on you. I will blow the fire of my fury upon you. I will deliver you into the hands of brutal men, expert destroyers.",
      "32": "You will be fuel for the fire. Your blood will flow all over the land, and you will no longer be remembered, for I, the Lord, have spoken."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "You, son of man, will you put them on trial, will you put the bloody city on trial? Then list for her all her abominations.",
      "3": "Say that this is what the Lord God says.\nO city, you shed blood in your midst, and you bring on your time of judgment. You manufacture idols throughout the city, and so you defile yourself.",
      "4": "Because of the blood you have shed, you have become guilty, and because of the filthy idols you have made, you have become defiled. You have brought near your final days. You have arrived at the end of your years. Therefore, I have made you a disgrace to the nations and subjected you to ridicule among all the countries.",
      "5": "Those nearby and those far away from you will ridicule you, who are notorious for impurity and full of turmoil.",
      "6": "Look at the rulers of Israel. Each one among you uses his power to shed blood.",
      "7": "In your midst, people have dishonored their fathers and mothers. They have exploited the alien in your midst. They have mistreated the fatherless children and the widows among you.",
      "8": "You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths.",
      "9": "Slanderers are present among you to shed blood. In you there are people who eat on the mountains and commit obscene acts in your midst.",
      "10": "In your midst, a man uncovers the nakedness of his mother, who is reserved for his father, and men force themselves on a woman who is unclean during her period.",
      "11": "In your midst, a man commits an abomination with a neighbor’s wife. Another man obscenely defiles a daughter-in-law. Another forces himself on his sister, his father’s daughter.",
      "12": "In your midst, they take bribes to shed blood. You deduct a fee from the money you lend to people, and you demand that they repay more than you lent them. In this way you exploit your neighbor by extortion. And you have forgotten me, declares the Lord God.",
      "13": "Therefore, I clap my hands against the dishonest profit you have made and over the bloodshed in your midst.",
      "14": "Will your courage endure? Will your hands remain strong in the days when I deal with you? I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will accomplish it.",
      "15": "I will scatter you among the nations. I will disperse you throughout the countries and remove your uncleanness from you.",
      "16": "After you have been defiled in the eyes of the nations, you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "17": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "18": "Son of man, the house of Israel has become slag to me. All of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead inside a furnace. They have become the slag from silver.",
      "19": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Because you have all become slag, I am about to gather you inside Jerusalem.",
      "20": "As silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin are placed inside a furnace to blast them with fire and to melt them, so I will gather you in my anger and my wrath. I will throw you into the furnace and melt you.",
      "21": "I will gather you and blast you with the fire of my fury, and you will be melted in the midst of it.",
      "22": "As silver is melted inside a furnace, in the same way you will be melted inside the city. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out my wrath upon you.",
      "23": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "24": "Son of man, say to her, “You are a land not cleansed, a land that receives no rain in the day of rage.”",
      "25": "Jerusalem’s princes within her are like a roaring lion, tearing its prey. They devour people’s lives. They seize treasures and valuables. They make many women widows within her.",
      "26": "Her priests do violence to my law by profaning what is holy to me, by not distinguishing between the holy and the common, and by not teaching the difference between the unclean and the clean. They disregard my Sabbaths, with the result that I am profaned among them.",
      "27": "Her officials inside her are like wolves, tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives in order to make dishonest profits.",
      "28": "Her prophets daub whitewash for them, seeing empty visions and forecasting false omens for them. They say, “This is what the Lord God says,” when the Lord has not spoken at all.",
      "29": "The ordinary citizens practice extortion and commit robbery. They oppress the poor and the needy. They unjustly deprive the alien of his due.",
      "30": "I looked for someone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy her, but I found no one.",
      "31": "Therefore, I will pour out my rage upon them. In the fire of my fury, I will make an end of them. I will bring down their conduct on their own heads, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, there were two women, daughters of the same mother.",
      "3": "They acted like prostitutes in Egypt, where they were prostitutes during their youth. There they let their breasts be fondled. There they let men caress their virgin nipples.",
      "4": "The older sister was named Oholah, and her sister was named Oholibah. They became mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. (As for their names, Samaria is Oholah and Jerusalem is Oholibah.)",
      "5": "Oholah acted like a prostitute instead of being faithful to me. She lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians—bodyguards",
      "6": "clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, cavalrymen riding horses.",
      "7": "She bestowed her favors upon all the elite of the Assyrians, and along with all those for whom she lusted, she defiled herself with all their filthy idols.",
      "8": "She did not give up the whoring she had practiced since Egypt, when men lay down with her during her youth. They caressed her virgin nipples and poured out their lust upon her.",
      "9": "Therefore, I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she had lusted.",
      "10": "They exposed her nakedness. They took away her sons and her daughters and killed her with the sword. She became notorious among women because of the punishments they inflicted upon her.",
      "11": "Although her sister Oholibah saw this, she behaved even more obscenely and lustfully than her sister, and her lustful whoring was even worse than her sister’s whoring.",
      "12": "She lusted after the Assyrians—governors, commanders, bodyguards in full uniform, and cavalrymen riding horses, all of them desirable young men.",
      "13": "Then I saw that she too had defiled herself. Both of them had gone the same way.",
      "14": "In fact, Oholibah intensified her whoring by looking at figures of men engraved on the wall, images of Chaldeans incised in bright red,",
      "15": "with belts around their waists and flowing turbans on their heads. All of them looked like elite officers, like Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea.",
      "16": "At the mere sight of them she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea.",
      "17": "The Babylonians came to her bed to make love, and they defiled her by acting like whores themselves. But after she had been defiled by them, she tore herself away from them in disgust.",
      "18": "Because she had acted like a whore so openly and exposed her nakedness, I tore myself away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister in disgust.",
      "19": "Yet she increased her whoring. She remembered the days of her youth when she acted like a prostitute in the land of Egypt.",
      "20": "She lusted after her paramours, whose genitals were like the genitals of donkeys and whose ejaculation was like the ejaculation of horses.",
      "21": "So you revisited the lewdness of your youth when your nipples were caressed in Egypt, and your young breasts were fondled.",
      "22": "Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Lord God says. Hear this loud and clear! I am about to rouse your lovers against you, those you had turned away from in disgust. I will bring them against you from all sides:",
      "23": "the sons of the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, elite officers and men of high rank, all of them riding on horses.",
      "24": "They will come against you with weapons, chariots, and wagons, and with a horde of people. With shields, armor, and helmets they will take up positions against you on all sides.\nI will give you up to them for judgment, and they will judge you according to their own standards.",
      "25": "I will turn my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in wrath. They will cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors will fall by the sword. They will take away your sons and your daughters, and your survivors will be devoured by fire.",
      "26": "They will strip you of your clothing and take away your beautiful jewelry.",
      "27": "I will put an end to your depravity and to the whoring you began in the land of Egypt. You will not lift up your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore.",
      "28": "For this is what the Lord God says. Listen! I am about to deliver you into the hands of those you hate, into the hands of those you turned away from in disgust.",
      "29": "They will treat you hatefully. They will take away everything you have worked for and leave you completely naked. Your whorish nakedness will be exposed. Your depravity and your acts of prostitution",
      "30": "have brought those things upon you because of your whoring after the nations, because you defiled yourself with their filthy idols.",
      "31": "Because you walked in the way of your sister, I will put her cup into your hand.",
      "32": "This is what the Lord God says. You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup deep and wide. It will cause you derision and ridicule because it is so full.",
      "33": "You will be filled with drunkenness and grief by the cup of horror and devastation, the cup of your sister Samaria.",
      "34": "You will drink it and drain it. You will gnaw its broken pieces and tear your breasts. For I have spoken, declares the Lord God.",
      "35": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must also bear the penalty of your depravity and your whoring.",
      "36": "The Lord also said this to me:\nSon of man, will you bring charges against Oholah and Oholibah? Make their abominations known to them.",
      "37": "They have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their filthy idols. They have even offered up their children, whom they bore for me, to the idols as food.",
      "38": "What is more, they have done this to me: They defiled my sanctuary on the same day they desecrated my Sabbaths.",
      "39": "When they slaughtered their children for their filthy idols, they entered my sanctuary on that same day to defile it. Just look! This is what they did in my own house.",
      "40": "They even sent for men to come from far away, men to whom they had sent a messenger, and those men did come.\nFor them you bathed. You applied eye shadow and put on your jewelry.",
      "41": "You sat on an expensive couch. In front of it you set a table, on which you placed my incense and my perfumed oil.",
      "42": "The noise of a carefree crowd surrounded her. In addition to the large throng of all kinds of men, they even brought drunkards from the desert. They put bracelets on their arms and beautiful crowns on their heads.",
      "43": "Then I said about the woman worn out with adulteries, “Let them keep using her as a whore because that is what she is.”",
      "44": "So they used her the way one uses a whore. So they used Oholah and Oholibah, those depraved women.",
      "45": "But righteous men will punish them with the punishment due to adulteresses, and the punishment due to murderers, for they are adulteresses, and blood is on their hands.",
      "46": "So this is what the Lord God says. I will bring an army against them and hand them over to terror and plunder.",
      "47": "The army will stone them and cut them down with their swords. They will slaughter their sons and daughters and burn down their houses with fire.",
      "48": "In this way I will remove depravity from the land, so that all women may take warning not to act in such a depraved way as you do.",
      "49": "They will impose upon you the penalty for your depravity, and you will bear the punishment for your sinful worship of your filthy idols. Then you will know that I am the Lord God."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month.",
      "2": "Son of man, record this date, this very day. The king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem on this very day.",
      "3": "Tell a parable to the rebellious house. Tell them that this is what the Lord God says.\nPut the pot on. Put it on. Then pour water in it.",
      "4": "Put the pieces of meat into it, every good piece, thigh and shoulder. Fill it with the best cuts.",
      "5": "Take the best of the flock. Pile up the wood under it. Boil it thoroughly, so that the pieces in it are well cooked.",
      "6": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Woe to the bloody city, a pot whose residue is inside it, whose residue has not gone out of it!\nTake out its cuts of meat piece by piece, without choosing one piece in preference to another.",
      "7": "Do this because the blood she shed remains within her. She spilled it on a bare rock. She did not pour it on the ground, where the soil would cover it.",
      "8": "To rouse wrath and to exact repayment, I have spilled her blood on a bare rock so that it would not be covered.",
      "9": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Woe to the bloody city! I myself will keep piling up the wood.",
      "10": "Add more wood. Stoke the fire. Overcook the meat. Pour out the broth. Let the bones be charred.",
      "11": "Leave the empty pot on the coals so that it becomes hot and its bronze glows, till the filth inside it is melted, and its residue is burned away.",
      "12": "The city has wearied me with its wickedness. Its filthy residue has not been removed from it. Into the fire with its filthy residue!",
      "13": "Your impurity is lewdness. I tried to cleanse you, but you did not become clean, and as a result you will not be clean again from your impurity until I have exhausted my wrath against you.",
      "14": "I, the Lord, have spoken. This is coming, and I will do it. I will not neglect it. I will not spare you, and I will not relent. According to your behavior and your misdeeds, you will be judged, declares the Lord God.",
      "15": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "16": "Son of man, be warned! With one blow I am taking away from you what your eyes desire. You must not mourn or cry. Your tears must not flow.",
      "17": "Groan silently. Perform no mourning rites for the dead. Bind your turban on your head. Put your sandals on your feet. Do not cover your upper lip. Do not eat the food people bring to mourners.",
      "18": "So I spoke to the people that morning, and in the evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I had been commanded.",
      "19": "Then the people asked me, “Won’t you tell us what these things that you are doing mean for us?”",
      "20": "I answered them, “This is the word of the Lord that came to me.”",
      "21": "Say to the house of Israel that this is what the Lord God says.\nI am about to desecrate my sanctuary, the stronghold of which you are so proud, the sight your eyes desire, the place your soul yearns for. Your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword.",
      "22": "You will do as I have done. You will not cover your upper lip. You will not eat the food people bring to mourners.",
      "23": "Your turbans will remain on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or cry, but you will waste away in your guilt, and you will groan to one another.",
      "24": "In this way, Ezekiel will be a sign to you. You will do everything the same way as he has done it. When it happens, you will know that I am the Lord God.",
      "25": "But you, son of man, be aware that on that day when I take away from them their stronghold, their joy and glory, what their eyes desire, and that on which they set their hearts—their sons and their daughters as well—",
      "26": "on that day a survivor will come to you to let you hear it with your own ears.",
      "27": "On that day, your mouth will be opened when the survivor comes. Then you will speak and be speechless no longer. You will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, set your face toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them.",
      "3": "You are to tell the Ammonites: Hear the word of the Lord God. This is what the Lord God says. Because you said “Aha!” against my sanctuary when it was desecrated, and against the land of Israel when it was devastated, and against the house of Judah when they went into exile,",
      "4": "therefore, I am about to give you to the people of the East as their possession. They will set up their camps in your midst and place their dwellings among you. They will eat your produce, and they will drink your milk.",
      "5": "I will make Rabbah into a camel pasture and Ammon into a sheepfold. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "6": "So this is what the Lord God says. Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and celebrated against the land of Israel with all the contempt in your soul,",
      "7": "therefore, I have stretched out my hand against you, and I have given you as plunder to the nations. I have cut you off from the peoples, and I have made you perish from among the countries. When I have exterminated you, you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "8": "This is what the Lord God says.\nBecause Moab and Seir said, “Look! The house of Judah is just like all the nations,”",
      "9": "I am about to open up the flank of Moab from one end to the other: its cities, its border towns, and the glory of the land, Beth Jeshimoth, Baal Meon, and Kiriathaim.",
      "10": "I will deliver Moab, together with the Ammonites, into the possession of the people of the East. I will hand them over to the people of the East as their possession so that the Ammonites will no longer be remembered among the nations.",
      "11": "I will execute judgments upon Moab, and they will know that I am the Lord.",
      "12": "This is what the Lord God says. Because Edom has inflicted bitter revenge on the house of Judah and has incurred great guilt by pursuing revenge against Judah,",
      "13": "therefore, this is what the Lord God says. I will stretch out my hand against Edom. I will cut off man and beast from it and turn it into a wasteland. From Teman to Dedan they will fall by the sword.",
      "14": "I will take my revenge on Edom by means of my people Israel, and they will carry out my anger and my wrath against Edom. So they will experience my revenge, declares the Lord God.",
      "15": "This is what the Lord God says.\nBecause the Philistines pursued revenge and carried their revenge to an extreme, with bitter contempt in their soul, in order to destroy Judah with everlasting hatred,",
      "16": "therefore, this is what the Lord God says. I am about to stretch out my hand against the Philistines. I will cut off the Kerethites and destroy those who remain by the seacoast.",
      "17": "I will carry out great acts of revenge and furious punishments among them, and they will know that I am the Lord when I lay my revenge upon them."
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, because Tyre said about Jerusalem, “Aha! The gateway to the peoples has been broken. It has been turned over to me. Because of her devastation, I will achieve my goal,”",
      "3": "this is what the Lord God says.\nI am against you, Tyre, and I will send many nations against you, as the sea sends up its waves.",
      "4": "They will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers. I will scrape away even the dust off her and make her a bare rock.",
      "5": "In the middle of the sea, she will become nothing but a place where fishing nets are spread out to dry, for I have spoken it, says the Lord God. She will become plunder for the nations,",
      "6": "and her daughters on the mainland will be slain by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord.",
      "7": "So this is what the Lord God says. I am bringing against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and king of kings, together with horses, chariots, horsemen, and a vast array of troops from many nations.",
      "8": "Your daughters on the mainland he will kill with the sword. He will set up a siege wall against you and heap up a ramp against you, and erect a roof of shields against you.",
      "9": "He will direct the blows of his battering ram against your walls, and he will demolish your towers with his swords.",
      "10": "His horses will be so numerous that the dust they raise will cover you. Your walls will shake from the noise of the horses’ hoofs, the wheels, and the chariots when he enters your gates, as men enter a breached city.",
      "11": "With the hoofs of his horses, he will trample all your streets. He will kill all your people with the sword. Your mighty pillars will topple to the ground.",
      "12": "They will plunder your wealth and take your merchandise as loot. They will tear down your walls and demolish your magnificent houses. Your stones, your timbers, and your rubble they will throw into the water.",
      "13": "I will put an end to the noise of your songs, and the sound of your lyres will be heard no more.",
      "14": "I will turn you into a bare rock.\nShe will become a place where fishing nets are spread out to dry. She will never be rebuilt, for I, the Lord, have spoken, declares the Lord God.",
      "15": "This is what the Lord God says to Tyre. How the coastlands will shudder at the sound of your downfall, when the victims groan, when the slain are slaughtered in your midst!",
      "16": "All the rulers of the sea will descend from their thrones, remove their robes, and take off their fine embroidered garments. Instead, they will be clothed with trembling. They will sit on the ground and tremble every moment. They will be appalled by you.",
      "17": "They will raise a lament over you and say to you, “How you have perished, you city inhabited by men from the sea, you city that was celebrated, a city that was the strongest in the sea. She and her inhabitants, who spread their terror—she and all of her inhabitants have perished.",
      "18": "Now the coastlands tremble on the day of your downfall. The coastlands that are on the sea are terrified by your collapse.”",
      "19": "So this is what the Lord God says. When I make you a ruined city like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the deep over you and the many waters cover you,",
      "20": "then I will bring you down to be with those who have descended to the pit, to the people from ancient times. I will make you live below the earth, like ancient ruins. You will be with those who have descended to the pit, so that you will be uninhabited, and I will not give you glory in the land of the living.",
      "21": "I will make you an object of horror, and you will no longer exist. You will be sought but never found again, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "You, son of man, take up a lament over Tyre.",
      "3": "Tell Tyre, who dwells at the entrances to the sea as a merchant traveling to many coastlands, this is what the Lord God says.\n    Tyre, you say, “I am a perfect beauty.”",
      "4": "Your borders were in the heart of the sea.\n    Your builders perfected your beauty.",
      "5": "They built for you a double-decked ship, made of fir from Senir.\n    They took a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for you.",
      "6": "They made your oars of oak from Bashan.\n    Your planks were made of pine, inlaid with ivory,\n        from the coasts of Cyprus.",
      "7": "Your sail was brightly decorated linen from Egypt,\n    which also served as your banner.\n    Your awning was blue and purple from the coasts of Elishah.",
      "8": "Inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad served as your rowers.\n    Tyre, your own skilled men, who were with you,\n        manned your sails.",
      "9": "Skilled veterans from Gebal were on board with you,\n        serving as your repairmen.\n    All the ships of the sea and their sailors\n        were in your harbor to engage in trade with you.",
      "10": "Warriors from Persia, Lud, and Put were in your army.\n    They hung up their shields and helmets among you.\n    They enhanced your splendor.",
      "11": "Men of Arvad and Cilicia were on your walls all around,\n    and men of Gammad were on your towers.\n    They hung their quivers all around on your walls.\n    They made your beauty perfect.",
      "12": "Tarshish traded with you because of your great wealth of every kind. They traded silver, iron, tin, and lead for your exports.",
      "13": "Ionia, Tubal, and Meshek also dealt with you. They traded human beings and articles of bronze for your wares.",
      "14": "From Beth Togarmah, horses, war horses, and mules were traded to you because of the abundance of your products.",
      "15": "The men of Rhodes also dealt with you. Many coastlands were agents of your trade, bringing back ivory tusks and ebony in payment to you.",
      "16": "Edom traded with you because of the abundance of your products. They sold turquoise, purple, and finely embroidered cloth, linen, coral, and rubies to you as exports.",
      "17": "Judah and the land of Israel also dealt with you. With wheat of Minnith, flour, honey, oil, and balm they bought your wares.",
      "18": "Damascus traded with you because of the abundance of your products, because of the abundance of all kinds of wealth. They sold wine of Helbon, wool from Sahar,",
      "19": "and wine casks from Izalla as exports. Wrought iron, cassia, and calamus were traded for your goods.",
      "20": "Dedan traded to you saddle blankets used for riding.",
      "21": "Arabia and all the rulers of Kedar were your agents for trade in lambs, rams, and goats. They were your agents for those.",
      "22": "Merchants of Sheba and Ra’amah dealt with you in all kinds of expensive perfumes and in all kinds of precious stones and gold, which they sold you for your merchandise.",
      "23": "Haran, Kanneh, and Eden, and dealers from Sheba, Assyria, and Kilmad were your dealers.",
      "24": "They were your dealers in elegant clothing, in purple garments and finely embroidered cloth, in carpets with multicolored trim, tightly wound with ropes for your marketplaces.",
      "25": "Tarshish ships traveled for you with your merchandise.\nSo you were full and very heavily loaded in the midst of the seas.",
      "26": "Your rowers brought you out into deep water. An east wind broke you up in the heart of the sea.",
      "27": "Your wealth, your exports and your imports, your sailors and your pilots, your repairmen, and those who bring you imports, all your warriors on board—in fact, all your company who were on board—will sink into the heart of the sea on the day of your collapse.",
      "28": "At the sound of the cry of distress from your pilots, the fields on the mainland will quake.",
      "29": "All who handle the oars will abandon their ships. The sailors and all the pilots of the sea will stand on shore.",
      "30": "They will shout loudly because of you and cry out bitterly. They will throw dirt on their heads and roll in ashes.",
      "31": "They will make themselves bald on account of you and put on sackcloth. They will weep bitterly over you, with a bitter lament.",
      "32": "In their grief, they will raise a lament over you. They utter this lament over you, “Who is like Tyre, now silenced in the midst of the sea?”",
      "33": "When your exports were unloaded from the seas, you satisfied many peoples. By your abundant wealth and your imports, you enriched the kings of the earth.",
      "34": "Now you have been broken up by the seas and sunk into the watery depths. Your merchandise and the entire company on board have sunk.",
      "35": "All the inhabitants of the coastlands are appalled because of you. Their kings’ hair stands on end. Their faces show distress.",
      "36": "Traders among the peoples whistle and hiss at you. You have become horrifying, and you will never exist again, forever."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre that this is what the Lord God says.\nBecause you became arrogant and said, “I am a god, and I occupy a throne of a god in the heart of the seas,” even though you are a mere man and not a god, and because you regard your wisdom as divine wisdom—",
      "3": "You really think you are wiser than Daniel, don’t you? No mystery baffles you.",
      "4": "By your wisdom and your shrewdness you have gained wealth for yourself and put gold and silver into your treasuries.",
      "5": "By your great skill in trading, you increased your wealth, but you became conceited because of your wealth.",
      "6": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Because you regard your wisdom as divine wisdom,",
      "7": "therefore, I am about to bring foreigners against you, the most ruthless of nations. They will unsheathe their swords against your beautiful wisdom, and they will desecrate your radiant splendor.",
      "8": "They will cast you down to the pit, and you will die a violent death in the heart of the sea.",
      "9": "Will you still claim “I am a god” in the presence of the one who kills you? It will be clear that you are merely a man and not a god when you fall into the hands of those who run you through.",
      "10": "You will die a death like that of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God.",
      "11": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "12": "Son of man, raise a lament over the king of Tyre. Say to him that this is what the Lord God says.\nYou were a seal of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.",
      "13": "You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone was covering you: carnelian, diamond, emerald, topaz, onyx, jasper, sapphire, agate, and beryl. Your mountings and your settings were worked in gold. They were prepared on the day you were created.",
      "14": "You were a cherub, the anointed guardian. I appointed you. You were on the holy mountain of God, and you walked about in the midst of sparkling stones.",
      "15": "Your conduct was blameless from the day you were created until guilt was found in you.",
      "16": "In your widespread trade, you practiced much violence and you sinned. I defiled you by banishing you from the mountain of God. I expelled you, you guardian cherub, from among the sparkling stones.",
      "17": "You became arrogant because of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom together with your splendor. So I hurled you down to the earth and set you in front of kings who gloated over you.",
      "18": "By your many sins during your unscrupulous trade, you defiled your sanctuaries. So I made fire break out from your midst, and it devoured you. I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching.",
      "19": "All those among the people who knew you are appalled at you. You have become horrifying, and you will never exist again, forever.",
      "20": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "21": "Son of man, set your face toward Sidon, and prophesy against her.",
      "22": "Say that this is what the Lord God says.\nI am against you, Sidon. I will display my glory in your midst, and they will know that I am the Lord, when I inflict punishments on you and display my holiness in you.",
      "23": "I will release the plague in her. There will be blood in her streets, and the slain will fall in her midst when the sword comes against her from all sides. Then they will know that I am the Lord.",
      "24": "Never again will the house of Israel be subjected to those who deride them, who are all around them like prickly briers or painful thorns. Then they will know that I am the Lord God.",
      "25": "This is what the Lord God says. When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples where they have been scattered, I will display my holiness through them in the sight of the nations. Then they will live on their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob.",
      "26": "They will live on it in security. They will build houses and plant vineyards. They will live on it in security when I inflict judgments upon all those around them who despise them. Then they will know that I am the Lord, their God."
    },
    "29": {
      "1": "In the tenth year in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.",
      "3": "Speak and tell them that this is what the Lord God says.\nI am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great monster who stretches out in the channels of the Nile. You say, “It is my Nile. I made it for myself.”",
      "4": "But I, the Lord, will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your Nile stick to your scales. I will haul you up from the middle of your Nile with all the fish from the Nile clinging to your scales.",
      "5": "I will leave you in the wilderness—you and all the fish of your Nile. You will lie fallen on the surface of the ground. You will not be collected or gathered up. I will give you as food to the wild animals of the earth and to the birds of the air.",
      "6": "Then all the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am the Lord.\nFor the house of Israel, the Egyptians have been a staff made out of a reed.",
      "7": "When Israel grasped you with their hands, you would splinter and tear open all their shoulders. When they leaned on you, you would break and make them lose their balance.",
      "8": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: I am about to bring a sword against you and cut off man and beast from you.",
      "9": "The land of Egypt will become a desolate ruin, and they will know that I am the Lord.\nBecause he said, “It is my Nile. I made it for myself,”",
      "10": "therefore, I am against you and against the channels of your Nile. I will turn the land of Egypt into ruins, a parched desolation—from Migdol to Aswan, that is, up to the border with Cush.",
      "11": "No one will set foot in it. No animal will set foot in it. It will remain uninhabited for forty years.",
      "12": "I will make the land of Egypt more desolate than any other land, and its cities will be the most desolate of ruined cities for forty years. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them among the countries.",
      "13": "Furthermore, this is what the Lord God says. At the end of forty years, I will gather the Egyptians from among the peoples where they were scattered.",
      "14": "I will bring about the restoration of Egypt and return them to Upper Egypt, the land of their origin, and there they will be a lowly kingdom.",
      "15": "It will be the lowliest of kingdoms, and it will never again exalt itself above other nations. I will make it so weak that it will never again rule over the nations.",
      "16": "It will never again be a source of trust for the house of Israel. It will be a reminder of their guilt when they turned to Egypt for help. Then they will know that I am the Lord God.",
      "17": "In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "18": "Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre. Every head was made bald, and every shoulder rubbed raw, yet neither he nor his army received any reward for the labor they had expended against Tyre.",
      "19": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. I am about to give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He will carry off its wealth, plunder it, and pillage it. That will be the reward for his army.",
      "20": "As his pay for which he labored, I have given him the land of Egypt, because his army did it for me, declares the Lord God.",
      "21": "On that day I will make a horn sprout for the house of Israel, and I will open your mouth among them. Then they will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "30": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, prophesy and say, “This is what the Lord God says.”\nAll of you, wail! What a miserable day!",
      "3": "Yes, that day is near. The Day of the Lord is near. It will be a day of clouds, a time for the nations.",
      "4": "A sword will enter Egypt, and there will be anguish in Cush when the slain fall in Egypt. Then they will take away its wealth, and its foundations will be demolished.",
      "5": "Cush, Put, Lud, and all the other mercenaries, Libya and the men from the land of the covenant will fall by the sword along with them.",
      "6": "This is what the Lord says. Those who prop up Egypt will fall, and its proud power will sink down. From Migdol to Aswan, those in Egypt will fall by the sword, declares the Lord God.",
      "7": "It will be the most desolate among the desolate lands, and its cities will be the most ruined among the ruined cities.",
      "8": "They will know that I am the Lord when I set fire to Egypt, and all its helpers are crushed.",
      "9": "On that day, messengers will go out from me in ships to terrify confident Cush, and there will be panic among them on the day for Egypt, for it is surely coming.",
      "10": "This is what the Lord God says. I will put an end to the horde of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.",
      "11": "He and his army with him, the most ruthless of nations, will be brought in to destroy the land. They will unsheathe their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the fallen.",
      "12": "I will dry up the channels of the Nile and sell the land to evil men. I will devastate the land and everything in it by the hand of foreigners. I, the Lord, have spoken.",
      "13": "This is what the Lord God says. I will destroy the filthy idols and eliminate from Memphis the gods that are not gods. There will no longer be a ruler in the land of Egypt, and I will put fear into the land of Egypt.",
      "14": "I will desolate Upper Egypt. I will set fire to Zoan and inflict punishments on Thebes.",
      "15": "I will pour out my wrath on Pelusium, the stronghold of Egypt, and I will cut off the horde of Thebes.",
      "16": "I will set fire to Egypt. Pelusium will writhe in pain. The defenses of Thebes will be broken down, and Memphis will face enemies every day.",
      "17": "The young men of Heliopolis and Bubastis will fall by the sword, and the women will go into captivity.",
      "18": "At Tahpanhes the day will grow dark when I break the yokes of Egypt there, and there its proud power will cease. A cloud will cover it, and its daughters will go into captivity.",
      "19": "I will inflict judgment on Egypt. Then they will know that I am the Lord.",
      "20": "In the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "21": "Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. But it has not been wrapped up so that it can heal. It has not been wrapped tightly with a splint to help it heal, so that it can become strong enough to grasp a sword.",
      "22": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. I am against Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and I will break his arms, both the strong one and the one that was broken, and in this way I will cause the sword to fall from his hand.",
      "23": "I will scatter Egypt among the nations and disperse them among the countries.",
      "24": "I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put my sword into his hand. But I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan in the presence of the king of Babylon with groans like someone who is mortally wounded.",
      "25": "I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh will hang limp. They will know that I am the Lord when I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he stretches it out against the land of Egypt.",
      "26": "I will scatter Egypt among the nations and disperse them among the countries. Then they will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "31": {
      "1": "In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, say this to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to his horde.\nTo whom can you be compared in your greatness?",
      "3": "Consider Assyria. It was a cedar in Lebanon. It had beautiful branches, which gave shade to the woodland. It was very tall, and its top reached to the clouds.",
      "4": "The waters made it grow. The deep springs made it tall, sending out rivers which flowed around the spot where it was planted, and they sent smaller ditches out to all the other trees in the countryside.",
      "5": "So the cedar was taller than all the other trees in the countryside. It produced many branches, and its boughs grew long, because of the plentiful water when it sent out shoots.",
      "6": "All the birds in the sky nested in its boughs. All the wild animals in the countryside gave birth under its branches, and all the mighty nations lived in its shade.",
      "7": "It was beautiful in its grandeur and in the length of its branches, because its roots reached down to plentiful water.",
      "8": "Even the cedars in the garden of God did not overshadow it. The boughs of the fir trees were not equal to its boughs, and the chestnut tree could not rival its many branches. No tree in the garden of God could equal it in beauty.",
      "9": "I made it so beautiful by the abundance of its branches that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied it.",
      "10": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Because you were so tall, because the cedar stretched its top up between the clouds, and its heart became haughty because of its height,",
      "11": "I will hand it over to a chief of nations, and he will deal harshly with it. I banished it as its wickedness deserved.",
      "12": "Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, cut it down and discarded it. Its branches fell on the mountains and in all the valleys. Its boughs lay broken in all the streambeds of the land, and all the peoples of the earth left its shade and abandoned it.",
      "13": "All the birds in the sky lodged on its fallen trunk, and all the wild animals in the countryside came to its branches.",
      "14": "All this happened so that all the well-watered trees would never again reach such heights or stretch their tops up between the clouds. Nor will the tallest of them remain standing—even though they drink in water—because they have all been handed over to death, to be below the earth, along with all mankind, with those who have descended to the pit.",
      "15": "This is what the Lord God says. When Assyria went down to the grave, I caused mourning everywhere. I covered the deep because of it. I restrained the rivers of the deep, and the plentiful waters were held back. I dressed Lebanon in black because of it, and all the trees in the countryside dried up because of it.",
      "16": "I made the nations quake at the sound of its fall, when I brought it down to the grave to be with those who have descended to the pit. Below the earth, all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all those that drink up water, consoled themselves,",
      "17": "even those who served as Assyria’s arm, those who lived in its shade among the nations, even those who went down to the grave with it, those run through by the sword.",
      "18": "To whom, then, can you be compared in glory and greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet you shall be brought down below the earth, together with the trees of Eden. You shall lie among the uncircumcised, together with those run through by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his horde, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "32": {
      "1": "In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, raise a lament over Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and say this to him.\nYou consider yourself a young lion among the nations, but you are like a monster in the seas. You thrash around in your rivers. You churn up the water with your feet and make the rivers muddy.",
      "3": "This is what the Lord God says. I will cast my net over you by an array of mighty nations, and they will haul you up in my fishing net.",
      "4": "I will haul you up and leave you on dry land and throw you into an open field. I will let all the birds of the air settle on you. I will let all the wild animals of the earth feed on you till they are filled.",
      "5": "I will dump your flesh on the mountains and fill the ravines with your carcass.",
      "6": "I will drench the land with the overflow of your blood, up to the mountains, and the streambeds will be filled with your remains.",
      "7": "When you are snuffed out, I will cover the sky and darken its stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.",
      "8": "I will black out all the bright lights in the sky because of you. I will bring darkness over your land, declares the Lord God.",
      "9": "I will disturb the hearts of mighty peoples when I bring word about your downfall to the nations, to countries you do not know.",
      "10": "I will make many peoples appalled by you, and their kings’ hair will stand on end because of you, when I brandish my sword in front of them. They will tremble every minute, each for his own life, on the day when you fall.",
      "11": "For this is what the Lord God says. The sword of the king of Babylon will come against you.",
      "12": "I will cut down your horde by the swords of his warriors, all of them from the most ruthless of nations. They will devastate the pride of Egypt, and its whole horde will be exterminated.",
      "13": "I will kill all its livestock beside many waters. No human foot will ever muddy the waters again, nor will the hoofs of cattle ever muddy them.",
      "14": "Then I will let their waters settle and become clear and will make their channels flow like oil, declares the Lord God.",
      "15": "When I cause the land of Egypt to be deserted, when the land is emptied of everything that filled it, when I have struck down all its inhabitants, then they will know that I am the Lord.",
      "16": "This is a lament, which they will wail. The daughters of the nations will wail it. Over Egypt and all its horde they will wail it, declares the Lord God.",
      "17": "In the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me.",
      "18": "Son of man, mourn over the horde of Egypt and send her down below the earth with the daughters of majestic nations, to be with those who have descended to the pit.",
      "19": "Are you more favored than others? Go on down and lie down among the uncircumcised.",
      "20": "They will fall among those who were run through by the sword. A sword has been appointed. Egypt and all its hordes will be carried off.",
      "21": "The elite warriors will speak to him and to his allies from the midst of the grave. The uncircumcised, those run through by the sword, have come down and lie there.",
      "22": "Assyria is there with her whole crowd. Their graves are around her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword.",
      "23": "Her graves are set in the deepest part of the pit, and her crowd is all around her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, all those who once spread terror in the land of the living.",
      "24": "Elam is there, with her whole horde around her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, those who went down below the earth uncircumcised, those who once spread terror in the land of the living. They bear their shame along with those who have descended to the pit.",
      "25": "A bed is made for Elam among the slain, with its whole horde around its graves, all of them uncircumcised, run through by the sword. Because they once spread terror in the land of the living, they will bear their shame with those who have descended to the pit. They are placed among the slain.",
      "26": "Meshek Tubal is there with its whole horde around its graves, all of them uncircumcised, run through by the sword because they had spread terror in the land of the living.",
      "27": "Do they not lie with other fallen, uncircumcised warriors, who went down to the grave with their weapons of war, with their swords placed under their heads, with evidence of their guilt on their bones, because of the terror these warriors had once spread in the land of the living?",
      "28": "Pharaoh, you too will be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised and will lie with those run through by the sword.",
      "29": "Edom is there, with its kings and all its chiefs, who, despite their strength, are placed with those run through by the sword. They lie with the uncircumcised, with those who have descended to the pit.",
      "30": "The princes of the north are there, all of them, and every Sidonian, who went down with the slain despite the terror they had caused. Their strength failed them. They lie uncircumcised with those run through by the sword, and they bear their shame along with those who have descended to the pit.",
      "31": "Pharaoh will see them all and will console himself concerning his whole horde. Pharaoh is run through by the sword with his whole army, declares the Lord God.",
      "32": "For I have set my terror in the land of the living, and he will be forced to lie down among the uncircumcised, with those run through by the sword, that is, Pharaoh and his whole horde, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "33": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say this to them.\nWhen I bring a sword against a land, and the people of the land appoint one man from their midst as their watchman,",
      "3": "and that man sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the ram’s horn to warn the people,",
      "4": "then if anyone who hears the sound of the ram’s horn does not heed the warning, and as a result the sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head.",
      "5": "He heard the sound of the ram’s horn, but he did not take warning, so his own blood is on him. If he had heeded the warning, he would have saved his life.",
      "6": "But if the watchman sees the sword coming but does not blow the ram’s horn, and as a result the people are not warned, then if the sword comes and takes one of them away, that man has been taken away because of his own guilt, but I will also hold the watchman responsible for his blood.",
      "7": "But I have appointed you, son of man, to be a watchman for the house of Israel. So whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you are to warn them from me.",
      "8": "When I say to a wicked man, “Wicked man, you shall surely die,” if you do not speak to warn the wicked man against his way, that wicked man will die because of his guilt, but I will also hold you responsible for his blood.",
      "9": "But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he will die because of his guilt, but you will have saved your life.",
      "10": "So you, son of man, say the following to the house of Israel.\nThis is what you people are saying: “Certainly our rebellion and our sins weigh us down, and because of them we are rotting away. How then can we live?”",
      "11": "Say to them, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from their way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why should you die, O house of Israel?”",
      "12": "So you, son of man, also say this to your countrymen.\nThe righteousness of a righteous man will not save him on the day that he rebels, and the wickedness of a wicked man will not cause him to stumble on the day that he turns away from his wickedness. Likewise, a righteous man will not be able to live by his righteousness on the day that he sins.",
      "13": "When I say about the righteous man, “He will surely live,” but he then trusts in his own righteousness and does unrighteous things, all of his righteous acts will no longer be remembered, and he will die because of the unrighteous things he does.",
      "14": "Or when I say to the wicked man, “You will surely die,” and he turns from his sin and practices justice and righteousness—",
      "15": "if that wicked man returns the collateral paid to him for a loan, returns what he has stolen, walks in the laws that lead to life, and so avoids doing unrighteous things—he will surely live. He will not die.",
      "16": "All of the evil acts he committed will not be remembered against him. Since he has practiced justice and righteousness, he will certainly live.",
      "17": "Yet, your countrymen are saying, “The Lord’s way is not fair,” although it is actually their way that is not fair.",
      "18": "When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and does unrighteous things, he will die in them.",
      "19": "But when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live through them.",
      "20": "So, even though you say, “The Lord’s way is not fair,” I will judge each one of you according to his own ways, O house of Israel.",
      "21": "In the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, a refugee from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has fallen.”",
      "22": "Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before the survivor came, and the Lord had opened my mouth, so by the time the refugee came to me in the morning, my mouth was opened, and I was no longer unable to speak.",
      "23": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "24": "Son of man, the inhabitants of these ruins in the land of Israel are saying, “Abraham was only one man, and he took possession of the land. We are many, and certainly the land has been given to us as a possession.”",
      "25": "Therefore, say this to them. This is what the Lord God says. You eat meat with the blood still in it. You raise your eyes to your filthy idols. You shed blood, and still you think you will possess the land?",
      "26": "You depend on your sword. You commit abominations. Each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife, and still you think you will possess the land?",
      "27": "This is what you are to say to them. This is what the Lord God says. As I live, those who are in the ruins will fall by the sword, and I will give anyone in the open country to the wild animals to eat, and those in strongholds and caves will die by the plague.",
      "28": "I will make the land a desolate wasteland. Its arrogant strength will cease, and the mountains of Israel will be so desolate that no one will travel through them.",
      "29": "Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I make the land a desolate wasteland because of all the abominable things they have committed.",
      "30": "What about you, son of man? Your countrymen, who are talking with each other about you beside the walls and in the doorways of the houses, say to one another, each one to a neighbor, “Come now and hear what the word is that is coming from the Lord.”",
      "31": "They come to you as a group on behalf of the people, and they sit in front of you as if they were my people. They listen to your words but refuse to act on them, because they prefer to use their mouths for obscene talk, and their hearts pursue their wrongful gain.",
      "32": "You see, to them you are like someone who sings erotic songs with a beautiful voice, who is an excellent musician. So they listen to your words, but they are not obeying them.",
      "33": "But when this comes—and come it will—they will know that a prophet has been among them."
    },
    "34": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds that this is what the Lord God says.\nWoe to you, shepherds of Israel, who have been shepherding for themselves. Aren’t shepherds supposed to shepherd for the benefit of the sheep?",
      "3": "You eat the fat. You wear the wool. You slaughter the fattened ones—but you do not shepherd the flock.",
      "4": "You have not strengthened the weak. You have not healed the sick. You have not bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays, and you have not searched for the lost. Instead you have abused them with force and with violence.",
      "5": "So they scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep scattered and",
      "6": "wandered all over the mountains and on every high hill. Over the face of the whole earth, my flock was scattered, with no one looking for them and no one searching for them.",
      "7": "Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord.",
      "8": "As surely as I live, declares the Lord God, because my flock has become plunder, and because my flock has become food for all the wild animals, because they have no shepherd and my shepherds did not concern themselves about my flock, but the shepherds took care of themselves instead of taking care of my flock,",
      "9": "therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord.",
      "10": "This is what the Lord God says. I am against the shepherds. Watch! I will remove my flock from their hand. I will remove them from taking care of the sheep, and no longer will those shepherds take care of themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, so that they will no longer be food for them.",
      "11": "For this is what the Lord God says. Here I am. I myself will seek the welfare of my flock and carefully search for them.",
      "12": "As a shepherd searches for his flock when his sheep that were with him have been scattered, so I will search for my flock and rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.",
      "13": "I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own soil. I will shepherd them on the mountains of Israel, in the valleys, and in all the settlements of the land.",
      "14": "I will lead them into good pasture, and their grazing land will be on the high mountains of Israel. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and they will pasture on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.",
      "15": "I myself will shepherd my flock. I myself will let them lie down, declares the Lord God.",
      "16": "I will seek the lost. I will bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured. I will strengthen the weak. I will destroy the fat and the strong, and I will shepherd them with justice.",
      "17": "What about you, my flock? This is what the Lord God says. I am going to judge between one sheep and another, between the rams and the male goats.",
      "18": "Isn’t it enough for you that you feed on the good pasture? Must you trample the rest of your pastures with your feet? Isn’t it enough that you drink the clear water? Must you muddy the rest with your feet?",
      "19": "Then my flock has to feed on what your feet have trampled and drink what your feet have muddied.",
      "20": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says to them. I myself am going to judge between the fat sheep and the thin sheep.",
      "21": "Because you have shoved them with your side and shoulder and butted all the weak ones with your horns, until you scattered them abroad,",
      "22": "I will save my flock so that they will not become plunder anymore. In this way I will judge between one sheep and another.",
      "23": "Then I will raise up over them one shepherd, and he will tend them. My servant David will tend them, and he will be their shepherd.",
      "24": "I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David will be the prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken.",
      "25": "Then I will establish a covenant of peace with them, and I will rid the land of wild animals, so they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the forests.",
      "26": "I will make them and the area around my hill a blessing. I will send the rain showers down in their season. They will be showers of blessing.",
      "27": "The trees in the field will yield their fruit, and the earth will yield its produce. They will be secure on their own land and know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hand of those who enslaved them.",
      "28": "No more will they be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in security, with no one to make them afraid.",
      "29": "I will establish for them farmland famous for its crops, so that they will no longer be carried off by famine that is taking place in the land. They will no longer bear the scorn of the nations.",
      "30": "They will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord God.",
      "31": "You are my flock of sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and you are my people, and I am your God, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "35": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir and prophesy against it.",
      "3": "Say this to it.\nThis is what the Lord God says. I am against you, Mount Seir. I will stretch out my hand against you and make you a desolate wasteland.",
      "4": "I will make your cities ruins, and you will be desolate. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "5": "Because you cherished an ancient hatred and turned the Israelites over to the sword at the time of their disaster, at the time of their final punishment,",
      "6": "therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, I will subject you to bloodshed, and bloodshed will pursue you. Because you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you.",
      "7": "I will make Mount Seir a desolate wasteland and cut off from it all those who flee from it and want to return.",
      "8": "I will fill its mountains with its slain. On your hills and in your valleys and in all your streambeds, those who have been run through by the sword will fall.",
      "9": "I will make you desolate forever, and your cities will not be re-inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "10": "Because you said, “These two nations and these two lands will be mine, and we will possess them, even though the Lord was there,”",
      "11": "therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, I will treat you as you deserve for your anger and for your jealousy which you held against these two nations in your hostility, and I will make myself known among them when I judge you.",
      "12": "Then you will know that I, the Lord, have heard all the contemptuous statements that you uttered against the mountains of Israel: “They have been devastated and given to us for food.”",
      "13": "With your mouth you made proud boasts against me and heaped up arrogant words against me. I have heard it myself.",
      "14": "This is what the Lord God says. While the whole world celebrates, I will make you a desolation.",
      "15": "Because you celebrated when you took possession of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so will I deal with you. Mount Seir, you will be desolate, along with all of Edom. Then they will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "36": {
      "1": "Now you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say this.\nMountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord God says.\nBecause the enemy said about you, “Aha! At last! The ancient heights have become our possession,”",
      "3": "you are to prophesy and say, “This is what the Lord God says.”\nBecause they have devastated and crushed you from all sides, so that you would become the possession of the rest of the nations and a subject of people’s gossip and slander,",
      "4": "therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. This is what the Lord God says to the mountains, hills, valleys, ravines, desolate ruins, and abandoned cities, which have become a source of plunder and are subjected to ridicule by the rest of the nations all around.",
      "5": "So, this is what the Lord God says. Without fail, in my fiery zeal I am speaking against the rest of the nations and against all of Edom, because they took my land as their own with whole-hearted glee and deep-seated contempt, and they occupied its pastureland.",
      "6": "Therefore, prophesy about the land of Israel and say to the mountains, hills, valleys, and ravines: This is what the Lord God says. In my zeal and wrath I am speaking because you have endured the taunts of the nations.",
      "7": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. I swear with an uplifted hand that the nations all around you will endure taunts against them.",
      "8": "But you, O mountains of Israel, will shoot forth your branches and bear your fruit for my people Israel, because they will soon come back.",
      "9": "Yes, I am on your side. I will look on you with favor, and your land will be cultivated and planted.",
      "10": "I will multiply people for you, for the whole house of Israel, all of it. The cities will be resettled and the ruins rebuilt.",
      "11": "I will multiply both people and animals on you. They will multiply and be fruitful. I will resettle you as you were in earlier times and do more good for you than I did when you began. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "12": "I will cause people, my people Israel, to walk over you. They will take possession of you. You will become their inheritance, and never again will you deprive them of their children.",
      "13": "This is what the Lord God says. Because some people say to you, “You devour your people and keep on depriving your nations of their children,”",
      "14": "therefore, you will no longer devour your people or deprive your nations of their children, declares the Lord God.",
      "15": "No longer will I let you hear the taunts of the nations or endure the scorn of the peoples. Never again will you deprive your nations of their children, declares the Lord God.",
      "16": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "17": "Son of man, when the house of Israel was living on their own soil, they defiled it by their conduct and by their actions. To me their conduct was as unclean as the blood of a woman’s period.",
      "18": "So I poured out my wrath on them because of the blood they had poured on the ground and because of the filthy idols with which they had defiled it,",
      "19": "and I scattered them among the nations so that they were dispersed among the countries. On the basis of their conduct and their actions I judged them.",
      "20": "Then when they came to the various nations, they profaned my holy name when people said about them, “These are the people of the Lord, but they had to leave his land.”",
      "21": "So I was concerned about my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the various nations to which they had come.",
      "22": "Therefore, say this to the house of Israel. This is what the Lord God says. I am about to act, O house of Israel, not for your sake, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you have gone.",
      "23": "I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I reveal myself as holy in front of their eyes through you.",
      "24": "I will take you from among the nations. I will gather you from all the lands, and I will bring you to your own soil.",
      "25": "I will sprinkle purifying water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurity and from all your filthy idols.",
      "26": "Then I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit inside you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh.",
      "27": "I will put my Spirit within you and will cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will carefully observe my ordinances.",
      "28": "Then you will live in the land I gave your fathers. You will be my people, and I will be your God.",
      "29": "I will save you from all your impurity. I will summon the grain and make it plentiful. I will not bring famine upon you.",
      "30": "I will increase the fruit on the trees and the produce in the fields, so that you will never again suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine.",
      "31": "Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves on account of your guilty deeds and your abominations.",
      "32": "It is not for your sake that I am about to act, declares the Lord God. Let this be known to you! Be ashamed and embarrassed because of your ways, O house of Israel.",
      "33": "This is what the Lord God says. On the day that I cleanse you from all your guilty deeds, I will resettle your cities, and the ruins will be rebuilt.",
      "34": "The desolate land will be cultivated instead of remaining desolate in the sight of every passerby.",
      "35": "People will say, “This land that was devastated has become like the Garden of Eden, and the cities that were ruined, desolate, and destroyed are now fortified and inhabited.”",
      "36": "Then the nations that remain around you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the places that were destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.",
      "37": "This is what the Lord God says. I will also allow the house of Israel to ask me to do this for them. I will multiply them so their people are like flocks.",
      "38": "Like flocks consecrated for sacrifice, like the flocks of Jerusalem on its festival days, so the ruined cities will be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "37": {
      "1": "The hand of the Lord was upon me. He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley, which was full of bones.",
      "2": "He had me pass through them and go all over among them. There were very many on the valley floor, and they were very dry.",
      "3": "He said to me, “Son of man, can these dry bones live?” I answered, “Lord God, you know.”",
      "4": "Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’”",
      "5": "This is what the Lord God says to these bones.\nI am about to make breath enter you so that you will live.",
      "6": "I will attach tendons to you. I will put flesh back on you. I will cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you will live. Then you will know that I am the Lord.",
      "7": "So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I was prophesying there was a noise, a rattling, as the bones came together, one bone connecting to another.",
      "8": "As I watched, tendons were attached to them, then flesh grew over them, and skin covered them. But there was no breath in them.",
      "9": "Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind that this is what the Lord God says. From the four winds, come, O wind, and breathe into these slain so that they may live.”",
      "10": "So I prophesied as he commanded me. Breath entered them, and they came back to life. They stood on their feet, a very, very large army.",
      "11": "Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up. Our hope is lost. We have been completely cut off.’",
      "12": "Therefore, prophesy and say to them that this is what the Lord God says. My people, I am going to open your graves and raise you up from your graves and bring you back to the soil of Israel.",
      "13": "Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, O my people.",
      "14": "I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live. I will settle you on your own land, and you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.”",
      "15": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "16": "Now you, son of man, take one piece of wood and write on it: “Belonging to Judah and belonging to the people of Israel associated with him.” Then take another piece of wood and write on it: “Belonging to Joseph, Ephraim’s piece of wood, and the whole house of Israel associated with him.”",
      "17": "Then hold one piece of wood close to the other to make a single board for yourself, so that they are one in your hand.",
      "18": "When your countrymen say to you, “Won’t you tell us what you mean by these things?”",
      "19": "you tell them, “This is what the Lord God says. I am going to take the piece of wood which is in the hand of Ephraim, which is for Joseph and for the tribes of Israel associated with him, and I will attach it to the piece of wood for Judah. In this way I will make them one board, so that they will be one in my hand.”",
      "20": "The boards on which you will write should be in your hand in front of their eyes.",
      "21": "Then say this to them. This is what the Lord God says. I am going to take the people of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from all around, and I will bring them to their own land.",
      "22": "I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king will be king for all of them. Never again will they be two nations, and never again will they be divided into two kingdoms.",
      "23": "Never again will they defile themselves with their filthy idols, with their disgusting practices, and with all their rebellious actions. I will save them from all their backsliding by which they have sinned, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.",
      "24": "My servant David will be King over them, and they will all have one Shepherd. They will follow my ordinances and be conscientious about keeping my statutes.",
      "25": "They will live on the land I gave my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They will live there permanently—they, their children, and their grandchildren—and my servant David will be their prince forever.",
      "26": "I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them. I will establish them, and I will multiply them and set my sanctuary in their midst forever.",
      "27": "My Dwelling Place will be over them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.",
      "28": "Then the nations will know that I, the Lord, make Israel holy when my holy place is in their midst forever."
    },
    "38": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord came to me.",
      "2": "Son of man, set your face against Gog from the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshek, and Tubal, and prophesy against him",
      "3": "and say this.\nThis is what the Lord God says. I am against you, Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshek, and Tubal.",
      "4": "I will turn you around. I will put hooks in your jaws, and I will bring you out with your entire army, horses and horsemen, all of them magnificently arrayed, a vast horde armed with body shields and hand shields, all of them wielding swords.",
      "5": "Persia, Cush, and Libya are with them, all of them with hand shields and helmets,",
      "6": "also Gomer and all its troops, Beth Togarmah from the remotest regions of the north and all its troops—many peoples will be with you.",
      "7": "Ready yourself. Prepare yourself, you and your whole horde that is gathered around you, and keep watch over them.",
      "8": "After many days you will be summoned to come together. In the latter years you will invade a land that was restored from the ravages of the sword, whose population had been gathered from among many peoples, back to the mountains of Israel, which had been lying in ruins for a long time. Its population had been brought out from among the peoples, and all of them were now living securely.",
      "9": "You will come up like a devastating storm. You will come up like a cloud to cover the land, you and all your troops and many peoples with you.",
      "10": "This is what the Lord God says. On that day plans will come into your mind, and you will plot an evil scheme.",
      "11": "You will say, “I will go up against a land of unwalled villages. I will attack the peaceful people who live in security, all of them living without walls, with neither bars nor gates.",
      "12": "I will attack in order to seize spoils and carry off plunder, to assault resettled ruins and to attack people returned from the nations, people who are acquiring livestock and other property, people who live at the center of the earth.”",
      "13": "Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all its leaders will say to you, “Have you come to seize spoils? Have you gathered your horde to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and other property, to seize a large amount of spoils?”",
      "14": "Therefore prophesy, son of man, and say this to Gog. This is what the Lord God says. On that day, when my people Israel are dwelling securely, you will be aware of that, won’t you?",
      "15": "So you will come from your place, from the remotest regions of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great horde, a mighty army.",
      "16": "You will come up against my people Israel like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days this will happen. I will bring you against my land so that the nations will know me when I use you to reveal myself as holy in front of their eyes, O Gog.",
      "17": "This is what the Lord God says. Are you the one I spoke about in earlier days through my servants, the prophets of Israel? In those days didn’t they prophesy for many years that I would bring you against Israel?",
      "18": "On that day when Gog comes against the land of Israel, says the Lord God, my wrath will be evident on my face.",
      "19": "In my zeal and the fire of my fury, I have spoken. I swear that there will be a great earthquake in the land of Israel on that day.",
      "20": "All of these will quake in my presence: the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the animals in the open country, every creeping thing that creeps on the ground, and every human being on the face of the earth. The mountains will be overthrown. The hillside terraces will collapse, and every wall will fall to the ground.",
      "21": "I will summon against Gog a sword upon all my mountains, declares the Lord God. Every man’s sword will be against his brother.",
      "22": "I will judge him with plague and with bloodshed. I will rain down torrential rain, hailstones, and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many peoples who are with him.",
      "23": "In this way I will show myself to be great, and I will show myself to be holy, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord."
    },
    "39": {
      "1": "Now you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say this.\nThis is what the Lord says to you. I am against you, Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshek, and Tubal.",
      "2": "I will turn you around. I will show you the way. I will lead you up from the remotest regions of the north, and I will bring you against the mountains of Israel.",
      "3": "But there I will knock your bow out of your left hand, and I will make your arrows fall from your right hand.",
      "4": "On the mountains of Israel you will fall—you, all your troops, and the peoples who are with you. I will give you as food to scavenging birds of every kind and to the wild animals.",
      "5": "In the open country you will fall, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God.",
      "6": "I will also send fire on Magog and on those who live in security on the coastlands. Then they will know that I am the Lord.",
      "7": "I will make my holy name known among my people Israel. I will not let my holy name be profaned anymore, and the nations will know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.",
      "8": "It is coming! It will surely take place, declares the Lord God. This is the day of which I have spoken.",
      "9": "Then those who live in the cities of Israel will go out and set the weapons on fire and burn the small shields and large shields, bows and arrows, clubs and spears. They will use them as firewood for seven years.",
      "10": "They will not take wood from the open country or gather it from the forests because they will use the weapons as firewood. They will loot those who looted them and plunder those who plundered them, declares the Lord God.",
      "11": "On that day I will give Gog a burial place there in Israel, in the valley used by those who travel east toward the sea, and it will block the way for travelers. There they will bury Gog and all his horde and call it the Valley of Gog’s Horde.",
      "12": "The house of Israel will spend seven months burying them in order to cleanse the land.",
      "13": "All the people of the land of Israel will join in burying them, and it will bring honor to them on that day when I display my glory, declares the Lord God.",
      "14": "In addition, they will assign men to work full-time, passing through the land together with others, to bury those who are left on the surface of the ground in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months, they will still be searching.",
      "15": "Whenever those who pass through the land see a human bone, they will set up a marker beside it until the burial squad has buried it in the Valley of Gog’s Horde.",
      "16": "So the name of a city there will be Hamonah. In this way they will cleanse the land.",
      "17": "This is what the Lord God says to you, son of man. Speak to the birds, to every winged creature, and to all the wild animals. Tell them this.\nAssemble yourselves and come. From all around gather yourselves to my sacrificial meal, which I am preparing for you as a sacrificial meal on the mountains of Israel. You will eat meat and drink blood.",
      "18": "You will eat the meat of warriors and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, like rams and lambs, goats and bulls, all of them fattened animals from Bashan.",
      "19": "You will eat fat until you are full and drink blood until you are drunk from my sacrificial meal, which I have prepared for you.",
      "20": "At my table you will be filled with horses and charioteers, with warriors and soldiers of every kind, declares the Lord God.",
      "21": "In this way I will establish my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see my justice which I have carried out and my hand which I have laid upon them.",
      "22": "The house of Israel will know from that day forward that I am the Lord, their God.",
      "23": "Then the nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile because of their guilt, because they were unfaithful to me. So I hid my face from them and delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword.",
      "24": "I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their rebellion, and I hid my face from them.",
      "25": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says. Now I will bring about the restoration of Jacob. I will have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be zealous for my holy name.",
      "26": "They will bear their shame and all the unfaithfulness that they displayed toward me, even when they lived securely in their own land with no one to make them afraid.",
      "27": "When I bring them back from the nations and gather them from the lands of their enemies, I will show myself to be holy among them in the sight of many nations.",
      "28": "They will know that I am the Lord their God, because, even though I sent them into captivity among the nations, I also gathered them again to their own land, and I will never again leave any of them there in captivity.",
      "29": "Nor will I ever hide my face from them again, because I will have poured out my Spirit on the house of Israel, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "40": {
      "1": "In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on that very day, the hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me there.",
      "2": "In visions of God, he brought me to the land of Israel and set me down on a very high mountain. On the south side there was a structure that resembled a city.",
      "3": "When he brought me there, I saw a man who looked as if he were made of bronze. In his hand he had a linen cord and a measuring rod. He was standing by the gatehouse.",
      "4": "The man said to me, “Son of man, watch carefully, listen carefully, and pay attention to everything that I am about to show you, because you were brought here so that I could show it to you. Report everything you see to the house of Israel.”",
      "5": "I saw a wall all the way around the temple compound. In the man’s hand was the measuring rod, six cubits long (using the long cubit). When he measured the thickness of the structure, it was one rod thick, and its height was one rod.",
      "6": "Then he approached the gatehouse that was on the east side of the temple compound and went up its steps. He measured the threshold of the gate. It was one rod deep.",
      "7": "Each guardroom was one rod wide and one rod deep. Between the guardrooms, the walls were five cubits thick, and the threshold of the gate of the vestibule on the inner side of the gatehouse was one rod deep.",
      "8": "⎣He measured the vestibule on the inner side of the gatehouse. It was one rod.⎦",
      "9": "He measured the vestibule of the gatehouse, which was eight cubits, and its gateposts were two cubits. The vestibule of the gatehouse was located at the inner end of the gateway.",
      "10": "Inside the east gatehouse, there were three guardrooms on either side of the entry. All three were the same size, and the gateposts on either side were also the same size.",
      "11": "Then he measured the width of the entry into the gateway. It was ten cubits, and the length of the gateway was thirteen cubits.",
      "12": "There was a barrier in front of the guardrooms, one cubit wide, on both sides of the passage. Each guardroom was six cubits square.",
      "13": "Next he measured the passageway through the gatehouse, from the outside edge of the ceiling of one guardroom to the outside edge of the ceiling opposite it. The total width was twenty-five cubits. The doorways to the guardrooms were facing each other on each side of the passageway.",
      "14": "He determined that the measurement of the gateposts was sixty cubits, and the courtyard all around the gateway reached to the gateposts.",
      "15": "From the front of the outer entrance of the gateway to the outside edge of the vestibule on the inner side of the gateway was fifty cubits.",
      "16": "The guardrooms and their doorposts had openings on all sides. The openings were slits that were narrower toward the inside of the gate, and likewise, the vestibule had openings that narrowed toward the inside all the way around. The doorposts had decorations like palm trees.",
      "17": "Then he brought me into the outer courtyard. There were rooms and a pavement constructed all the way around the courtyard. Thirty rooms faced the pavement.",
      "18": "The pavement ran along the sides of the gates. The pavement was as wide as the length of the gatehouse. This was the lower pavement.",
      "19": "He measured the width of the pavement from the inside edge of the outer gatehouse to the outside edge of the inner courtyard. It measured one hundred cubits on the east and on the north sides of the temple.",
      "20": "There was a gateway leading into the outer courtyard on the north side. The man measured its length and its width.",
      "21": "Its guardrooms, three on each side, its gateposts, and its vestibule had the same measurements as the first gatehouse, fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.",
      "22": "The entry, the vestibule, and its palm decorations also had the same measurements as those of the gatehouse facing east. From outside the temple compound one could enter the gate by seven steps, and the vestibule of the gateway was straight ahead at the inner end of the gateway.",
      "23": "A gateway into the inner courtyard was opposite the outer gatehouse (the same as on the east side), and he measured from the outer gate to the inner one opposite it. The distance was one hundred cubits.",
      "24": "Next, he led me toward the south, and there also was a gatehouse on the south side of the temple compound. He measured its gateposts and its vestibule, and the measurements were like the others.",
      "25": "It and its vestibule had openings all around like the openings of the others. Its length was fifty cubits and its width was twenty-five cubits.",
      "26": "It had seven steps going up to it, and its vestibule was straight ahead of them at the opposite end of the gateway, and it had palm decorations on either side on its gateposts.",
      "27": "The inner courtyard also had a gateway facing south. He measured from one gate to the other toward the south. It was one hundred cubits.",
      "28": "Then he brought me into the inner courtyard through its south gate. He measured this gatehouse on the south side of the inner courtyard. Its measurements were like those of the previous gatehouses.",
      "29": "Its guardrooms, gateposts, and vestibule had the same measurements as the others. Both the gatehouse and the vestibule had openings all around. It was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.",
      "30": "There were vestibules on each side of the inner courtyard. They were twenty-five cubits long and five cubits wide.",
      "31": "The vestibule of the inner gatehouse faced the outer courtyard. There were palm decorations on its gateposts, and its stairway had eight steps.",
      "32": "Next he brought me into the inner courtyard through the gate facing east. He measured the gatehouse, and its dimensions were the same as the others.",
      "33": "Its guardrooms, gateposts, and vestibule were the same size as the others. It and its vestibule had openings all around. It was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.",
      "34": "Its vestibule faced the outer court, and there were palm decorations on its gateposts on either side. Its stairs had eight steps.",
      "35": "Then he brought me to the north gatehouse and measured it. It had the same measurements as the others.",
      "36": "This was also true of its guardrooms, its gateposts, and its vestibule. It had openings all around. It was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.",
      "37": "Its vestibule faced the outer courtyard, and there were palm decorations on its gateposts on either side. Its stairway had eight steps.",
      "38": "There was a room with a door, next to the gateposts at each of the inner gateways, where they washed the burnt offering.",
      "39": "Inside the vestibule of the gateway, on each side, there were two tables upon which to slaughter the whole burnt offering, the sin offering, and the restitution offering.",
      "40": "Next to the outside wall of the vestibule, as one goes toward the entrance of the north gateway, there were two more tables. Next to the other outside wall of the vestibule of the gateway were two more tables.",
      "41": "That is, there were four tables on one side and four on the other side of the gateway—eight tables on which they were to slaughter the sacrifices.",
      "42": "Four more tables for the burnt offering were made of hewn stone. They were one and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide, and one cubit high. On them they placed the instruments with which they slaughtered the burnt offering and the other sacrifices.",
      "43": "Double-pronged hooks, each a handbreadth long, were fastened to the building all around, but the meat for the sacrifice was placed on the tables.",
      "44": "Just outside of the inner gateway, in the inner courtyard, were two rooms, one beside the north gate, which faced south, and the other beside the south gate, which faced north.",
      "45": "He said to me, “This room that faces south is for the priests who guard the temple,",
      "46": "and the room that faces north is for the priests who guard the altar. They are descendants of Zadok, the only Levites who may approach the Lord to minister to him.”",
      "47": "Then he measured the courtyard. It was one hundred cubits long and one hundred cubits wide—a square. The altar was in front of the temple.",
      "48": "Next he brought me to the vestibule of the temple building. He measured each doorpost of the vestibule: five cubits on either side. The width of the gate was ⎣fourteen cubits. The sides of the gate were⎦ three cubits on either side.",
      "49": "The length of the vestibule was twenty cubits, and its width was eleven cubits. One entered it by ten steps, and there were pillars by the doorposts, one on either side."
    },
    "41": {
      "1": "Then he brought me to the outer room of the sanctuary and measured the doorposts, six cubits wide on either side. This was the width of the Tent.",
      "2": "The width of the entrance was ten cubits, and the side walls of the entrance were five cubits on either side. Then he measured the outer room’s length, forty cubits, and its width was twenty cubits.",
      "3": "Then he entered the inner room of the sanctuary and measured the doorposts of its entrance, two cubits, and the width of the entrance was six cubits, and the side walls of the entrance were seven cubits on either side.",
      "4": "He measured its length, twenty cubits, and its width was twenty cubits, the same as the width of the outer room. Then he said to me, “This is the Holy of Holies.”",
      "5": "Next he measured the wall of the temple building. It was six cubits thick, and the width of each side room was four cubits. The side rooms ran all around the temple.",
      "6": "The side rooms were stacked on top of one another, in three stories, with thirty rooms in each story. The floors of the side rooms rested on ledges attached to the wall of the temple all the way around, so that the supports for the rooms would not cut into the temple wall itself.",
      "7": "The side rooms all around the temple became wider as one went up from story to story, because their supporting ledges in the wall of the temple ascended like steps. Therefore, the width of the interior of the attached structure increased as one went up from the lowest story to the highest by way of the middle story.",
      "8": "I saw a raised platform all around the temple that served as a foundation for the side rooms. The terrace built on this foundation, measured by a full rod, was six long cubits tall.",
      "9": "The thickness of the outer wall of the side rooms was five cubits. The open area between the side rooms attached to the temple",
      "10": "and the other rooms on the other side of the inner courtyard was twenty cubits wide all around the temple.",
      "11": "There were entrances into the side rooms from the open area, one entrance on the north side, one on the south. The width of the terrace bordering the open area was five cubits all around.",
      "12": "The building on the far side of the restricted area on the western side of the temple was seventy cubits wide. The wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length was ninety cubits.",
      "13": "Then he measured the temple building. Its length was one hundred cubits. The restricted area and the building with its walls also had a length of one hundred cubits.",
      "14": "The width of the area in front of the temple, including the restricted areas east of the temple, was one hundred cubits as well.",
      "15": "He also measured the length of the building facing the restricted area at the rear of the temple, along with its balconies on either side. It was one hundred cubits.\nThe outer and inner rooms of the sanctuary, the vestibules of the courtyard,",
      "16": "the thresholds, and the windows with slanting frames, as well as the balconies around the three sides, opposite the threshold, were paneled with wood all the way around, from the floor to the upper windows, and the windows were covered with lattices.",
      "17": "The paneling extended up to the space above the entrance, both in the inner and outer sanctuary. On all the walls all around, in both the inner and outer sanctuary, there were geometric patterns,",
      "18": "carved cherubim, and decorations like palms. There was a palm decoration between each cherub and its neighbor. Each cherub had two faces:",
      "19": "the face of a man turned toward the palm on one side and the face of a lion turned toward the palm on the other side. They were carved all around the whole temple.",
      "20": "From the floor up to the space above the entrance, cherubim and palms were carved, even on the walls of the outer room of the sanctuary.",
      "21": "As for the outer room of the sanctuary, its doorposts were square, and the front of the Holy of Holies had the same design.",
      "22": "The altar was made of wood, three cubits high. Its length was two cubits, and its width was two cubits. Its corners, its base, and its sides were also of wood. He said to me, “This is the table that is before the Lord.”",
      "23": "Both the outer room of the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies had double doors.",
      "24": "The doors had two leaves apiece, two folding leaves—two for one door and two leaves for the other door.",
      "25": "Carved on the doors of the outer room there were cherubim and palm decorations, like those carved on the walls. Outside there was a wooden canopy in front of the vestibule.",
      "26": "There were also windows narrowing toward the inside and palm decorations on both side walls of the vestibule. The side rooms of the temple also had canopies."
    },
    "42": {
      "1": "Then he led me out into the outer courtyard which was north of the temple building, and he brought me to a set of rooms which bordered on the south side of the restricted area and was north of the structure of the temple building.",
      "2": "This building north of the temple, which had doors facing north, was one hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide.",
      "3": "On each side of the north courtyard, across from the twenty cubits that belonged to the inner courtyard on the south side and across from the pavement that belonged to the outer courtyard on the north side, two sets of balconies faced each other. Each was three stories high.",
      "4": "In front of the rooms on the inside of the courtyard was a walkway ten cubits wide and one hundred cubits long. The entrances of the rooms faced north.",
      "5": "The upper rooms were narrower, because the balconies took more space away from them than from the building’s bottom and middle floors.",
      "6": "These rooms were arranged in three stories and had no pillars like the pillars in the courtyards, so as you went up from ground level, the upper story had to be set back more than the lower and middle ones.",
      "7": "There was a wall in the outer courtyard, which ran parallel to the rooms on the east side. It was fifty cubits long.",
      "8": "The length of the set of rooms on the east side of the building facing toward the outer courtyard was fifty cubits, but the length of those on the north side was one hundred cubits long.",
      "9": "On the bottom floor of these rooms on the east end of the building, there was an entrance, through which one could enter them from the outer courtyard.",
      "10": "At the head of the wall of the courtyard, on the south side of the temple, opposite the restricted area and opposite the building, there were rooms.",
      "11": "They also had a passageway in front of them. They looked just like the rooms on the north. They were the same length and also the same width, and they were the same in regard to all their exits, their designs, and their entrances.",
      "12": "Also identical were the entrances to the rooms on the south, at the head of the passageway, that is, the passageway opposite the corresponding wall, as one enters them from the east.",
      "13": "Then he said to me, “The northern and southern rooms in front of the restricted area are holy rooms where the priests who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will deposit the most holy offerings, the grain offering, the sin offering, and the restitution offering, for the place is holy.",
      "14": "When the priests go to enter these rooms, they must not go out from the holy place into the outer courtyard until they have put away their vestments in which they have ministered there, because the vestments are holy. They must put on other clothing before they approach the area that is for the people.”",
      "15": "In this way the man finished the measurements of the interior of the temple complex. Then he led me out through the gate on the east side of the temple complex and measured the temple area all the way around.",
      "16": "He measured the east side using the measuring rod. It measured five hundred cubits, using canes, that is, the measuring rod.",
      "17": "Then he turned and measured the north side. It was five hundred cubits, using canes, that is, the measuring rod.",
      "18": "Then he turned and measured the south side. It was five hundred cubits, using canes, that is, the measuring rod.",
      "19": "He turned to the west side and measured again. It also was five hundred cubits, using canes, that is, the measuring rod.",
      "20": "Thus he measured the temple area on all four sides. It had a wall all the way around it. It was five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, in order to separate the holy from the common."
    },
    "43": {
      "1": "Then he led me to the gate, the gate that faces east.",
      "2": "Suddenly I saw that the Glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. His voice sounded like the roar of rushing water, and the earth was shining with his glory.",
      "3": "The appearance of the vision that I saw was like the vision I saw when he came to destroy the city—visions like the vision I saw by the Kebar Canal, and I fell on my face.",
      "4": "The Glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east.",
      "5": "Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the inner court, and the Glory of the Lord filled the temple.",
      "6": "I heard someone speaking to me from the temple while the man was standing beside me.",
      "7": "The voice said to me:\nSon of man, this is the place of my throne, and this is the place for the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel forever. Never again will the house of Israel profane my holy name, neither they nor their kings, neither by their prostitution nor by the memorials to their dead kings at their high places.",
      "8": "Whenever they placed their threshold next to my threshold and their doorpost beside my doorpost with only a wall between me and them, they would defile my holy name by their abominations that they did, so I exterminated them in my anger.",
      "9": "Now let them remove their prostitution and the memorials of their dead kings from my presence, and I will dwell among them forever.",
      "10": "But you, son of man, are to describe the temple to the house of Israel, so that they may be ashamed of their sins. Let them measure its perfect pattern.",
      "11": "If they are ashamed of everything they have done, teach them the design of the temple and its layout, its exits and its entrances, all its designs and all its ordinances, all its designs and all its regulations. Write them down in their sight so that they may keep its whole plan and all its ordinances and carry them out.",
      "12": "This is the law for the temple. On the top of the mountain, the whole territory of the temple and all the area surrounding its perimeter will be most holy. This is indeed the law for the temple.",
      "13": "These are the measurements of the altar in long cubits (a long cubit is an ordinary cubit plus a handbreadth). The gutter at the base of the altar is one cubit deep and one cubit wide with a rim of one span around its edge. The height of the altar is as follows:",
      "14": "From the gutter on the ground to the lower ledge is two cubits, and the width of the ledge is one cubit. From the lower ledge to the upper ledge is four cubits. The upper ledge has a width of one cubit.",
      "15": "The hearth is four cubits high, and four horns extend upward from the hearth.",
      "16": "The hearth is twelve cubits by twelve cubits, a square with four equal sides.",
      "17": "The upper ledge is fourteen cubits by fourteen cubits, with four equal sides. The ridge around it is half a cubit, and it has a gutter of one cubit all around. Its ramp faces east.",
      "18": "Then he said to me, “Son of man, this is what the Lord God says. These are the ceremonial requirements for the altar on the day when it is erected, to present burnt offerings on it and to splash blood on it.",
      "19": "You are to provide a young bull for a sin offering. Provide it to the levitical priests who are from the descendants of Zadok, who draw near to me to serve me, declares the Lord God.",
      "20": "You are to take some of its blood and put it on the altar’s four horns, on the four corners of the ledge, and on the ridge all around, and so you are to purify it and make atonement for it.",
      "21": "Then you are to take the bull that is the sin offering, and the priest is to burn it at the appointed place in the temple area, outside the sanctuary.",
      "22": "“On the second day you are to offer a male goat without blemish as a sin offering, and the altar is to be purified as it was purified with the bull.",
      "23": "When you have finished purifying it, you are to offer a young bull without blemish and a ram without blemish.",
      "24": "You are to present them before the Lord, and the priests are to throw salt on them and offer them up as a burnt offering to the Lord.",
      "25": "For seven days you are to offer a goat for a sin offering each day, as well as a young bull and a ram from the flock. They must all be without blemish.",
      "26": "For seven days they are to make atonement for the altar, cleanse it, and, in this way, consecrate it.",
      "27": "When they have fulfilled those days, on the eighth day and thereafter, the priests are to offer on the altar your whole burnt offerings and your fellowship offerings, and I will accept you, declares the Lord God.”"
    },
    "44": {
      "1": "Then he brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary that faces east, but it was closed.",
      "2": "The Lord said to me, “This gate must remain closed and not be opened. No man may enter through it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered through it. Therefore, it is to remain closed.",
      "3": "The prince, because he is the prince, may sit in it to eat food in the presence of the Lord. He must enter through the vestibule of the gateway, and he must go out the same way.”",
      "4": "Next, he brought me through the north gate to the front of the temple. I looked, and the Glory of the Lord had filled the temple of the Lord, and I fell on my face.",
      "5": "The Lord said this to me.\nSon of man, pay attention. Watch carefully and listen carefully to what I am telling you regarding all the regulations of the temple of the Lord and all the instructions concerning it. Pay attention to the entrance of the temple and to all the exits of the sanctuary.",
      "6": "Say this to the rebellion, that is, to the house of Israel. This is what the Lord God says. There has been more than enough of all your abominations, O house of Israel.",
      "7": "You even brought foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, into my sanctuary to desecrate it—into my own house!—even while you were offering my food, namely, the fat and the blood. In this way they broke my covenant in addition to all your abominations.",
      "8": "You have not faithfully guarded my holy things. Instead, you appointed others to be guards at my sanctuary in your place.",
      "9": "This is what the Lord God says. No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, may enter my sanctuary—no foreigner at all from those who are among the people of Israel.",
      "10": "What’s more, the Levites who went far from me when Israel strayed away, those who wandered away from me to follow their filthy idols, they must bear the consequences of their guilt.",
      "11": "Nevertheless, the Levites shall be in my sanctuary serving as guards over the gates of the temple and ministering in the temple. They shall slaughter the burnt offerings and the other sacrifices for the people. They shall stand before the people to serve them.",
      "12": "But because they formerly served them in front of their filthy idols and became a stumbling block that made the house of Israel guilty, therefore I have raised my hand in an oath against them, declares the Lord God, and they must bear the consequences of their guilt.",
      "13": "They may not approach me to serve as priests for me, nor may they approach any of my holy things or the most holy offerings. They must bear their shame and the consequences of the abominations that they committed.",
      "14": "Yet I will make them guardians of the ministry of the temple, in charge of all the duties of the temple and of everything that has to be done in it.",
      "15": "But the levitical priests who are the sons of Zadok, those who faithfully performed the duty of guarding the ministry of my sanctuary when the sons of Israel strayed away from me, they may approach me to serve me, and they may stand before me to offer the fat and the blood to me, declares the Lord God.",
      "16": "They alone may enter my sanctuary. They alone may approach my table to minister to me, and they shall perform the duty of guarding the ministry of the temple for me.",
      "17": "When they enter the gates of the inner court, they must wear linen clothing. No wool should be on them while they minister in the gates of the inner courtyard or inside the temple.",
      "18": "They are to have linen turbans on their heads and linen shorts on their hips. They should wear nothing that causes sweat.",
      "19": "When they go out into the outer courtyard to the people, they must take off their vestments in which they have been ministering and leave them in the holy rooms. Then they must put on other clothing so that they do not transmit holiness to the people by their vestments.",
      "20": "They must not shave their heads or let their hair grow long and unkempt. They must keep the hair on their heads neatly trimmed.",
      "21": "No priest is to drink wine when he enters the inner courtyard.",
      "22": "The priests must not take a widow or a divorced woman for themselves as a wife, but only virgins who are seed from the house of Israel. But priests may marry a widow who is a widow of a priest.",
      "23": "They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and make them knowledgeable in distinguishing the unclean from the clean.",
      "24": "In case of a dispute, they are to officiate as judges, and they must render their judgment concerning that case on the basis of the precedents in my judgments. They must observe my instructions and my regulations regarding all my appointed festivals, and they must keep my Sabbaths holy.",
      "25": "They must not go near a dead person and make themselves ceremonially unclean by doing so. Only in the case of father or mother, son or daughter, brother or unmarried sister may they make themselves unclean.",
      "26": "After a priest has been purified, seven days must be counted off for him.",
      "27": "On the day he enters into the sanctuary, into the inner courtyard to minister in the sanctuary, he must offer a sin offering for himself, declares the Lord God.",
      "28": "This will be their inheritance: I am their inheritance. You must not give them property in Israel. I am their property.",
      "29": "They may eat the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the restitution offerings, and every devoted thing in Israel will belong to them.",
      "30": "The first from all firstfruits of all kinds and every special contribution of any kind from all your contributions will belong to the priests. The first of your ground grain you must give to the priest in order that a blessing may rest on your house.",
      "31": "No animal that died naturally or was torn by wild animals, whether a bird or an animal, may be eaten by the priests."
    },
    "45": {
      "1": "When you cast lots to divide the land as an inheritance, you are to devote a contribution to the Lord, a holy area of the land. Its length is to be twenty-five thousand cubits and its width twenty thousand cubits. Its entire area will be holy.",
      "2": "Within this area, a square five hundred by five hundred cubits is to be set aside for the sanctuary. There is also to be an open area of fifty cubits all around it.",
      "3": "From this measured area, you are to measure off a separate area which has a length of twenty-five thousand cubits and a width of ten thousand cubits. The sanctuary, the most holy place, will be in it.",
      "4": "It is to be a holy area of the land. It will be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who draw near to serve the Lord. It will be a place for their houses, as well as a holy place for the sanctuary.",
      "5": "Also an area twenty-five thousand cubits long and ten thousand cubits wide will be set aside for the Levites, the servants of the temple, as their possession, to provide them with cities to live in.",
      "6": "As the city’s property, you are to assign an area five thousand cubits wide and twenty-five thousand cubits long along one side of the holy contribution. It will belong to the whole house of Israel.",
      "7": "For the prince, an area is to be set aside on both sides of the holy contribution and of the area for the city. It will run alongside the holy contribution and alongside the city’s property. On the west side of the city, it will extend west along the tribal boundaries to the western boundary of the land, and on the east side, it will extend eastward in the same way.",
      "8": "This land is to be the prince’s property in Israel, so that my princes will no longer oppress my people but will allot the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.",
      "9": "This is what the Lord God says. You have done enough, you princes of Israel! Remove violence and mayhem, and practice justice and righteousness. Remove the burden from my people that you caused by evicting them from their land, declares the Lord God.",
      "10": "You must have honest scales, an honest ephah, and an honest bath.",
      "11": "The ephah and the bath are to follow one uniform standard. The bath will hold one tenth of a homer, and the ephah will hold one tenth of a homer. The standard is to be based on the homer.",
      "12": "The shekel is to be twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels will be the weight of your mina.",
      "13": "This is the special contribution you should dedicate: Take one sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat, and take one sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley.",
      "14": "The prescribed portion of oil (the bath is the standard measure for the oil) is one tenth of a bath from each kor. Ten baths make a kor, and ten baths are a homer.",
      "15": "Furthermore, one sheep shall be given from every flock, that is, from every two hundred sheep that comprise a flock from the well-watered land of Israel. These are for the grain offerings, the burnt offerings, and the fellowship offerings, to make atonement for them, declares the Lord God.",
      "16": "All the people of the land are to contribute to this offering for the prince in Israel.",
      "17": "The prince then is responsible for the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the drink offerings on the festivals, on the New Moons, and on the Sabbaths, that is, on all the appointed festivals for the house of Israel. He himself will provide the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the fellowship offering, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel.",
      "18": "This is what the Lord God says. In the first month, on the first day of the month, you are to take a young bull without blemish and purify the sanctuary.",
      "19": "The priest is to take some of the blood of the sin offering and put it on the doorpost of the temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the post of the gate of the inner courtyard.",
      "20": "You are to do so also on the seventh day of the month, for the sake of anyone who sins inadvertently or in ignorance, and so you shall make atonement for the temple.",
      "21": "In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall hold the Passover. During the festival, consisting of a week of seven days, unleavened bread must be eaten.",
      "22": "On that day the prince is to provide, on behalf of himself and all the people of the land, a bull for a sin offering.",
      "23": "On the seven days of the festival he is to provide a burnt offering for the Lord: seven bulls and seven rams without blemish for each day of the seven days, as well as a male goat for a sin offering for each day.",
      "24": "As a grain offering he is to provide an ephah for each bull and an ephah for each ram, and a hin of oil for each ephah.",
      "25": "In the seventh month, at the festival starting on the fifteenth day of the month, he is to provide for seven days according to these same instructions, in regard to the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the oil."
    },
    "46": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord God says.\nThe gate into the inner courtyard which faces east must remain closed on the six work days, but on the Sabbath day it is to be opened, and on the day of the New Moon it is to be opened.",
      "2": "The prince is to enter through the vestibule of the gateway at the outer, eastern end of the gatehouse and stand by the gatepost, and the priests are to offer his burnt offering and fellowship offerings. He is to prostrate himself on the threshold of the gateway and then go out, but the gate will not be closed until evening.",
      "3": "The people of the land are to prostrate themselves before the Lord at the entrance to that gate on Sabbaths and New Moons.",
      "4": "The burnt offering that the prince is to offer to the Lord on the day of the Sabbath is to consist of six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish.",
      "5": "The grain offering is to be an ephah for the ram, and for the lambs the grain offering is to be as much as he can afford, with a hin of oil per ephah.",
      "6": "On the day of the New Moon, he is to offer a young bull without blemish, six lambs, and a ram. They are to be without blemish.",
      "7": "He is to provide an ephah for the bull and an ephah for the ram as a grain offering, and for the lambs as much as he can afford, with a hin of oil per ephah.",
      "8": "When the prince enters, he is to come in through the vestibule of the gateway, and he is to go out by the same way.",
      "9": "When the people of the land come before the Lord at the appointed festivals, anyone who enters through the north gate in order to prostrate himself must go out through the south gate, and anyone who enters through the south gate must go out through the north gate. No one may return through the same gate through which he entered. He definitely must leave by going straight ahead to the opposite gate.",
      "10": "The prince is to be in their midst. When they enter, he shall enter, and when they leave, both he and they shall leave.",
      "11": "At the pilgrimage festivals and the appointed festivals, the grain offering is to be an ephah for a bull and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs it is to be as much as he can afford, with a hin of oil per ephah.",
      "12": "When the prince makes a voluntary offering to the Lord, either as a burnt offering or fellowship offering, the gate facing east is to be opened for him. He is to offer his burnt offering or his fellowship offerings just as he does on the day of the Sabbath. When he goes out, the gate is to be closed after he leaves.",
      "13": "You are to provide a yearling lamb without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord every day. Every morning you are to provide it.",
      "14": "You are to provide a grain offering with it every morning: one sixth of an ephah and one third of a hin of oil to moisten the fine flour. It is a grain offering for the Lord. These are lasting statutes to be performed daily.",
      "15": "In this way they will offer the lamb, the grain offering, and the oil every morning as a daily burnt offering.",
      "16": "This is what the Lord God says.\nIf the prince gives a gift to any of his sons, it is the son’s inheritance and will also belong to his sons. It is to be their property by inheritance.",
      "17": "But if the prince gives a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it will belong to him only until the year of liberty, when it must revert to the prince. It is his inheritance alone and must remain with his sons.",
      "18": "The prince may not take any of the inheritance of the people by evicting them from their property. From his own property he is to give an inheritance to his sons, so that my people will not be scattered—not a single man from his property.",
      "19": "Then he took me through the entrance into the holy rooms for the priests that were located on the north side of the temple, beside the north gatehouse. Looking toward the west, I saw that there was a special place at the back of the temple area.",
      "20": "He said to me, “This is the place where the priests are to boil the restitution offering and the sin offering, and where they will bake the grain offerings in order not to bring them out to the outer courtyard and transmit holiness to the people.”",
      "21": "Then he brought me out to the outer courtyard and led me past the four corners of the courtyard. I saw there was a court at each corner of the courtyard— a court in each corner of the courtyard.",
      "22": "In the four corners of the courtyard were enclosed courts, forty cubits long and thirty cubits wide—the same measurement for each of the four of them.",
      "23": "A stone structure went all around the inside of all four of the rooms, and hearths for boiling were constructed beneath the structure all the way around.",
      "24": "Then he said to me, “These are the kitchens where those who minister in the temple are to boil the sacrifices of the people.”"
    },
    "47": {
      "1": "Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw that water was flowing out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar.",
      "2": "He brought me out through the north gate that led into the inner courtyard and led me around on the outside of the temple to the outer gateway on the east side, and I saw that water was trickling out from its south side.",
      "3": "As the man went out toward the east, he had a measuring line in his hand. He measured off a thousand cubits, and then he led me through the water. The water was ankle-deep.",
      "4": "Then he measured off another thousand cubits and led me through the water. The water was knee-deep. He measured a thousand more and led me through water that was now waist-deep.",
      "5": "He measured a thousand more, but now it was a river that I was not able to cross, because the water had risen so much that one would have to swim across it. It was a river that could not be forded.",
      "6": "Then he asked me, “Have you noticed anything, son of man?” and he led me back to the bank of the river.",
      "7": "When I returned there, I noticed that on the banks of the river there were a large number of trees, on both sides.",
      "8": "Then he said to me, “These waters are flowing out to the eastern part of the land. They go down to the Arabah and go into the sea, into the sea whose waters are unusable, and then the waters of the sea are made fresh.",
      "9": "Every living creature that swarms can live wherever the stream flows. There will be a large number of fish because these waters have come there, and the waters of the sea have been made fresh, so every living creature can live everywhere the river goes.",
      "10": "There will be fishermen standing beside it from En Gedi to En Eglaim, and there will be places for them to spread their nets to dry. There will be all kinds of fish there, like the fish of the Great Sea—so very many.",
      "11": "But its swamps and marshes will not be made fresh. They will be left to provide salt.",
      "12": "Beside the river, on both its banks, every kind of tree will grow for providing food. Their leaves will never wither, and their fruit will never fail. Every month they will bear fruit because their waters flow out from the sanctuary. Its fruit will provide food, and its leaves will be for healing.",
      "13": "This is what the Lord God says.\nThese are the boundaries you are to use to divide the land as an inheritance for the twelve tribes of Israel.\n(Joseph is to have two portions.)",
      "14": "You will assign equal portions of the land that I swore with uplifted hand to give to your fathers. This is how the land will be allotted to you as an inheritance.",
      "15": "These are to be the boundaries of the land:\nOn the north side, the boundary goes from the Great Sea by way of Hethlon to Lebo Hamath to Zedad,",
      "16": "Beruthah, and Sibraim, which is on the border between the territories of Damascus and Hamath, as far as Hazer Hattikon, which is on the border of Hauran.",
      "17": "So the border will be from the sea to Hazar Enon, on the border of Damascus to the north, which also is the border of Hamath. This is the north side.",
      "18": "On the east side, the border will run from Hazar Enon between Hauran and Damascus. Between Gilead and the land of Israel, the Jordan is the border as far as the Eastern Sea. The border then will run to Tamar. This is the east side.",
      "19": "On the south side, in the Negev, the border will run from Tamar to the waters of Meribah Kadesh, then along the Stream of Egypt to the Great Sea. This is the southern boundary in the Negev.",
      "20": "On the west side, the Great Sea is the border until a point opposite Lebo Hamath. This is the west side.",
      "21": "In this way you are to divide this land for yourselves, for the tribes of Israel.",
      "22": "You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who have settled among you and who have fathered children among you. They are to be treated like someone who is native-born among the sons of Israel. With you they are to receive allotments as an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.",
      "23": "In whatever tribe an alien has settled, there you are to give him his inheritance, declares the Lord God."
    },
    "48": {
      "1": "These are the names of the tribes.\nThe northern border runs east to west along the road between Hethlon, Lebo Hamath, and Hazar Enon, which forms the northern border of the territory of Damascus with the territory of Hamath. South of that line there will be one portion for Dan.",
      "2": "South of the boundary of Dan, from the east side to the west side of the land, there is to be one portion for Asher.",
      "3": "South of the boundary of Asher, from the east side to the west side, there is to be one portion for Naphtali.",
      "4": "South of the boundary of Naphtali, from the east side to the west side, there is to be one portion for Manasseh.",
      "5": "South of the boundary of Manasseh, from the east side to the west side, there is to be one portion for Ephraim.",
      "6": "South of the boundary of Ephraim, from the east side to the west side, there is to be one portion for Reuben.",
      "7": "South of the boundary of Reuben, from the east side to the west side, there is to be one portion for Judah.",
      "8": "South of the boundary of Judah, from the east side to the west side, will be the special contribution you are to devote to special use. Its north-to-south width is twenty-five thousand cubits, and its east-to-west length is equal to one of the tribal portions from the eastern side of the land to the western side. The sanctuary will be in the midst of it.",
      "9": "The contribution you are to devote to the Lord is to be twenty-five thousand cubits long and ten thousand cubits wide.",
      "10": "The holy contribution for the priests will be this: a rectangular area measuring twenty-five thousand cubits long on the north side, ten thousand cubits wide on the west, ten thousand cubits wide on the east, and twenty-five thousand cubits long on the south. The sanctuary of the Lord will be in the middle.",
      "11": "It will be for the priests, whoever has been consecrated from the sons of Zadok, who guarded the ministry for me, and who did not go astray when the other sons of Israel went astray, as also the Levites went astray.",
      "12": "It will be a special offering for them from the holy contribution of the land, a most holy district, beside the territory of the Levites.",
      "13": "The Levites are to have a rectangular allotment parallel to the territory of the priests. Twenty-five thousand cubits is its length, and its width is ten thousand cubits. Its whole length is twenty-five thousand cubits, and its width is ten thousand cubits.",
      "14": "They must not sell any part of it nor exchange any of it. No one can transfer these firstfruits of the land, because they are holy, belonging to the Lord.",
      "15": "The area five thousand cubits wide that remains along the south edge of the square of twenty-five thousand cubits is common land for the city, for living space and for open land. The city is to be in its center, between the two halves.",
      "16": "These are the city’s dimensions: a square measuring four thousand five hundred cubits on the north side, and four thousand five hundred cubits on the south side, and four thousand five hundred cubits on the east side, and four thousand five hundred cubits on the west side.",
      "17": "The open land belonging to the city will measure two hundred fifty cubits on the north side, and two hundred fifty cubits on the south, and two hundred fifty cubits on the east, and two hundred fifty cubits on the west.",
      "18": "The remaining area that runs lengthwise along the south side of the holy contribution will be ten thousand cubits east-to-west on the east side of the city, and ten thousand cubits east-to-west on the west side of the city. It shall be next to the holy contribution, and its produce shall be food for the workers of the city.",
      "19": "The workers of the city who cultivate it will be from all the tribes of Israel.",
      "20": "The entire holy contribution will be twenty-five thousand cubits by twenty-five thousand cubits, a square. Set apart this holy contribution, which includes the property of the city.",
      "21": "What remains of the holy contribution will belong to the prince. It lies on both sides of the holy contribution and the property of the city, extending from the eastern north-to-south boundary of the special contribution (which is twenty-five thousand cubits long) to the eastern border of the land, and on the west side, it will extend from the western north-to-south boundary of the special contribution (which is twenty-five thousand cubits long) to the western border of the land. The two portions belonging to the prince run parallel to the tribal portions. The holy contribution and the temple sanctuary will be between the two halves of the prince’s area.",
      "22": "The area consisting of the property of the Levites and the property of the city is between the two tracts that will belong to the prince. The area between the territory of Judah and the territory of Benjamin will belong to the prince.",
      "23": "As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side of the land to the west side is one portion for Benjamin.",
      "24": "South of the boundary of Benjamin, from the east side to the west side, is one portion for Simeon.",
      "25": "South of the boundary of Simeon, from the east side to the west side, is one portion for Issachar.",
      "26": "South of the boundary of Issachar, from the east side to the west side, is one portion for Zebulun.",
      "27": "South of the boundary of Zebulun, from the east side to the west side, is one portion for Gad.",
      "28": "South of the boundary of Gad on the southern side, the border will run from Tamar to the Waters of Meribah Kadesh, to the Stream of Egypt, and to the Great Sea.",
      "29": "This is the land that you are to allot as an inheritance to the tribes of Israel, and these are their portions, declares the Lord God.",
      "30": "These are the outside boundaries of the city.\nThe north side is four thousand five hundred cubits long.",
      "31": "The gates of the city are named after the tribes of Israel. Three gates are located on the north: one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, and one gate of Levi.",
      "32": "On the east side, which is four thousand five hundred cubits long, there are three gates: one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, and one gate of Dan.",
      "33": "On the south side, which is four thousand five hundred cubits long, there are three gates: one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, and one gate of Zebulun.",
      "34": "On the west side, which is four thousand five hundred cubits long, their gates are three: one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, and one gate of Naphtali.",
      "35": "The perimeter of the city is eighteen thousand cubits, and the name of the city from that day on is “The Lord Is There.”"
    }
  },
  "Daniel": {
    "1": {
      "1": "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.",
      "2": "The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand, along with some of the vessels of the House of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar, into the house of his god. He brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.",
      "3": "The king told Ashpenaz, the chief of his court officials, to bring some young Israelite men from the royal family or from the nobility.",
      "4": "He was to choose young men who had no blemish, who were good looking, who had insight into all kinds of wisdom, who possessed knowledge, understanding, and learning, and who were capable of serving in the king’s palace, in order to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.",
      "5": "The king assigned them daily rations from the special royal food and from the king’s own wine. He ordered that they should be trained for three years. At the end of training they were to serve the king.",
      "6": "In this group of young men were the Judeans Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.",
      "7": "The chief of the officials gave them new names. He gave Daniel the name Belteshazzar, Hananiah the name Shadrak, Mishael the name Meshak, and Azariah the name Abednego.",
      "8": "Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the special food of the king or with the wine that he drank. So he sought permission from the chief official, so that he would not have to defile himself.",
      "9": "God made the chief of the officials favorable and sympathetic toward Daniel.",
      "10": "Then the chief of the officials said to Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink. Why should he see your faces looking less healthy than those of the other young men who are your age? You put my life at risk before the king.”",
      "11": "Daniel said to the superintendent whom the chief of the officials had placed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah,",
      "12": "“Please test your servants for ten days. Tell them to give us only vegetables, and we will eat them and drink water.",
      "13": "Observe our appearance and the appearance of the young men who eat the special royal food. Then deal with your servants based on what you see.”",
      "14": "So he listened to what they said about this and tested them for ten days.",
      "15": "At the end of ten days, their appearance was noticeably better than that of the others. They were healthier than any of the young men who had been eating the special royal food.",
      "16": "So the superintendent permanently took away the special royal food and the wine they were to drink and gave them only vegetables.",
      "17": "As for these four young men, God gave them knowledge and insight into all kinds of literature, as well as wisdom. In addition, Daniel also understood every kind of vision and dream.",
      "18": "At the end of the time which the king had set for them to be brought to him, the chief of the officials brought them before Nebuchadnezzar.",
      "19": "The king spoke with them, and none of the others were found to be comparable to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they served the king.",
      "20": "In every matter concerning wisdom and understanding that the king sought from them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and spell casters in his entire kingdom.",
      "21": "So Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. His spirit was troubled, but he fell back to sleep again.",
      "2": "The king gave orders to summon the magicians, the spell casters, the sorcerers, and the astrologers to relate the king’s dream to him. So they came and stood before the king.",
      "3": "The king said to them, “I had a dream, and my spirit was troubled because I did not understand the dream.”",
      "4": "The astrologers said to the king in Aramaic, “Your Majesty, may you live forever! Tell the dream to your servants, and we will explain its meaning.”",
      "5": "The king answered the astrologers, “My decision is final. If you do not tell me the dream and what it means, your body shall be cut to pieces, and your houses will be made into a pile of rubble.",
      "6": "However, if you explain the dream and its meaning, you will receive gifts, a reward, and great honor from me. So, explain to me the dream and its meaning!”",
      "7": "They responded a second time and said, “Let the king tell the dream to his servants, and we will explain its meaning.”",
      "8": "The king answered, “Now I know for sure that you are buying time because you see that my decision is final.",
      "9": "If you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one decree for you. You have conspired to give me a lying and cheating response until the situation changes. So, tell me the dream, and I will know that you are also able to explain its meaning to me.”",
      "10": "The astrologers responded to the king, “There is no person on earth who is able to reveal what the king wants. No great and powerful king has ever asked for a thing like this from any magician, spell caster, or astrologer.",
      "11": "The thing that the king is asking is difficult. There is no one who can reveal it to the king except the gods, who do not dwell with mortal flesh.”",
      "12": "Because of this the king became very angry. He was enraged and gave orders to put the wise men of Babylon to death.",
      "13": "The decree was issued that all the wise men were to be executed. So executioners looked for Daniel and his companions to execute them.",
      "14": "Then Daniel responded with good judgment and tact to Ariok, the chief of the king’s executioners, who had gone out to execute the wise men of Babylon.",
      "15": "He said to Ariok, the king’s officer, “Why is the decree from the king so harsh?” So Ariok explained the situation to Daniel.",
      "16": "Daniel then entered the court and asked the king to give him time so that he could reveal the interpretation to the king.",
      "17": "Next, Daniel went to his house and explained the situation to Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, his companions.",
      "18": "They were to seek mercy from the God of Heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions would not be put to death with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.",
      "19": "Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision at night, and Daniel blessed the God of Heaven.",
      "20": "Daniel said,\nMay the name of God be blessed forever and ever,\nbecause wisdom and power are his.",
      "21": "He changes times and eras.\nHe removes kings,\nand he brings kings to power.\nHe gives wisdom to the wise\nand knowledge to those who have good judgment.",
      "22": "He reveals deep things and hidden things.\nHe knows what is in the dark,\nand the light dwells with him.",
      "23": "To you, God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, because you have given me wisdom and power. Now you have made known to me what we requested from you, because you have made known to us the thing the king asked about.",
      "24": "As a result of this, Daniel went to Ariok, whom the king had assigned to put the wise men of Babylon to death. Daniel went and said this to him: “Do not put the wise men of Babylon to death. Bring me before the king, and I will explain the meaning to the king.”",
      "25": "Then Ariok immediately brought Daniel before the king. This is what Ariok said to the king: “I have found a man from among the Judean exiles who will make the interpretation known to the king.”",
      "26": "The king said to Daniel (whose name was Belteshazzar), “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I saw and its meaning?”",
      "27": "Daniel answered the king, “The mystery that the king is asking about, no wise men, spell casters, magicians, or diviners are able to explain it to the king.",
      "28": "However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the latter days. This is your dream; the visions in your head while you were on your bed were this:",
      "29": "For you, Your Majesty, while you were on your bed, thoughts arose about things that will come after this, and the Revealer of Mysteries made known to you what will happen.",
      "30": "But the reason that this mystery was revealed to me was not because I have more wisdom in me than any other living being. Rather, it was revealed to me so that the meaning could be made known to Your Majesty and so that you may know the thoughts of your heart.",
      "31": "You, Your Majesty, were looking, and there was a very great statue. That statue, which was large and extremely bright, was standing in front of you. Its appearance was frightening.",
      "32": "The statue looked like this: Its head was fine gold, its chest and its arms were silver, its abdomen and its thighs were bronze,",
      "33": "its shins were iron, and its feet were partly iron and partly fired clay.",
      "34": "You continued to watch until a stone was cut, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet that were iron and clay, and it smashed them.",
      "35": "Then all at once the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed and became like the chaff on the threshing floors of summer. The wind carried them away, and no trace of them could be found. However, the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the entire earth.",
      "36": "This is the dream.\nSo now we will interpret its meaning for Your Majesty.",
      "37": "You, Your Majesty, are the king of kings to whom the God of Heaven has given a kingdom, power, strength, and glory.",
      "38": "Wherever there are people, wild animals, and birds of the air, God has given them into your hand, and he has made you ruler over all of them. You are the head of gold.",
      "39": "After you another kingdom will arise that will be inferior to yours. Then another kingdom, a third kingdom of bronze will arise. This kingdom will rule the entire earth.",
      "40": "A fourth kingdom will be as strong as iron, since iron crushes and shatters everything. So, like iron that smashes, it will crush and smash all of these other kingdoms.",
      "41": "Because you saw feet and toes partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, this will be a divided kingdom. It will have some of the hardness of iron, because you saw iron mixed with common clay.",
      "42": "What is more, the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay. This means that part of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle.",
      "43": "You saw iron mixed with common clay. This means that the different parts of the kingdom will be a mixture of different races of people, and they will not remain united to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.",
      "44": "In the days of those kings, the God of Heaven will establish a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and this kingdom will not be left to another race of people. It will crush and put an end to all of these kingdoms, but it will stand forever,",
      "45": "just as you saw that a stone was cut from the mountain, but not by human hands, and it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to Your Majesty what will happen after this. The dream is sure, and its interpretation is certain.",
      "46": "Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell facedown and paid homage to Daniel. He commanded that a sacrificial gift and incense be offered to him.",
      "47": "The king said, “Truly your God is the God of Gods, the Lord of Kings, and the Revealer of Mysteries, because you were able to reveal this mystery.”",
      "48": "Then the king promoted Daniel to a high position and gave him many valuable gifts. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon.",
      "49": "When Daniel requested it, the king appointed Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego over the administration of the province of Babylon. Daniel remained in the royal court."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue. It was ninety feet tall and nine feet wide. He set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.",
      "2": "King Nebuchadnezzar sent word to assemble the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all of the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.",
      "3": "Then the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all of the rulers of the provinces assembled for the dedication of King Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. They stood in front of the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.",
      "4": "The herald called out loudly, “To you peoples, nations, and languages, this command is given:",
      "5": "When you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the harp, the triangular harp, the drum, and all kinds of musical instruments, you will fall down and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar set up.",
      "6": "Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into the blazing fiery furnace.”",
      "7": "Therefore, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the harp, the triangular harp, and all kinds of musical instruments, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshipped the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.",
      "8": "At that time, some Chaldeans approached the king and maliciously accused the Jews.",
      "9": "They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “Your Majesty, may you live forever!",
      "10": "You, Your Majesty, gave an order that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the harp, the triangular harp, the drum, and all kinds of musical instruments must fall down and worship the golden statue,",
      "11": "and whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into the blazing fiery furnace.",
      "12": "There are Jews whom you appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon, namely, Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego. These men do not pay attention to you, Your Majesty. They do not serve your gods, and they do not worship the gold statue that you set up.”",
      "13": "Then in a furious rage Nebuchadnezzar said to bring Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king.",
      "14": "Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods and that you do not worship the golden statue that I set up?",
      "15": "Now, if you are ready, at the time when you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the harp, the triangular harp, the drum, and all kinds of musical instruments, you must fall down and worship the statue I made. But if you do not worship, you will immediately be thrown into the blazing fiery furnace. What god will be able to save you from my hands?”",
      "16": "Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, “We have no need to answer you about this matter.",
      "17": "Since our God, whom we serve, does exist, he is able to save us from the blazing fiery furnace. So, he may save us from your hand, Your Majesty.",
      "18": "But if he does not, you should know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden statue that you set up.”",
      "19": "Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with rage, and the expression on his face changed against Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego. He said to heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was usually heated.",
      "20": "He ordered some men, who were soldiers from his army, to bind Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego in order to throw them into the blazing fiery furnace.",
      "21": "So these men were bound in their coats, their pants, their turbans, and their other clothing, and they were thrown into the middle of the blazing fiery furnace.",
      "22": "Because the king’s order was urgent and the furnace was extremely hot, those men who carried Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego were killed by the intense heat of the fire.",
      "23": "But these three men, Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, who had been tied up, fell into the blazing fiery furnace.",
      "24": "Then King Nebuchadnezzar was startled and immediately stood up. He said to his advisors, “Didn’t we throw three men, who had been tied up, into the middle of the fire?”\nThey answered the king, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”",
      "25": "He said, “Look! I see four men, who are untied and walking around in the middle of the fire, unharmed. What is more, the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”",
      "26": "Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the blazing fiery furnace. He said, “Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out!” Then Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego came out from the middle of the furnace.",
      "27": "The satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the royal advisors gathered together and looked at these men. The fire had no power over their bodies. Not a hair on their head was singed, their robes were not damaged, and the smell of fire had not stuck to them.",
      "28": "Nebuchadnezzar said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, who sent his angel and saved his servants, who trusted in God and ignored the king’s command. They gave up their bodies and did not pay homage or worship any god except their God.",
      "29": "So I have issued an order that every people, nation, and language that speaks any blasphemy against the God of Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego shall be cut to pieces, and his house shall be turned into a pile of rubble, because there is no other god who is able to save like this.”",
      "30": "Then the king promoted Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego in the province of Babylon."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "From King Nebuchadnezzar:\nTo all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell on the entire earth:\nMay your peace and prosperity increase.",
      "2": "It seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders that the Most High God did for me.",
      "3": "How great are his signs!\n    How mighty are his wonders!\n    His kingdom is an eternal kingdom,\n    and his dominion extends from generation to generation.",
      "4": "When I, Nebuchadnezzar, was carefree in my house and prospering in my palace,",
      "5": "I saw a dream that frightened me. The images I saw while I was on my bed and the visions in my head alarmed me.",
      "6": "So I issued a decree to bring before me all of the wise men of Babylon so that they could give the interpretation of the dream and make it known to me.",
      "7": "Then the magicians, the spell casters, the astrologers, and the diviners came, and I told them the dream. However, they could not make its meaning known to me.",
      "8": "Afterward, Daniel came before me (whose name is Belteshazzar, like the name of my god, and a spirit of the holy gods dwells in him), and I told him the dream.",
      "9": "Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, because I know that a spirit of the holy gods dwells in you, and no mystery is too difficult for you, take a look at the dream I saw and interpret it for me.",
      "10": "I was seeing visions in my head while I was on my bed:\nThere was a tree standing in the middle of the earth, and its height was great.",
      "11": "The tree grew and became strong. Its height reached to heaven, and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth.",
      "12": "Its leaves were beautiful, and its fruit was plentiful. On it there was enough food for all. Under the tree the wild animals had shade, and the birds of the air lived in its branches. All living creatures fed themselves from it.",
      "13": "I was on my bed, watching the visions in my head, and I saw a watcher, who was a holy one, come down from heaven.",
      "14": "He called out loudly, and this is what he said:\nChop down the tree and cut off its branches. Strip its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the animals flee from under it, and the birds from its branches.",
      "15": "However, leave the stump with its root in the ground, with an iron and bronze band around it. Leave it with the grass of the field, and let it be wet with the dew from the sky. Let its place be with the animals among the plants of the earth.",
      "16": "Let its mind be changed from that of a human, let the mind of an animal be given to it, and let seven times pass over it.",
      "17": "The proclamation is a decree of the watchers, and the matter is a command of the holy ones, so that all the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdoms of men. He gives them to whomever he wishes, and he appoints the lowliest men over them.",
      "18": "This is the dream that I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw. Now, you, Belteshazzar, tell me what it means, because none of the wise men of my kingdom are able to make the meaning known to me. But you are able, because a spirit of the holy gods is in you.",
      "19": "Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was horrified for a moment, and his thoughts troubled him. The king said, “Belteshazzar, do not let the dream and its meaning trouble you.”\nBelteshazzar answered, “My Lord, if only the dream were about your enemies and its meaning about your foes!”",
      "20": "The tree which you saw grew and became strong. Its height reached to heaven, and it was visible to the whole earth.",
      "21": "Its leaves were beautiful, and its fruit was abundant. On it there was food for all. The wild animals lived under it, and the birds of the air lived in its branches.",
      "22": "You are the tree, Your Majesty. For you have grown, and you have become great. Your greatness has increased and reached to heaven. Your dominion reaches to the ends of the earth.",
      "23": "And you, Your Majesty, saw a watcher, who was a holy one, coming down from heaven, and he said, “Chop down the tree and destroy it. However, leave the stump with its roots in the ground, with an iron and bronze band around it. Let it be with the grass of the field. Let it be wet with the dew from the sky. Its place will be with the wild animals, until seven times pass over it.”",
      "24": "This is the interpretation, Your Majesty:\nIt is a decree of the Most High that has come upon my lord, the king.",
      "25": "You will be driven away from humans, and your dwelling will be with the wild animals. You will have to eat plants as bulls do, and you will be wet with the dew from the sky. Seven times will pass over you until you know that the Most High rules the kingdoms of men, and he gives them to whomever he wishes.",
      "26": "Because they said to leave the stump with the roots of the tree, your kingdom will remain yours when you acknowledge that Heaven rules.",
      "27": "Therefore, Your Majesty, let my advice be pleasing to you. Break away from your sins with righteousness and from your guilty deeds by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps your prosperity will be extended.",
      "28": "All this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar.",
      "29": "At the end of twelve months he was walking on top of the palace of his kingdom in Babylon.",
      "30": "The king said, “Isn’t this the great Babylon that I built for a royal residence by my mighty power and my majestic glory?”",
      "31": "While the word was still in the king’s mouth, a voice came down from heaven. It said, “It is announced to you, King Nebuchadnezzar: The kingdom has been taken away from you.",
      "32": "You will be driven away from humans, and your dwelling will be with the wild animals. Grass will be fed to you as grass is fed to bulls, and seven times will pass over you until you know that the Most High rules the kingdoms of men, and he gives them to whomever he wishes.”",
      "33": "Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven away from humans. So he ate grass as bulls do, and his body was wet with the dew from the sky until his hair grew long like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.",
      "34": "At the end of the set time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me. So I blessed the Most High, and I praised and glorified the one who lives forever, because his dominion is an eternal dominion, and his kingdom lasts forever and ever.",
      "35": "All of the inhabitants of the earth are considered to be nothing, and he does as he wishes with the army of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. So there is no one who can hold back the hand of the Most High and say to him, “What have you done?”",
      "36": "At that time my reason returned to me, and my splendor and glory returned to me for the honor of my kingdom. So my advisors and nobles looked for me. I was reinstated over my kingdom, and I became even more majestic than I was before.",
      "37": "Now, I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of Heaven, because all his works are true, and his ways are just. All those who walk in arrogance he is able to humble."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and in front of the thousand he drank wine.",
      "2": "When he had tasted the wine, Belshazzar said to bring the gold and silver vessels that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines could drink from them.",
      "3": "Then they brought the gold vessels that they had taken from the temple, that is, the House of God in Jerusalem. So the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them.",
      "4": "They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone.",
      "5": "At that moment the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand, and the king saw the back of the hand that was writing.",
      "6": "Then the king’s cheerful appearance changed, his face grew pale, and his thoughts troubled him. His legs went limp, and his knees knocked together.",
      "7": "The king called out loudly to bring the spell casters, the astrologers, and the diviners. The king said to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever is able to read this writing and explain its meaning will be clothed in purple, with a gold chain around his neck, and he will rule as third highest in the kingdom.”",
      "8": "Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they were not able to read the writing or tell the king what it meant.",
      "9": "Then King Belshazzar was really terrified. He grew even paler, and his nobles were perplexed.",
      "10": "The queen came to the drinking party because of the words of the king and his nobles. The queen said, “Your Majesty, may you live forever! Do not let your thoughts trouble you, and do not look so frightened.",
      "11": "There is a man in your kingdom in whom is a spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, enlightenment, insight, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him. So King Nebuchadnezzar your father, your father the king, appointed him chief of the magicians, spell casters, astrologers, and diviners,",
      "12": "because an outstanding spirit and knowledge and insight in interpreting dreams and explaining riddles and solving knotty problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be summoned, and he will explain the meaning of the writing.”",
      "13": "Then Daniel was brought before the king. The king said to Daniel, “Are you Daniel, one of the Judean exiles whom my father the king brought from Judah?",
      "14": "I have heard about you that a spirit of the gods is in you, and enlightenment and insight and outstanding wisdom are found in you.",
      "15": "Now, those wise men who are the spell casters were brought before me to read this writing and to make its meaning known to me, but they were not able to explain the meaning of the message.",
      "16": "Yet I have heard about you that you are able to explain meanings clearly and to solve knotty problems. Therefore, if you are able to read the writing and make its meaning known to me, you will be clothed in purple, with a gold chain around your neck, and you will rule as the third in the kingdom.”",
      "17": "Then Daniel answered the king:\nKeep your gifts for yourself, or give your rewards to someone else! Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king, and I will make its meaning known to him.",
      "18": "As for you, Your Majesty—the Most High God gave the kingdom, greatness, splendor, and glory to Nebuchadnezzar, your father.",
      "19": "So because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and were afraid in his presence. He killed whomever he wanted, and he let live whomever he wanted. Also, he promoted anyone he wanted, and he demoted anyone he wanted.",
      "20": "But when he thought too much of himself, and his spirit became hardened in pride so that he acted arrogantly, he was deposed from the throne of his kingdom, and his splendor was taken away from him.",
      "21": "He was driven away from humans, and his mind was changed to that of an animal. So his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass as bulls are fed, and his body was wet with dew from the sky, until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdoms of men, and he raises up over them anyone he desires.",
      "22": "But you, his son, Belshazzar, did not humble your heart although you knew all this.",
      "23": "Instead, you lifted yourself against the Lord of Heaven. The vessels from his house were brought before you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. Then you praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone, who do not see and do not hear and do not know. But you did not honor the God who holds your breath in his hand and who controls all your ways.",
      "24": "So the back of the hand was sent by him, and this writing was inscribed.",
      "25": "Now this is the writing that was inscribed:\nmene mene tekel and parsin",
      "26": "This is the meaning of the message:\nMene means that God has counted up your kingdom and paid it out or spent it.",
      "27": "Tekel means that you have been weighed in the scales, and you are too light.",
      "28": "Parsin means that your kingdom has been broken in two and given to the Medes and the Persians.",
      "29": "Then Belshazzar spoke, and they dressed Daniel in purple, with a gold chain around his neck, and they made him the third highest ruler in the kingdom.",
      "30": "That very night, King Belshazzar the Chaldean was killed.",
      "31": "Then Darius the Mede received the kingdom, when he was about sixty-two years old."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "It seemed like a good plan to Darius to appoint one hundred twenty satraps over the kingdom. They were to rule throughout the kingdom.",
      "2": "Above them there would be three supervisors (Daniel was one of them) to whom these satraps would report, so that the king would not suffer any loss.",
      "3": "It came about that this Daniel distinguished himself above the supervisors and satraps, because there was an outstanding spirit in him. So the king intended to promote him so that he would be in charge of the entire kingdom.",
      "4": "Then the supervisors and satraps kept trying to find a basis for an accusation against Daniel in regard to his administration of the kingdom. However, they were unable to come up with an accusation or any evidence of corruption, because he was trustworthy and no neglect of duty or evidence of corruption could be found against him.",
      "5": "Then these men said, “We will not find any accusation to bring against this Daniel unless we find something against him concerning the law of his God.”",
      "6": "So these supervisors and satraps came as a group to the king and said this to him, “Darius, Your Majesty, may you live forever!",
      "7": "All the supervisors of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the advisors and the governors advise the king to establish and enforce a decree that prohibits anyone to pray a prayer to any god or person for thirty days except to you, Your Majesty. Anyone who does so will be thrown into the den of lions.",
      "8": "Now Your Majesty, please establish the decree and sign a document that cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians that cannot be revoked.”",
      "9": "That is why King Darius signed the written decree.",
      "10": "Now, when Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went to his house. It had windows on its upper story that opened toward Jerusalem. Three times each day he would get on his knees and pray and offer praise before his God. He continued to do that, just as he had been doing before this.",
      "11": "Then these men came as a group and found Daniel praying and seeking favor from his God.",
      "12": "They then went and asked the king about the decree. “Your Majesty, did you not sign a decree that anyone who prays to any god or person for thirty days except to you, Your Majesty, would be thrown into the den of lions?”\nThe king answered, “Indeed I did. The order is established as a law of the Medes and the Persians that cannot be revoked.”",
      "13": "Then they responded to the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, does not pay attention to you, Your Majesty, or to the decree that you signed. Instead, three times each day he is praying his prayers.”",
      "14": "When the king heard this report, he was very upset about it, but he was determined to save Daniel. So until sunset he worked hard to rescue him.",
      "15": "Then these men came as a group to the king and kept saying to the king, “You know, Your Majesty, that it is the law of the Medes and the Persians that every decree or statute that the king establishes cannot be changed.”",
      "16": "Then the king gave the order, and Daniel was brought and thrown into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you.”",
      "17": "A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the pit. The king sealed it with his signet ring and the signet rings of his nobles so that nothing could be changed with regard to Daniel’s situation.",
      "18": "Then the king went to his palace. He spent the night without food, and no entertainment was brought before him. But he could not sleep.",
      "19": "At dawn the king arose as soon as it was light and hurried to the lions’ den.",
      "20": "As he came near the pit, he cried out in a fearful voice. The king said to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, was your God, whom you serve continually, able to rescue you from the lions?”",
      "21": "Then Daniel spoke with the king. “Your Majesty, may you live forever!",
      "22": "My God sent his angel and shut the mouth of the lions. They have not hurt me because he found me innocent in his presence. Also before you, Your Majesty, I have committed no crime.”",
      "23": "Then the king was very glad and said that Daniel should be brought up from the pit. So Daniel was brought up from the pit, and he was unharmed because he trusted in his God.",
      "24": "The king gave the order, and those men who maliciously accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the lions’ den—they, their children, and their wives. They had not reached the bottom of the pit when the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.",
      "25": "Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in the entire earth:\n    May your peace and prosperity increase.",
      "26": "I give this command throughout my royal dominion:\n    People should continually tremble and be afraid before the God of Daniel,\n    because he is the living God, who endures forever.\n    His kingdom will not be destroyed,\n    and his dominion is eternal.",
      "27": "He rescues and he saves.\n    He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth.\n    So he saved Daniel from the power of the lions.",
      "28": "So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius, that is, during the reign of Cyrus the Persian."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream. When he was on his bed, he saw visions in his head. Then he wrote down the dream by recording the main points.",
      "2": "Daniel said:\nDuring my visions at night, I was watching and saw the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea.",
      "3": "Four large beasts were coming out of the sea, each one different from the others.",
      "4": "The first was like a lion. It had wings like an eagle. I kept watching until its wings were plucked off. Then it was lifted up from the earth so that it stood on its feet like a man, and a man’s mind was given to it.",
      "5": "Then another appeared, a second beast that looked like a bear. It was raised up on one side. Three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth. This is what was being said to it: “Arise, devour much flesh.”",
      "6": "After this, I kept watching and another beast appeared which was like a leopard. It had four bird wings on its back. The beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it.",
      "7": "After this, I kept watching the night visions, and another beast appeared. The fourth beast was frightening and terrifying and very strong. It had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed. With its feet it trampled whatever was left. Now it was different from all the beasts that came before it. It had ten horns.",
      "8": "I was thinking about the horns when suddenly another horn, a little one, came up among them. Three of the horns that had already been there were uprooted to make room for it. I noticed eyes like human eyes on that horn, and it had a mouth which was speaking boastfully.",
      "9": "I continued to watch until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days was seated. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair on his head was like pure wool. His throne was flames of fire. Its wheels were blazing fire.",
      "10": "A river of fire flowed out from his presence. Thousands upon thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and books were opened.",
      "11": "I kept paying attention to the sound of the boastful words that the horn was speaking. I kept watching until the beast was killed, and its body was destroyed and thrown into the burning fire.",
      "12": "As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion had been taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a set period of time.",
      "13": "I kept watching the night visions, and there, in the clouds of heaven, I saw one like a son of man coming. He came to the Ancient of Days, and he was brought before him.",
      "14": "To him was given dominion, honor, and a kingdom. All peoples, nations, and languages will worship him. His dominion is an eternal dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.",
      "15": "I, Daniel—my spirit was distressed within my body, and the visions in my head disturbed me.",
      "16": "I approached one of those standing there, and I asked him for the truth about all this. So he spoke to me and made the meaning of these visions clear to me.",
      "17": "“These great beasts are four kings who will arise from the earth.",
      "18": "But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom, and they will possess the kingdom forever—yes, forever and ever.”",
      "19": "Then I wanted to be certain about that fourth beast that was different from all the others. It was very frightening. Its teeth were iron, and its claws were bronze. It devoured and crushed, and whatever was left it trampled with its feet.",
      "20": "I also wanted to be certain about the ten horns on its head, about the other horn that came up, and about the three horns that fell to make room for it. What is more, that horn had eyes and a mouth that was speaking boastful things. Its appearance was greater than that of the other horns that were with it.",
      "21": "I kept watching, and that horn made war against the saints and prevailed over them,",
      "22": "until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was rendered in favor of the saints of the Most High. Then the time came, and the saints took possession of the kingdom.",
      "23": "So this is what he said to me:\nThe fourth beast is the fourth kingdom that will come on the earth. It will be different from all the kingdoms. It will devour the entire earth, trample it, and smash it.",
      "24": "As for the ten horns—ten kings will arise from that kingdom, and another king will arise after them. He will be different from the previous ones, and he will humble three kings.",
      "25": "He will speak words against the Most High so that he will wear down the saints of the Most High. Moreover, he has plans to change times and the law. So the saints will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.",
      "26": "Then the court will be seated, and the horn’s dominion will be taken away in order to destroy it and wipe it out forever.",
      "27": "But the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under all the heavens will be given to the people, to the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and all dominions will worship and obey him.",
      "28": "This was the end of the matter. I, Daniel—my thoughts troubled me greatly. My appearance changed and my face became pale, but I kept the matter to myself."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me—I, Daniel—after the one that appeared to me previously.",
      "2": "I saw the vision, and as I watched, I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam. I saw in the vision that I was beside the Ulai Canal.",
      "3": "I looked up and right there in front of me I saw a ram standing beside the canal. He had two horns. The two horns were large. One, however, was larger than the other, but the larger one had grown up later.",
      "4": "I saw the ram pushing toward the west, north, and south, and no beast was able to stand in his way. Nothing could rescue anyone from his power. So he did as he pleased and made himself great.",
      "5": "As I was thinking about this, I saw a male goat coming from the west, moving across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. The goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes.",
      "6": "He came up to the ram with the two horns that I saw standing beside the canal, and he ran at him with fierce anger.",
      "7": "I saw him coming up to the ram, and he was enraged against him. He struck the ram and broke his two horns. The ram had no power to stand up against him, so the goat threw the ram to the ground and trampled him. There was no one who could rescue the ram from his power.",
      "8": "The male goat made himself very great. But as he became strong, his large horn was broken, and four conspicuous horns grew up in its place toward the four winds of heaven.",
      "9": "Then from one of these horns a single horn came up. It began small, but it became very large toward the south and the east and toward the beautiful land.",
      "10": "It exalted itself against the army of heaven. It made some of that army and some of the stars fall to earth, and it trampled them.",
      "11": "It exalted itself against the Prince of the Army. It deprived him of the continual sacrifice, and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down.",
      "12": "The army and the continual sacrifice will be handed over to the horn during the rebellion, and it will throw truth to the ground. It will succeed in doing this.",
      "13": "Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one speaking, “How long is the vision about the continual sacrifice and the rebellion that causes desolation going to last—this handing over of both the Holy Place and the army to be trampled?”",
      "14": "He said to him, “Until two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings, and then the Holy Place will be consecrated.”",
      "15": "When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I tried to understand it. Then suddenly there was someone standing in front of me who had the appearance of a man.",
      "16": "I heard a human voice coming from between the banks of the Ulai. It called out and said, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.”",
      "17": "So he came beside the spot where I stood, and when he came, I was terrified and fell facedown. He said to me, “Understand, son of man, that the vision concerns the time of the end.”",
      "18": "When he had spoken with me, I fell into a deep sleep, facedown on the ground. He touched me and made me stand up.",
      "19": "He said, “Listen, I am about to make known to you what will happen during the last part of the furious anger, because this concerns the appointed time of the end.",
      "20": "“The ram that you saw had two horns, the kings of Media and Persia.",
      "21": "The male goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes is the first king.",
      "22": "He is the one who was broken, and four others arose in his place. Four kingdoms will arise from his nation, but not with the same power he had.",
      "23": "“In the latter part of their kingdom, when the rebels have reached their full measure, a merciless king who understands intrigue will arise.",
      "24": "His power will be very great, but not from his own power. He will destroy wonderful things, and he will succeed in doing this. He will destroy mighty men and the people of the saints.",
      "25": "Through his cunning, he will deceive in order to succeed by his power and will also exalt himself in his heart. He will destroy many who are at ease, and he will rise up against the Prince of Princes. However, he will be broken, but not by human power.",
      "26": "The vision of the evenings and the mornings that was spoken is true. But you—seal the vision, because it concerns a time many days in the future.”",
      "27": "I, Daniel, was exhausted and sick for days. Then I got up and carried out the king’s business. I was stunned by the vision, but I did not understand it."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes, who was a Mede by descent and who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—",
      "2": "in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the scrolls that, according to the word of the Lord given to the prophet Jeremiah, the number of years it would take to complete the devastation of Jerusalem was seventy years.",
      "3": "With fasting, sackcloth, and ashes I turned my face to the Lord God to seek him in prayer and to plead for grace.",
      "4": "I prayed to the Lord, my God, and I made confession.\nPlease, Lord, you are the great God, who is to be feared, who keeps the covenant, and who shows mercy to those who love him and keep his commands.",
      "5": "We have sinned. We have been guilty. We have acted wickedly. We have rebelled and turned aside from your commands and standards.",
      "6": "We did not listen to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, officials, and fathers and to all the people of the land.",
      "7": "Righteousness is yours, Lord, but we are filled with shame this day—we the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Israel, both near and far, in all the lands where you have banished them because of the treachery with which they betrayed you.",
      "8": "Lord, we are filled with shame—our kings, our officials, and our fathers, who sinned against you.",
      "9": "Acts of compassion and forgiveness belong to the Lord our God, even though we have rebelled against him.",
      "10": "We did not listen to the voice of the Lord our God by walking according to his laws that he set before us through the hand of his servants, the prophets.",
      "11": "All Israel violated your law and turned away by not listening to your voice. So you poured out the curse on us and fulfilled the oath that is written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, because we sinned against him.",
      "12": "God has fulfilled the words that he spoke against us and against our judges by bringing such a great disaster upon us. What was done in Jerusalem has never been done under all of heaven.",
      "13": "As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster came upon us, but we did not seek the favor of the Lord our God to turn from our guilt and to gain insight into your truth.",
      "14": "Therefore, the Lord watched over the disaster and brought it upon us, because the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does, but we did not listen to his voice.",
      "15": "And now, Lord our God, you who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made a name for yourself to this very day, we have sinned, we have acted wickedly.",
      "16": "Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain, although, because of our sins and the guilt of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people are viewed with contempt by everyone around us.",
      "17": "Now listen, our God, to the prayer of your servant and to his plea for grace, and let your face shine upon your desolate sanctuary for your sake, my Lord.",
      "18": "My God, turn your ear toward us and listen. Open your eyes and see the desolation that is upon us and the city that is called by your name. No, it is not because of our righteous acts that we are casting our plea for grace before you, but because of your great acts of compassion.",
      "19": "Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, pay attention! Act, and do not delay—for your sake, my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.",
      "20": "While I was still speaking, praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, I was casting my prayer for grace, concerning the holy mountain of my God, before the Lord my God,",
      "21": "while I was still speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the first vision, touched me. I was completely exhausted. It was about the time of the evening sacrifice.",
      "22": "He instructed me, “Daniel, now I have come to give you insight with understanding.",
      "23": "At the beginning of your plea for grace, a word went out, and I came to declare it to you, because you are very treasured. So pay attention to the word and understand the vision.”",
      "24": "Seventy sevens are determined concerning your people and your holy city:\n    to end rebellion,\n    to finish sin,\n    and to atone for guilt,\n    to bring everlasting righteousness,\n    to seal up prophetic vision,\n    and to anoint a most holy one.",
      "25": "You should know and have insight. From the going out of a word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a ruler, comes, there will be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with public squares and a moat, but during troubled times.",
      "26": "Then after the sixty-two sevens, the anointed one will be cut off and have nothing. Both the city and the holy place will be destroyed by the people of a ruler who is coming, and its end will be with a flood. There will be war until the end, and desolations have been decreed.",
      "27": "He will confirm a covenant for the many during one seven. In the middle of the seven, he will cause sacrifice and offering to cease.\nOn the wing of abominations is one who causes desolation, until the decreed end is poured out on the one who causes desolation."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar. Now the message was true. It was about a great war. He understood the message, and understanding came to him through the vision.",
      "2": "In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three whole weeks.",
      "3": "I ate no expensive food, and no meat or wine entered my mouth. I did not anoint myself at all until the completion of three whole weeks.",
      "4": "On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, I was beside the Great River, that is, the Tigris.",
      "5": "I looked up, and there, right in front of me, I saw a man dressed in linen. Around his waist he was wearing a belt made from gold of Uphaz.",
      "6": "His body was like topaz, and his face looked like lightning. His eyes were like burning torches, and his arms and feet were like polished bronze. The sound of his words was like the sound of an army.",
      "7": "Only I, Daniel, saw the vision. The men who were with me did not see the vision, but they were overwhelmed by fear and trembling, so they ran away to hide.",
      "8": "I was left alone, and I saw this great vision. No strength was left in me. My appearance changed for the worse. I became very pale, and I had no strength.",
      "9": "I heard the sound of his words, but as I heard the sound of his words, I was in a deep sleep, facedown, with my face to the ground.",
      "10": "Then a hand touched me and pulled me up, trembling, to my hands and knees.",
      "11": "He said to me, “Daniel, you are a highly valued man. Understand the words that I am speaking to you. Stand up where you are, because now I have been sent to you.” When he spoke this word to me, I stood up, shaking.",
      "12": "He said to me, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, because from the first day that you began to commit your heart to gaining understanding and to humbling yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come in response to your words.",
      "13": "However, an officer of the kingdom of Persia was standing against me for twenty-one days. Yet Michael, one of the chief officers, came to help me, for I had been left there against the kings of Persia.",
      "14": "I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the latter days, because the vision concerns days still to come.”",
      "15": "As he spoke these words to me, I pressed my face to the ground and was silent.",
      "16": "Then someone whose form was like a son of man was touching my lips. So I opened my mouth and spoke and said to the one standing in front of me, “My lord, pain has come upon me in the vision, and I have no strength left in me.",
      "17": "How can this servant of my lord speak with my lord? And I, from now on—no strength remains in me, and no breath is left in me.”",
      "18": "The one whose appearance was like a man touched me again and strengthened me.",
      "19": "He said to me, “Do not be afraid, you highly valued man. Peace to you. Be strong! Be strong!”\nAs he spoke with me I was strengthened, and I said, “Keep speaking, my lord, because you strengthen me.”",
      "20": "He said, “Do you know why I have come to you? Now I will return to fight against the official of Persia. But after I leave that battle, the prince of Greece will come.",
      "21": "Nevertheless, I will tell you what is inscribed in the Book of Truth. No one is supporting me against these enemies except Michael, your prince."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "In the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to strengthen and protect him.”",
      "2": "Now I will tell you the truth: Look, three more kings will arise for Persia. Then the fourth one will gain great riches, more than anyone else. As he becomes strong through his riches, he will stir everyone up against the kingdom of Greece.",
      "3": "A warrior king will arise. He will rule a great dominion and will do as he pleases.",
      "4": "But as he rises, his kingdom will be broken and be divided to the four winds of heaven, but it will not be passed on to his descendants. It will not be ruled with the same ruling power with which he ruled, because his kingdom will be uprooted and given to others besides these.",
      "5": "The King of the South will become strong, but one of his commanders will become stronger than he and rule a dominion greater than his.",
      "6": "After some years, they will make an alliance. The daughter of the King of the South will come to the King of the North and make a fair agreement. However, she will not keep the strength of her arm, and he and his arm will not endure. She will be given up—she and those who brought her, the one who fathered her, and the one who strengthened her during these times.",
      "7": "But one who is a branch from her root will arise in his place. He will come against the army and come into the fortress of the King of the North. He will make war with them and win.",
      "8": "He will also take their gods captive to Egypt with their cast images and with their valuable silver and gold vessels. For some years he will leave the King of the North alone.",
      "9": "But the King of the North will come into the kingdom of the King of the South. Then he will return to his own land.",
      "10": "His sons will stir themselves up and will gather a huge force of many armies, which will keep coming like an overflowing flood. They will stir themselves up again as far as his fortress.",
      "11": "The King of the South will be enraged. He will go out and fight with the King of the North. The King of the North will raise up a great army, but the army will be handed over to the King of the South.",
      "12": "When the King of the North’s army is swept away, and the King of the South becomes arrogant, though he will cause tens of thousands to fall, he will not win.",
      "13": "The King of the North will again raise an army, which will be greater than the first army, and after some years he will keep coming with a great army and many supplies.",
      "14": "In those times, many will rise up against the King of the South. Violent men from your own people will lift themselves up in fulfillment of this vision, but they will fail.",
      "15": "The King of the North will come and build siege works and capture a fortified city. The forces of the south will not stand, not even its best troops, because they will have no strength to stand.",
      "16": "The one who comes against him will do as he pleases, and no one will stand in his way. He will stand in the beautiful land, and it will be completely in his power.",
      "17": "He will be determined to come with the power of his entire kingdom and to bring a treaty with him, which he will enforce. He will give his daughter to the King of the South in marriage in order to destroy the southern kingdom. But his plan will not succeed or turn out to his advantage.",
      "18": "He will focus his attack on the coastlands and capture many. However, a commander will put an end to his insolence. Moreover, he will make him pay for his insolence.",
      "19": "Then the King of the North will turn his face toward the fortresses of his land. He will stumble and fall and not be found.",
      "20": "Then one will arise in his place who will send an oppressive tax collector for the glory of his kingdom. However, in a few days he will be broken, but not in anger or battle.",
      "21": "A despicable person will arise in his place, but they will not confer the royal majesty upon him. He will come when the kingdom is at ease and seize it through smooth, slippery talk.",
      "22": "A powerful force will be overpowered by him and broken, together with a leader of the covenant.",
      "23": "After an alliance is made with the leader of the covenant, the despicable person will act deceitfully. He will rise up and become powerful with a small nation.",
      "24": "He will come to the richest parts of the province when it is at ease, and he will do what his fathers and his fathers’ fathers did not do. He will distribute plunder and property to them. He will come up with plans against strongholds, but only for a time.",
      "25": "He will awaken his power and his courage against the King of the South with a great army. The King of the South will stir himself up for battle with a very great and powerful army, but he will not succeed because schemes will be plotted against him.",
      "26": "Those who eat his special royal food will try to break him, and his army will be swept away. Many will fall, struck down in battle.",
      "27": "The two kings, whose hearts are bent to evil, will sit at one table and lie to each other, but this scheming will not succeed, because the end is still set for an appointed time.",
      "28": "The King of the North will return to his land with a lot of captured possessions and with his heart set against the holy covenant. He will take action and then return to his own land.",
      "29": "At the appointed time he will return and come into the South again, but this later invasion will not turn out like the first invasion.",
      "30": "Ships from Kittim will come against him, and he will be humbled.\nThen he will turn and become furious against the holy covenant and take action. He will return and show favor to those who abandon the holy covenant.",
      "31": "His forces will arise, profane the temple fortress, abolish the continual daily sacrifice, and set up the abominable thing that causes desolation.",
      "32": "So he will corrupt wicked men of the covenant with smooth talk, but a people who know their God will be strong and take action.",
      "33": "Those of the people who have insight will make many understand, but they will fall by the sword, and to flames, captivity, and plunder for some time.",
      "34": "However, when they stumble, they will be aided by a little help, and many will join them insincerely.",
      "35": "Some of those who have insight will stumble so that they may be refined, purified, and made white until the time of the end, for it is still set for an appointed time.",
      "36": "The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt himself and magnify himself over every god, and he will speak amazing things against the God of Gods. He will prosper until furious anger is completed, because what has been determined shall be done.",
      "37": "He will not favor the God of his fathers. He also will not favor the desire of women or any god, because he will exalt himself above all of them.",
      "38": "He will honor a god of fortresses in their place. He will honor a god whom his fathers did not know with gold, silver, precious stones, and very valuable things.",
      "39": "He will deal with strong fortresses with the help of a foreign god. To all who acknowledge him, he will give great honor and make them rulers over many people. What is more, he will parcel out land for a price.",
      "40": "Then, at the time of the end, the King of the South will wage war against him, and the King of the North will storm out against him with chariots, horsemen, and many ships. He will enter countries like a flood and overflow them.",
      "41": "He will enter the beautiful land, and many will stumble. However, these nations will be delivered from his power: Edom, Moab, and the best of the Ammonites.",
      "42": "He will seek to harm countries, and the land of Egypt will not be one that escapes.",
      "43": "He will rule over the treasures of gold and silver and over all of the very valuable things of Egypt. Libyans and Cushites will be within his grasp.",
      "44": "However, reports from the east and from the north will terrify him. He will go out in great anger to destroy and to completely wipe out many.",
      "45": "He will pitch his royal tents between the seas toward the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he will come to his end, and there will be no one to help him."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Then at that time, Michael, the great prince who stands over your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress that has not happened from the first time that there was a nation until that time.\nAt that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.",
      "2": "Many who are sleeping in the dusty ground will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, to everlasting contempt.",
      "3": "Those who have insight will shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who bring many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever.",
      "4": "Now you, Daniel, close up the words and seal the scroll until the time of the end. Many will continue running back and forth, and knowledge will increase.",
      "5": "I, Daniel, looked, and there were two others standing there, one on the near bank of the river and the other on the far bank of the river.",
      "6": "Someone said to the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, “How long until the end of these amazing things?”",
      "7": "Then I heard the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river. He raised his right hand and his left hand to heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and then, when the rejection of the holy people is finished, all these things will be finished.",
      "8": "I myself heard, but I did not understand. So I said, “Lord, what will be the end result of these things?”",
      "9": "He said:\nGo, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end.",
      "10": "Many will be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly. None of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand.",
      "11": "From the time when the regular daily offering is removed and an abominable thing that causes desolation is set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days.",
      "12": "Blessed is the one who waits and reaches one thousand three hundred thirty-five days.",
      "13": "But you, go on your way to the end. You will rest and rise to your assigned inheritance at the end of the days."
    }
  },
  "Hosea": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Be’eri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam son of Joash, the king of Israel.",
      "2": "When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go. Take for yourself an immoral wife and children produced by sexual immorality, because the land has been committing flagrant immorality, turning away from the Lord.”",
      "3": "So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim. She conceived and gave birth to a son for him.",
      "4": "The Lord said to him, “Name him Jezre’el, because in a little while I will inflict punishment on the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezre’el. I will destroy the ruling power of the house of Israel.",
      "5": "In that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezre’el.”",
      "6": "She conceived again and gave birth to a daughter.\nThe Lord said to him, “Name her Lo Ruhamah, because I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel. Indeed, I will certainly not forgive them.",
      "7": "But I will have compassion on the house of Judah. I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen.”",
      "8": "Gomer weaned Lo Ruhamah. Then she conceived and gave birth to a son.",
      "9": "The Lord said, “Name him Lo Ammi, because you are not my people, and I will not be the Lord for you.”",
      "10": "Nevertheless, the number of the people of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. Then, in the place where they were told, “You are not my people,” they will be told, “You are children of the living God.”",
      "11": "The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be gathered together. They will appoint one head for themselves, and they will go up from the land, for the day of Jezre’el will be great."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Say to your brothers, “My people,”\nand to your sisters, “She has been shown mercy.”",
      "2": "Plead with your mother!\n    Plead with her, because she is not my wife,\n    and I am not her husband.\n    Let her put away her sexual immorality from her presence\n    and her acts of adultery from between her breasts.",
      "3": "Otherwise, I will strip her naked\n    and expose her as she was on the day she was born.\n    I will make her like a wilderness.\n    I will cause her to be like a dry land.\n    I will cause her to die of thirst.",
      "4": "I will have no compassion on her children,\n    because they are children of promiscuity,",
      "5": "because their mother has been promiscuous.\n    She who conceived them has acted shamefully.\n    She said, “I will chase after my lovers,\n        the ones who give me my food and my water,\n        my wool and my flax, my olive oil and my drinks.”",
      "6": "Therefore, this is what I will do:\n    I will block your way with thorns.\n    I will build a wall against her,\n    so that she cannot find her paths.",
      "7": "She will chase after her lovers,\n    but she will not reach them.\n    She will seek them,\n    but she will not find them.\n    She will say, “I will go back to my first husband,\n    because then it was better for me than it is now.”",
      "8": "But she would not acknowledge that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil.\n    I gave her large amounts of silver and gold—her people used it for Baal!",
      "9": "That is why I will take back my grain during harvest time,\n    and my new wine in its season.\n    I will also take away my wool and my flax that were given to cover her nakedness.",
      "10": "Then I will expose her shameful nakedness in the sight of her lovers.\n    No one will deliver her from my hand.",
      "11": "I will put an end to all her celebration:\n    her pilgrimage festivals, her monthly new moons, and her weekly Sabbaths—\n    all her appointed festivals.",
      "12": "I will devastate her vines and her fig trees,\n    about which she said, “These are the payment that my lovers gave me.”\n    I will make them into a scrub forest,\n    and the wild animals will eat the crops.",
      "13": "I will punish her for the days with the Baals, on which she repeatedly offered incense to them.\n    She adorned herself with her rings and her jewelry,\n    and then she chased after her lovers,\n    and she forgot me, declares the Lord.",
      "14": "But watch! I am going to court her.\n    I will bring her into the wilderness.\n    I will speak tenderly to her.",
      "15": "There I will give her vineyards back to her.\n    The Valley of Achor will be a door of hope.\n    She will respond there as in the days of her youth,\n    as in the day she came up from the land of Egypt.",
      "16": "In that day, declares the Lord, this is what will take place:\n    You will call me “my husband.”\n    You will no longer call me “my master.”",
      "17": "For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth.\n    She will no longer call them by their names.",
      "18": "In that day I will make a covenant for the Israelites with the wild animals, with the birds of the sky and the things that creep on the ground.\n    I will break the bow and the sword.\n    I will abolish war from the land.\n    I will allow the people to lie down safely.",
      "19": "I will pledge you to myself in marriage forever.\n    I will pledge you to myself in marriage—\n    with righteousness, justice, mercy, and compassion.",
      "20": "In faithfulness I will pledge you to myself in marriage,\n    and you will know the Lord.",
      "21": "In that day this is what will happen:\n    I will respond, declares the Lord.\n    I will respond to the heavens,\n    and they will respond to the earth.",
      "22": "The earth will respond to the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil.\n    They will respond to Jezre’el.",
      "23": "I will sow her for myself in the land.\n    I will have compassion for Lo Ruhamah,\n    and I will tell Lo Ammi, “You are my people,”\n    and he will say, “You are my God!”"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "The Lord said to me, “Go again. Show love to a woman who is loved by another man, a woman who keeps committing adultery. Show love just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, even though they keep turning to other gods and loving the raisin cakes.”",
      "2": "So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and nine bushels of barley.",
      "3": "I said to her, “You will stay with me for many days. You must not be promiscuous. You must not be with any other man, and I will also be for you.”",
      "4": "So the people of Israel will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred memorial stones, and without the special vest or family idols.",
      "5": "Afterward the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Hear the word of the Lord, you people of Israel,\n    because the Lord has charges to make against the inhabitants of the land,\n    because there is no truth,\n    there is no mercy,\n    and there is no knowledge of God in the land.",
      "2": "There is cursing, lying, murder, theft, and adultery.\n    They break out in violence, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.",
      "3": "Therefore the land mourns,\n    and everyone who dwells in it wastes away\n    along with the wild animals and the birds in the sky.\n    Even the fish of the sea have been removed.",
      "4": "Yet no one should bring charges.\n    No one should accuse,\n    because your people are like those who dispute with a priest.",
      "5": "You will stumble by day,\n    and the prophet will also stumble with you by night.\n    I will also destroy your mother.",
      "6": "My people have been destroyed because of lack of knowledge.\n    Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you\n    from serving as a priest for me.\n    Because you have forgotten the law of your God,\n    I also will forget your children.",
      "7": "The more they increased, the more they sinned against me.\n    I changed their glory into shame.",
      "8": "They feed on the sin of my people.\n    They set their desire on things that make them guilty.",
      "9": "So it will be the same for people as for priests.\n    I will punish them for their ways.\n    I will repay them for their deeds.",
      "10": "They will eat, but not be satisfied.\n    They will engage in sexual immorality, but not increase.\n    This will take place because they have abandoned the Lord to devote themselves to",
      "11": "sexual sin.\n    Wine and new wine take away their understanding.",
      "12": "My people consult their wooden idol,\n    and their fortunetellers wand gives them information,\n    because a promiscuous spirit has led them astray,\n    and they behave like a whore instead of following their God.",
      "13": "They sacrifice on the mountaintops.\n    They burn incense on the hills, and under oaks, poplars, and terebinths,\n    because their shade is pleasant.\n    That is why your daughters commit fornication,\n    and your brides commit adultery.",
      "14": "I will not punish your daughters when they commit fornication,\n    or your brides when they commit adultery,\n    because the men consort with prostitutes\n    and sacrifice with shrine prostitutes.\n    So the people without understanding will come to ruin.",
      "15": "Though you, Israel, practice sexual immorality,\n    Judah should not follow your guilty way.\n    Do not go to Gilgal.\n    Do not go up to Beth Aven.\n    Do not swear, “As surely as the Lord lives.”",
      "16": "For Israel has become as stubborn as a heifer.\n    How can the Lord feed them like a lamb in a meadow?",
      "17": "Ephraim is joined to idols.\n    Let him go his own way!",
      "18": "Their alcoholic drinks are used up,\n    but they keep practicing sexual immorality anyway.\n    Their rulers, who should be their shields, instead love shame.",
      "19": "The wings of the wind will sweep them away,\n    and they will be put to shame because of their sacrifices."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Hear this, you priests!\nPay attention, house of Israel!\n    Listen, O house of the king!\n    For this judgment applies to you,\n    because you were a trap at Mizpah\n    and a net spread out on Mount Tabor.",
      "2": "The rebels sink deeper into slaughter,\n    but I will discipline all of them.",
      "3": "I know Ephraim,\n    and Israel is not hidden from me.\n    Now, Ephraim, you still practice sexual immorality.\n    Israel is defiled.",
      "4": "Their deeds do not allow them to return to their God.\n    For a spirit of prostitution lies within them,\n    and they do not know the Lord.",
      "5": "The arrogance of Israel testifies against them.\n    Israel and Ephraim will stumble over their guilt.\n    Judah also will stumble with them.",
      "6": "They will go with their flocks and herds to seek the Lord,\n    but they will not find him.\n    He has withdrawn from them.",
      "7": "They acted treacherously against the Lord.\n    They even gave birth to illegitimate children.\n    Now the new moon will devour them along with their allotted land.",
      "8": "Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah\n    and the trumpet in Ramah!\n    Raise a battle cry at Beth Aven: “Lead the way, Benjamin!”",
      "9": "Ephraim will become desolate ruins on the day it is punished.\n    What I have made known among the tribes of Israel will certainly happen.",
      "10": "The officials of Judah are like people who move a boundary stone.\n    I will pour out my wrath on them like water.",
      "11": "Ephraim is oppressed,\n    crushed in judgment,\n    because he was determined to pursue worthless idols.",
      "12": "I am like a moth to Ephraim,\n    and like decay to the house of Judah.",
      "13": "When Ephraim saw his sickness,\n    and Judah saw his wound,\n    Ephraim went to Assyria\n    and sent to the Great King for help,\n    but he is not able to heal you,\n    and he will not cure your wound,",
      "14": "because I will be like a lion to Ephraim\n    and like a young lion to the house of Judah.\n    Yes, I will tear him to pieces and go away.\n    I will carry them off, and there will be no one who can rescue them.",
      "15": "I will go. I will return to my place\n    until they admit their guilt and seek my face.\n    In their distress they will earnestly seek me."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Come, let us return to the Lord.\nFor he has torn us to pieces,\n    but he will heal us.\n    He has struck us,\n    but he will bandage our wounds.",
      "2": "After two days he will revive us.\n    On the third day he will raise us up,\n    so that we may live in his presence.",
      "3": "Let us acknowledge the Lord.\n    Let us pursue knowledge of the Lord.\n    As surely as the sun rises,\n    the Lord will appear.\n    He will come to us like a heavy rain,\n    like the spring rain that waters the earth.",
      "4": "What am I going to do with you, Ephraim?\n    What am I going to do with you, Judah?\n    For your faithfulness is like a morning mist,\n    like early dew that disappears.",
      "5": "That is why I cut them to pieces by means of the prophets.\n    I killed them with the words of my mouth.\n    The judgments against you go forth like the light.",
      "6": "For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,\n    and the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.",
      "7": "Like Adam, they have broken the covenant.\n    They acted treacherously against me there.",
      "8": "Gilead is a city of evildoers,\n    stained with bloody footprints.",
      "9": "As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man,\n    so do bands of priests.\n    They commit murder on the road to Shechem.\n    They have committed shameful crimes.",
      "10": "In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing.\n    Ephraim practices sexual immorality there.\n    Israel defiles itself.",
      "11": "Judah, also for you, a harvest has been appointed,\n    when I restore the fortunes of my people."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "Whenever I want to heal Israel,\nthe guilt of Ephraim is uncovered,\n    and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed,\n    because they deal dishonestly.\n    Thieves come inside,\n    and bandits raid outside.",
      "2": "In their hearts Ephraim does not realize that I remember all their wickedness.\n    Now their deeds are all around them.\n    They are in front of my face.",
      "3": "The people of Ephraim make the king glad with their wickedness.\n    They make their officials happy with their lies.",
      "4": "They are all adulterers,\n    burning like an oven.\n    The baker does not need to stoke the fire\n    from the time the dough is kneaded until it is leavened.",
      "5": "On the day of our king, the officials became sick from the intoxicating wine.\n    He reaches out his hand to the blasphemers.",
      "6": "Indeed, their hearts are like an oven.\n    They approach him, while plotting against him.\n    Their anger sleeps all night,\n    but in the morning it burns like a blazing fire.",
      "7": "They are all hot as an oven.\n    They devour their rulers.\n    All their kings have fallen.\n    Not one of them calls on me.",
      "8": "Ephraim mixes itself with the nations.\n    Ephraim is a flatbread not turned over.",
      "9": "Strangers have devoured his strength,\n    but he does not realize it.\n    There are gray hairs on his head,\n    but he does not realize it.",
      "10": "The arrogance of Israel testifies against him,\n    yet they have not returned to the Lord their God,\n    and they have not sought him, despite all this.",
      "11": "Ephraim is like a gullible dove, without sense.\n    They call to Egypt.\n    Then they appeal to Assyria.",
      "12": "When they go out, I will spread my net over them.\n    I will bring them down like birds from the sky.\n    I will discipline them, on the basis of the report about their assembly.",
      "13": "Woe to them,\n    because they have strayed from me!\n    Destruction comes upon them,\n    because they have rebelled against me!\n    I want to redeem them,\n    but they speak lies against me.",
      "14": "They do not cry out to me with their hearts,\n    but they howl on their beds.\n    They gather together for grain and new wine.\n    They turn away from me.",
      "15": "Though I trained and strengthened their arms,\n    they plot evil against me.",
      "16": "They return, but not upward.\n    They are like an unreliable bow.\n    Their officials will fall by the sword because of their angry tongues.\n    Because of this, they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Raise a ram’s horn to your lips!\nA vulture is circling over the Lord’s house,\n    because they have broken my covenant\n    and rebelled against my law.",
      "2": "Israel cries out to me,\n    “My God, we acknowledge you!”",
      "3": "But, in fact, Israel has rejected what is good.\n    An enemy will pursue him.",
      "4": "They set up kings, but not with my approval.\n    They installed officials, but I did not choose them.\n    From their silver and their gold they made idols for themselves,\n    so they will be cut off.",
      "5": "I reject your calf idol, Samaria!\n    My anger burns against these people!\n    How long will they be incapable of innocence?",
      "6": "That thing sitting there is from Israel!\n    A craftsman made it, so it is not God.\n    Certainly that calf of Samaria will be smashed to pieces!",
      "7": "Because they sow the wind,\n    they will reap the whirlwind.\n    The standing grain forms no heads,\n    so it will yield no flour.\n    Even if it would yield flour, foreigners would swallow it up.",
      "8": "Israel is swallowed up.\n    Now among the nations they are like a pot no one wants.",
      "9": "For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey all by itself.\n    Ephraim has hired lovers.",
      "10": "Even though they hire lovers among the nations,\n    I will now gather them together.\n    They will begin to suffer in a little while,\n    because of oppression by a king with many officials.",
      "11": "Ephraim has multiplied his altars for sin offerings,\n    but for him they became altars for sinning.",
      "12": "Though I wrote many teachings from my law for them,\n    they regarded them as strange.",
      "13": "They offer sacrifices to me just to get the meat.\n    They sacrifice flesh and eat it,\n    but the Lord is not pleased with them.\n    Now he will remember their guilt\n    and punish their sins.\n    They will return to Egypt.",
      "14": "Israel has forgotten its Maker and built palaces.\n    Judah has multiplied its fortified cities,\n    but I will send fire on its cities,\n    which will devour its citadels."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Do not rejoice, Israel, with excessive celebration like the nations,\nbecause you act promiscuously against your God.\n    You love the wages you can earn as a prostitute at every threshing floor for grain.",
      "2": "The threshing floor and winepress will not feed them,\n    and the new wine will fail for them.",
      "3": "They will not remain in the Lord’s land.\n    Ephraim will return to Egypt,\n    and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.",
      "4": "They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord.\n    Their sacrifices will not be pleasing to him.\n    For them, their bread will become like the bread eaten by mourners.\n    Everyone who eats it will be unclean.\n    This bread will only serve their own appetite.\n    It will not enter the House of the Lord.",
      "5": "What will you do on the day of the appointed festivals\n    and on the feast days of the Lord?",
      "6": "Know this! Even if they flee from destruction,\n    Egypt will gather them up.\n    Memphis will bury them.\n    Thistles will overgrow their silver treasures.\n    Thorns will grow inside their tents.",
      "7": "The days of reckoning have come.\n    The days of retribution have come.\n    Israel should know this!\n    The prophet is treated like a fool,\n    and the man of the Spirit is called crazy,\n    because your guilt is enormous,\n    and because your hostility is so great.",
      "8": "A prophet is to be a watchman over Ephraim for my God,\n    but a fowler’s snare is laid for him on all of Ephraim’s paths,\n    and he encounters hostility in the house of his God.",
      "9": "They have become extremely corrupt,\n    as they were in the days of Gibeah.\n    God will remember their guilt.\n    He will punish them for their sins.",
      "10": "I regarded Israel like grapes found in the wilderness.\n    I regarded your forefathers like the first ripe fruit on a fig tree in its first season,\n    but they went to Baal Peor, and they devoted themselves to a shameful thing,\n    and they became as disgusting as the thing they loved.",
      "11": "Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird—\n    no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!",
      "12": "Even if they bring up their children,\n    I will deprive them of each one.\n    Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!",
      "13": "I have seen Ephraim planted in a pleasant place like Tyre,\n    but Ephraim will bring its children out to the executioner.",
      "14": "Give to them, Lord—but what will you give?\n    Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.",
      "15": "Because of all their evil in Gilgal,\n    I hated them there.\n    Because of their evil deeds,\n    I will drive them out of my house!\n    I will love them no more.\n    All their officials are rebels.",
      "16": "Ephraim has been struck down.\n    Their root has dried up.\n    They will bear no fruit.\n    Even if they give birth,\n    I will put their precious offspring to death.",
      "17": "My God will reject them, because they have not obeyed him.\n    They will be wanderers among the nations."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Israel was a spreading vine.\nHe produced fruit for himself.\n    The more fruit he produced, the more altars he made.\n    The richer the land became, the richer he made his sacred memorial stones.",
      "2": "Their hearts are insincere,\n    so now they will suffer for their guilt.\n    The Lord will break down their altars\n    and destroy their sacred memorial stones.",
      "3": "Certainly now they will say, “We have no king\n    because we did not fear the Lord,\n    but what could such a king do for us anyway?”",
      "4": "They speak empty words.\n    With empty oaths, they make agreements.\n    That is why disputes sprout like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field.",
      "5": "The inhabitants of Samaria will be terrified because of the calf of Beth Aven.\n    Yes, its people will mourn over it,\n    and its idolatrous priests will cry out over it,\n    over its lost glory, because it has gone into exile.",
      "6": "It will be carried to Assyria as tribute to the Great King.\n    Ephraim will be gripped with shame,\n    and Israel will be ashamed of its own idol.",
      "7": "Samaria, like her king, will be carried off\n    like a twig on the surface of the water.",
      "8": "The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will become unusable.\n    Thorns and thistles will grow on their altars.\n    They will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”\n    and to the hills, “Fall on us!”",
      "9": "Israel, you have sinned ever since the days of Gibeah,\n    where the evildoers took their stand.\n    The war against the evildoers caught up with them at Gibeah, did it not?",
      "10": "When I see fit, I will discipline them.\n    Peoples will be gathered against them\n        to bind them for their double guilt.",
      "11": "Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh.\n    I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck.\n    I will harness Ephraim.\n    Judah will plow.\n    Jacob will break up the ground.",
      "12": "Sow righteousness for yourselves,\n    and reap mercy.\n    Break up your fallow ground.\n    It is time to seek the Lord,\n    until he comes and rains righteousness on you.",
      "13": "You have plowed wickedness.\n    You have reaped injustice.\n    You have eaten the fruit of your lies,\n    because you trusted in your own way,\n    in the large number of your strong warriors.",
      "14": "Therefore the roar of battle will rise against your people,\n    and all your fortresses will be destroyed,\n    as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle.\n    Mothers were dashed to the ground with their children.",
      "15": "This is what will be done to you, Bethel,\n    because of your great wickedness.\n    At dawn the king of Israel will be completely destroyed."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "When Israel was a child, I loved him,\nand out of Egypt I called my son.",
      "2": "The more I called to them,\n    the more they went away from me.\n    They kept sacrificing to the Baals\n    and burning incense to idols.",
      "3": "Yet I was the one who taught Ephraim to walk.\n    I took them in my arms,\n    but they did not realize that it was I who healed them.",
      "4": "I drew them with cords suitable for a man, with ropes of love.\n    For them I became like someone who lifts a yoke off their neck,\n    and I bent down to feed them.",
      "5": "They will not return into the land of Egypt.\n    Instead, an Assyrian will be their king,\n    because they refused to repent.",
      "6": "The sword will slash against their cities.\n    It will destroy the bars of their gates,\n    and it will devour them because of their plans.",
      "7": "My people are determined to turn away from me.\n    Though they call him the Most High, he certainly will not exalt them.",
      "8": "How can I give you up, Ephraim?\n    How can I hand you over, Israel?\n    How can I make you like Admah?\n    How can I treat you like Zeboiim?\n    My heart is changed inside me.\n    All my compassion is stirred up.",
      "9": "I will not carry out my burning anger.\n    I will not destroy Ephraim again,\n    because I am God, and not man, the Holy One among you.\n    I will not enter a city.",
      "10": "They will follow the Lord.\n    He will roar like a lion.\n    Yes, he will roar, and his children will come trembling from the west.",
      "11": "They will come trembling like a bird from Egypt,\n    and like a dove from the land of Assyria.\n    I will settle them in their houses, declares the Lord.",
      "12": "Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood,\n    and the house of Israel with deceit.\n    Judah still strays from God,\n    even from the Holy One, who is faithful."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Ephraim feeds on wind\nand chases the east wind all day.\n    He multiplies lies and violence.\n    They make a treaty with Assyria,\n    and olive oil is carried to Egypt.",
      "2": "The Lord has a case against Judah.\n    He will deal with Jacob according to his ways.\n    According to his deeds he will repay him.",
      "3": "In the womb Jacob grasped his brother by the heel,\n    and when he was a grown man, he struggled with God.",
      "4": "He wrestled with the Angel and prevailed.\n    He wept and sought his favor.\n    He found him at Bethel, and there he spoke with him,",
      "5": "namely, with the Lord, the God of Armies.\n    The Lord is the name by which he is to be remembered!",
      "6": "So return to your God.\n    Observe mercy and justice,\n    and wait for your God continually.",
      "7": "A merchant has fraudulent scales in his hand.\n    He loves to defraud others.",
      "8": "Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich.\n    I have secured wealth for myself.\n    Among all my possessions no one will find anything that makes me guilty of sin.”",
      "9": "But I have been the Lord your God from the time you left the land of Egypt.\n    I will make you dwell in tents again,\n    as in the days of the appointed festival.",
      "10": "I have spoken to the prophets.\n    I have given numerous visions.\n    I taught meaningful lessons through the prophets.",
      "11": "Since Gilead is wicked,\n    it is certain that they are worthless.\n    In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls.\n    Yes, their altars are like piles of stones in the furrows of a field.",
      "12": "Jacob fled to the territory of Aram.\n    Israel worked as a servant to get a wife,\n    and for a wife, he took care of sheep.",
      "13": "By a prophet, the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt,\n    and by a prophet he took care of Israel.",
      "14": "Ephraim has provoked bitter anger.\n    Therefore his Lord will leave him bloodied by his guilt\n    and bring his disgrace back on him."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "When Ephraim spoke, people would tremble.\nHe was highly honored in Israel,\n    but he became guilty through worshipping Baal, so he died.",
      "2": "Now they sin more and more.\n    They make cast images for themselves,\n    idols skillfully made from their silver,\n    all of them the work of craftsmen.\n    It is said about them, “The ones who sacrifice are humans who kiss calves!”",
      "3": "Therefore they will be like morning mist,\n    and like early dew that passes away,\n    like chaff that is blown away from the threshing floor,\n    and like smoke from a chimney.",
      "4": "But I have been the Lord your God since you left the land of Egypt.\n    You must not acknowledge any god except me.\n    There is no Savior except me.",
      "5": "I took care of you in the wilderness,\n    in a land burned by drought.",
      "6": "When they had pasture, they were satisfied.\n    When they were satisfied, their hearts became arrogant.\n    That is why they have forgotten me.",
      "7": "So I will be like a lion to them.\n    Like a leopard, I will lurk along the path.",
      "8": "I will come upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs.\n    I will tear the cover off their hearts.\n    Then I will devour them like a lioness.\n    The wild animals will rip them apart.",
      "9": "This is what has destroyed you, Israel:\n    the fact that you are against me, against your helper.",
      "10": "So where is your king, so that he may save you in all your cities,\n    and your judges, whom you requested, saying, “Give me a king and officials”?",
      "11": "I gave you a king in my anger,\n    and I took him away in my wrath.",
      "12": "The guilt of Ephraim is wrapped up.\n    His sin is stored up.",
      "13": "Labor pains will come for him,\n    but he is not a wise son,\n    for when the time arrives,\n    he is not ready to be born.",
      "14": "I will ransom them from the power of the grave!\n    I will redeem them from death!\n    Death, where are your plagues?\n    Grave, where is your destruction?\n    Compassion will be hidden from my eyes.",
      "15": "Although he flourishes as a son among brothers,\n    an east wind will come.\n    The breath of the Lord is coming up from the wilderness.\n    His spring will become dry.\n    His fountain will be dried up.\n    His treasury will be plundered of every precious article.",
      "16": "Samaria will be found guilty,\n    because she rebelled against her God.\n    The people will fall by the sword.\n    Their little children will be dashed to the ground,\n    and their pregnant women will be ripped open."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Israel, return to the Lord your God,\nfor you have stumbled because of your guilt.",
      "2": "Take words with you and return to the Lord.\n    Say to him, “Forgive all our guilt,\n    and receive us graciously,\n    and let us present the fruit of our lips as bulls.",
      "3": "Assyria cannot save us.\n    We will not ride on horses.\n    We will no longer call the work of our hands our gods!\n    For in you the fatherless child finds compassion.”",
      "4": "I will cure them of their unfaithfulness.\n    I will love them freely,\n    for my anger has turned away from them.",
      "5": "I will be refreshing like dew to Israel.\n    It will blossom like a lily.\n    It will take root like a cedar of Lebanon.",
      "6": "Its young shoots will sprout.\n    Its beauty will be like an olive tree.\n    Its fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.",
      "7": "Those who live in Israel’s shade will once again grow grain.\n    They will blossom like a grape vine.\n    Its fame will be like the wine of Lebanon.",
      "8": "Ephraim, how much more do I have to put up with from idols?\n    I am the one who has answered, and I look after him.\n    I am like a fresh fir tree.\n    Your fruit comes from me.",
      "9": "Who is wise? Let him understand these things.\n    Who is discerning? Let him know them.\n    For the ways of the Lord are right,\n    and the righteous walk in them,\n    but the rebellious stumble in them."
    }
  },
  "Joel": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.",
      "2": "Hear this, you elders.\n    Listen, all of you who live in the land.\n    Has anything like this ever happened in your days\n    or in the days of your fathers?",
      "3": "Tell it to your children,\n    and let your children tell it to their children,\n    and their children to the next generation.",
      "4": "What the grasshoppers have left, the swarming locusts have eaten.\n        What the swarming locusts have left, the young locusts have eaten.\n        What the young locusts have left, the mature locusts have eaten.",
      "5": "Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!\n    Wail, all you wine drinkers,\n    because of the sweet wine that has been snatched from your mouth.",
      "6": "A nation has come up into my land, powerful and without number.\n        It has teeth like a lion and fangs like a lioness.",
      "7": "It has devastated my vines and shredded my fig trees.\n        It has completely stripped off their bark and thrown it aside,\n        so that their branches are bare and white.",
      "8": "Grieve like a virgin dressed in sackcloth,\n    who grieves for the husband of her youth.",
      "9": "Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord.\n        The priests are in mourning,\n        those who minister in the presence of the Lord.",
      "10": "The fields are devastated. The soil mourns.\n        The grain is devastated.\n        The new wine has run dry. The olive oil runs out.",
      "11": "Hang your heads, you farmers.\n    Wail, you vine growers, for the wheat and for the barley,\n    because the grain harvest has died in the field.",
      "12": "The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has withered.\n        The pomegranate, the date palm, and the apple tree—\n        all the trees in the countryside have dried up,\n        and joy has dried up for all the people.",
      "13": "Put on sackcloth, you priests, and lament.\n    Wail, you who minister in front of the altar.\n    Come, spend the night in sackcloth,\n    you who minister before my God,\n    because the grain offerings and drink offerings\n    are being held back from the house of your God.",
      "14": "Set aside a day of fasting. Call a solemn convocation.\n    Summon the elders and everyone who lives in the land\n    to come to the house of the Lord your God.\n    Cry out to the Lord!",
      "15": "How terrible that day will be!\n    Yes, the Day of the Lord is near.\n    It will come like destruction from the Almighty.",
      "16": "Hasn’t the food been cut off right before our eyes?\n        Happiness and celebration are cut off from the house of our God.",
      "17": "The planted seed is dried up under the clods of earth.\n        The storehouses are in ruins.\n        The granaries have been broken down, because the grain has dried up.",
      "18": "Listen to how the cattle bellow!\n        The herds of cattle are milling around in confusion, because they have no pasture.\n        Even the flocks of sheep are suffering punishment.",
      "19": "To you, O Lord, I call,\n    because fire has consumed the grazing lands in the wilderness,\n    and flames have burned up all the trees in the countryside.",
      "20": "Even the animals in the countryside pant for you.\n    The streams of water have dried up,\n    and fire has consumed the grazing lands in the wilderness."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Blow the ram’s horn in Zion.\nSound the alarm on my holy mountain.\n    Let all who live in the land tremble with fear,\n    for the Day of the Lord is coming.\n    It is close at hand—",
      "2": "a day of darkness and gloom,\n        a day of clouds and frightening darkness.\n    Like dawn spreading across the mountains,\n        a large and mighty people is coming.\n    There has been nothing like it from ancient times,\n    nor will there ever be again for generations to come.",
      "3": "In front of them, fire devours.\n    Behind them, a flame blazes.\n    In front of them, the land is like the Garden of Eden.\n    Behind them, it is a desolate wilderness.\n    There is no escaping them.",
      "4": "They look like horses.\n    They charge like cavalry.",
      "5": "With a noise like chariots\n        they bounce over the mountaintops,\n        like a crackling fire consuming stubble,\n        like a powerful army lined up for battle.",
      "6": "At the sight of them, peoples are in anguish.\n    Every face becomes flushed.",
      "7": "They charge like strong warriors.\n    They climb over walls like soldiers.\n    They all march in formation.\n    They do not turn aside from their path.",
      "8": "They do not collide with each other.\n    Each marches straight ahead in his position.\n    They pierce through defenses without hesitating.",
      "9": "They rush into the city.\n    They run along the city wall.\n    They climb into the houses.\n    Like thieves they enter through the windows.",
      "10": "In front of them the earth quakes.\n    The sky shudders.\n    The sun and moon become dark,\n    and the stars stop shining.",
      "11": "The Lord shouts at the head of his army.\n    His forces are very numerous,\n    and those who obey his command are powerful.\n    The Day of the Lord is great. It is terrifying.\n    Who can endure it?",
      "12": "Even now, declares the Lord,\n    return to me with all your heart,\n    with fasting and weeping and grief.",
      "13": "Tear your heart and not your clothing.\n    Return to the Lord your God,\n    for he is gracious and compassionate,\n    slow to anger and abounding in mercy,\n    and he relents from sending disaster.",
      "14": "Who knows?\n    He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing—\n    grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.",
      "15": "Blow the ram’s horn in Zion.\n    Set aside a day for fasting.\n    Call a solemn convocation.",
      "16": "Gather the people.\n    Consecrate the assembly.\n    Bring together the elders.\n    Gather the children, even those nursing at the breast.\n    Let the bridegroom leave his room,\n    and the bride her chamber.",
      "17": "Let the priests, who minister before the Lord,\n    weep between the temple porch and the altar.\n    Let them say:\n        Have compassion on your people, O Lord.\n        Do not subject the inheritance you have given us to the scorn of the nations.\n        Do not make us notorious among the nations as an object of ridicule.\n        Why should they say among the peoples,\n        “Where is their God?”",
      "18": "The Lord is zealous for his land,\n    and he will take pity on his people.",
      "19": "The Lord will respond to them:\n        I am sending you grain, new wine, and fresh oil,\n        enough to satisfy you fully.\n        Never again will I subject you to scorn among the nations.",
      "20": "I will drive the northern invaders far from you,\n        pushing them into a parched and desolate land.\n        Their vanguard will be driven into the eastern sea\n        and their rearguard into the western sea.\n        Then their stench will go up. Their foul smell will go up.\n    Yes, the Lord has done great things.",
      "21": "Do not be afraid, O earth.\n    Celebrate and be glad.\n    Yes, the Lord has done great things.",
      "22": "Do not be afraid, you animals out in the field,\n    because the grazing lands are becoming green.\n    The trees are bearing their fruit.\n    The fig tree and the vine yield their riches.",
      "23": "Celebrate, you people of Zion!\n    Rejoice in the Lord your God,\n    because he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness.\n    He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as he did in the beginning.",
      "24": "The threshing floors will be filled with grain.\n    The vats will overflow with new wine and olive oil.",
      "25": "I will repay you for the years eaten by the swarming locusts,\n        by the young locusts, the mature locusts, and the grasshoppers,\n        my great army that I sent among you.",
      "26": "You will have plenty to eat.\n    You will eat until you are full,\n    and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,\n        who has worked wonders for you.\n    Never again will my people be put to shame!",
      "27": "Then you will know that I am in the midst of Israel,\n    that I am the Lord your God,\n    and that there is no other.\n    Never again will my people be put to shame!",
      "28": "After this, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.\n    Your sons and your daughters will prophesy.\n    Your old men will dream dreams.\n    Your young men will see visions.",
      "29": "Even on the servants, both male and female,\n    I will pour out my Spirit in those days.",
      "30": "I will show warning signs in the heavens and on the earth:\n    blood and fire and pillars of smoke.",
      "31": "The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood,\n    before the coming of the great and terrifying day of the Lord.",
      "32": "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.\n    So on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance,\n    as the Lord has promised, among the survivors whom the Lord calls."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Look! In those days and at that time,\nwhen I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,",
      "2": "I will gather all nations\n    and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.\n    There I will enter into judgment against them\n        for the sake of my possession, my people Israel,\n        whom they scattered among the nations.\n    The nations also divided up my land.",
      "3": "They cast lots for my people\n    and traded boys to pay prostitutes.\n    They sold girls for wine so that they could drink.",
      "4": "Tell me, what do you have against me,\n        Tyre and Sidon, and all you regions of Philistia?\n    Are you repaying me for something I have done?\n    If you are paying me back,\n    I will swiftly and speedily repay onto your own heads what you have done,",
      "5": "because you took my silver and my gold,\n    and you carried off my best treasures to your temples.",
      "6": "You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks,\n    in order to send them far from their own borders.",
      "7": "See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them,\n    and I will make what you have done return on your own heads.",
      "8": "I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the people of Judah,\n    and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.\n    Yes, the Lord has spoken.",
      "9": "Proclaim this among the nations:\n    Consecrate yourselves for war!\n    Rouse the strong warriors!\n    Let all the fighting men draw near and attack.",
      "10": "Beat your plowshares into swords,\n    and your pruning knives into spears.\n    Let the weakling say, “I am a strong warrior!”",
      "11": "Come quickly to help, all you nations from every side,\n    and assemble there.\n    Bring down your strong warriors, O Lord!",
      "12": "Let the nations be roused.\n    Let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat,\n    for there I will be seated to judge all the nations.",
      "13": "Swing the sickle,\n        for the harvest is ripe.\n    Come, trample the grapes,\n        for the winepress is full and the vats overflow,\n    because the nations’ wickedness is so great!",
      "14": "Multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision!\n    For the Day of the Lord is near in the Valley of Decision.",
      "15": "The sun and moon will be darkened,\n    and the stars will stop shining.",
      "16": "The Lord will roar from Zion\n    and shout from Jerusalem.\n    The sky and the earth will tremble.\n    But the Lord will be a refuge for his people,\n    a stronghold for the people of Israel.",
      "17": "Then you will know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy mountain.\n    Jerusalem will be holy.\n    Foreigners will not pass through her again.",
      "18": "In that day the mountains will drip sweet wine,\n    and the hills will flow with milk.\n    All the stream beds of Judah will run with water.\n    A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house.\n    It will water the Valley of Acacias.",
      "19": "Egypt will be desolate.\n    Edom will be a desolate wilderness,\n    because of violence they committed against the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.",
      "20": "Judah will be inhabited forever,\n    and Jerusalem through all generations.",
      "21": "I will pardon their bloodguilt, which I have not pardoned.\n    The Lord dwells in Zion!"
    }
  },
  "Amos": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The words of Amos, who was among the sheep breeders from Tekoa. He saw a vision concerning Israel during the days of Uzziah king of Judah and during the days of Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.",
      "2": "He said:\n    The Lord roars from Zion.\n    From Jerusalem he sends out his voice.\n    The pastures of the shepherds dry up,\n    and the top of Mount Carmel withers.",
      "3": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Because of three sins of Damascus,\n    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,\n    because they cut up Gilead with iron threshing boards.",
      "4": "So I will send fire against the house of Hazael,\n    and it will consume the fortresses of Ben Hadad.",
      "5": "I will break the bars of the gates of Damascus,\n    and I will cut off the one seated in the Valley of Aven,\n    and the one who holds a scepter in Beth Eden.\n    So the people of Aram will go into exile toward Kir.\n    The Lord has spoken.",
      "6": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Because of three sins of Gaza,\n    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,\n    because they sold an entire population into exile,\n    handing them over to Edom.",
      "7": "So I will send fire against the city wall of Gaza,\n    and it will consume her citadels.",
      "8": "I will cut off the one seated in Ashdod,\n    and the one who holds a scepter in Ashkelon.\n    I will also turn my hand against Ekron,\n    and what is left of the Philistines will perish.\n    The Lord God has spoken.",
      "9": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Because of three sins of Tyre,\n    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,\n    because they delivered over an entire population and exiled them to Edom,\n    and they did not remember a treaty of brotherhood.",
      "10": "So I will send fire against the city wall of Tyre,\n    and it will consume her citadels.",
      "11": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Because of three sins of Edom,\n    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,\n    because he pursued his brother with a sword,\n    and he had no compassion.\n    His anger kept tearing Israel apart,\n    and his fury raged without stopping.",
      "12": "So I will send fire against Teman,\n    and it will consume the citadels of Bozrah.",
      "13": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Because of three sins of the Ammonites,\n    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,\n    because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their own territory.",
      "14": "So I will ignite a fire against the city wall of Rabbah,\n    and it will consume her citadels\n        with a battle cry on the day of war,\n        with a strong wind on the day of the storm.",
      "15": "Then their king will go into exile,\n    he and his officials together.\n    The Lord has spoken."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord says:\nBecause of three sins of Moab,\n    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,\n    because they burned the bones of the king of Edom to make lime.",
      "2": "So I will send fire against Moab,\n    and it will consume the citadels of Kerioth.\n    Moab will die in an uproar,\n    with a battle cry, with a blast of a ram’s horn.",
      "3": "I will cut off the judge from her midst,\n    and I will kill all her officials with him.\n    The Lord has spoken.",
      "4": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Because of three sins of Judah,\n    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,\n    because they rejected the law of the Lord,\n    and they did not keep his statutes.\n    Their lying idols led them astray,\n    the idols that their fathers followed.",
      "5": "So I will send fire against Judah,\n    and it will consume the citadels of Jerusalem.",
      "6": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Because of three sins of Israel,\n    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,\n    because they sell the righteous for silver\n    and the needy for a pair of sandals.",
      "7": "They trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth,\n    and they turn aside the claims of the oppressed.\n    A man and his father go to the same young woman.\n    In this way they profane my holy name.",
      "8": "They stretch themselves out beside every altar\n        on pieces of clothing they seized as collateral.\n    In the temple of their gods they drink wine obtained through fines.",
      "9": "I was the one who destroyed the Amorites in front of them,\n    the Amorites, who were as tall as cedars,\n    who were as strong as oaks.\n    I destroyed their fruit above and their roots below.",
      "10": "I myself brought you up from the land of Egypt,\n    and I led you in the wilderness for forty years,\n        so that you would take possession of the land of the Amorites.",
      "11": "I raised up some of your sons to be prophets,\n    and some of your best young men to be Nazirites.\n    Is this not so, you people of Israel? declares the Lord.",
      "12": "But you made the Nazirites drink wine,\n    and you commanded the prophets, “You must not prophesy!”",
      "13": "Look, I am weighed down under you,\n    just as a cart is weighed down when it is loaded with sheaves of grain.",
      "14": "There will be no escape for the swift runner.\n    The powerful man will not be able to exert his strength,\n    and the strong warrior will not be able to save his own life.",
      "15": "The archer will not stand his ground.\n    The swift runner will not save himself,\n    and the horseman will not save his own life.",
      "16": "The most courageous among the warriors will flee naked on that day,\n    declares the Lord."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "People of Israel, listen to this word that the Lord has spoken concerning you, concerning the entire family of clans that I brought up from the land of Egypt:",
      "2": "You alone have I chosen from all the clans of the earth.\n    Therefore I will inflict punishment on you for all your guilt.",
      "3": "Can two people walk together without agreeing to do so?",
      "4": "Does a lion roar in the forest if it does not have prey?\n    Does a young lion growl from its den if it has not caught anything?",
      "5": "Does a bird fall into a trap on the ground if there is no bait?\n    Does a trap spring up from the ground when nothing has tripped it?",
      "6": "If a ram’s horn is sounded in a city, the people become alarmed, don’t they?\n    If a disaster takes place in a city, is it not the Lord who has done it?",
      "7": "Certainly the Lord God does not do anything\n        without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.",
      "8": "A lion has roared! Who can avoid being terrified?\n    The Lord God has spoken! Who can hold back from prophesying?",
      "9": "Make this known to the citadels in Ashdod\n    and to the citadels in the land of Egypt.\n    Tell them, “Gather yourselves together on the mountains of Samaria.\n    See the great confusion there\n    and the oppression in her midst.”",
      "10": "They do not know how to do what is right, declares the Lord.\n    They are storing up violence and destruction in their citadels.",
      "11": "Therefore, this is what the Lord God says:\n    An enemy is all over the land.\n    He will strip your strength from you,\n    and your citadels will be plundered.",
      "12": "This is what the Lord says:\n    Just as a shepherd rescues two legs or a tip of an ear\n    from the mouth of a lion,\n    so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be rescued\n    with only a corner of a bed or a piece of cloth from a couch.",
      "13": "Listen and testify against the house of Jacob,\n    declares the Lord God, the God of Armies.",
      "14": "Indeed, on the day when I punish the rebellious deeds of Israel,\n    I will punish the altars of Bethel.\n    The horns of the altar will be cut off,\n    and they will fall to the ground.",
      "15": "I will strike the winter house\n    along with the summer house.\n    The houses decorated with ivory will be destroyed,\n    and the great houses will come to an end,\n    declares the Lord."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Listen to this, you cows of Bashan,\nwho are on the mountain of Samaria,\n    you women who are oppressing the poor,\n    who are crushing the needy,\n    who say to your husbands, “Bring us more drinks!”",
      "2": "The Lord God swears by his holiness:\n    The days are surely coming against you,\n    when they will drag you away with hooks,\n    every last one of you with fishhooks.",
      "3": "You will go out through the broken-down walls.\n    Each woman will go straight ahead,\n    and you will be thrown out toward Harmon,\n    declares the Lord.",
      "4": "Go to Bethel and rebel.\n    Rebel even more at Gilgal.\n    Bring your sacrifices every morning,\n    your tithes every third day.",
      "5": "Burn some leavened bread as a thank offering,\n    and proclaim voluntary offerings—announce them!\n    For you love to do this, you people of Israel,\n    says the Lord God.",
      "6": "I am the one who gave to you clean teeth in all of your cities,\n    and lack of food in all your places,\n    but you did not return to me,\n    declares the Lord.",
      "7": "I am the one who withheld the rain from you\n    while there were still three months before the harvest.\n    I would send rain on one city,\n    but on another city I would not send rain.\n    One plot of ground would receive rain,\n    but another plot, on which it did not rain, would dry up.",
      "8": "Whenever people from two or three cities staggered to another city to get water to drink,\n    they would not have enough,\n    but you did not return to me,\n    declares the Lord.",
      "9": "I struck you with blight and mildew.\n    Your many gardens, your vineyards, your fig trees,\n    and your olive trees were devoured by locusts,\n    but you did not return to me,\n    declares the Lord.",
      "10": "I sent plagues against you like the plagues in Egypt.\n    I killed your best soldiers with the sword,\n    together with your captured horses.\n    I made the stench of your camp rise up into your nostrils,\n    but you did not return to me,\n    declares the Lord.",
      "11": "I overthrew some of you,\n    just as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,\n    and you became like a burning stick snatched from the fire,\n    but you did not return to me,\n    declares the Lord.",
      "12": "Therefore, this is what I will do to you, Israel.\n    Yes, this is what I will do to you:\n    Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!",
      "13": "Indeed, he who forms mountains and who creates wind,\n    who declares his thoughts to mankind,\n    who turns dawn into darkness,\n    and who treads down the high places of the earth,\n    the Lord, the God of Armies, is his name."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Listen to this word that I am raising against you as a lament, O house of Israel:",
      "2": "Virgin Israel has fallen, and she will not rise again.\n    She is abandoned on her own soil.\n    There is no one to lift her up.",
      "3": "For this is what the Lord God says:\n    A city that marches out with a thousand will have a hundred left.\n    A city that marches out with a hundred will have ten left for the house of Israel.",
      "4": "Listen, this is what the Lord says to the house of Israel:\n    Seek me and live!",
      "5": "But do not seek Bethel.\n    Do not go to Gilgal.\n    Do not travel to Beersheba,\n    because Gilgal surely will go into exile,\n    and Bethel will become nothing.",
      "6": "Seek the Lord and live,\n    or he will rush upon the house of Joseph like fire.\n    The fire will consume, and no one will extinguish it for Bethel.",
      "7": "There are some who turn justice into wormwood,\n    who throw righteousness to the ground.",
      "8": "There is one who made the Pleiades and Orion,\n    who turns the shadow of death into morning,\n    who darkens day into night,\n    who summons the waters of the seas,\n    who pours them out upon the face of the earth—\n    the Lord is his name.",
      "9": "He causes destruction to flash against a stronghold,\n    and destruction comes upon a fortress.",
      "10": "There are those who hate an arbitrator in the city gate.\n    They despise anyone who speaks honestly.",
      "11": "That is why you trample on the poor,\n    and you collect taxes on their grain.\n    You have built houses of cut stones,\n    but you will not live in them.\n    You have planted choice vineyards,\n    but you will not drink their wine.",
      "12": "For I know that your rebellious deeds are many,\n    and your sins are numerous,\n    you who are enemies of a righteous man,\n    you who take bribes.\n    They thrust away needy people in the city gate.",
      "13": "That is why a prudent man will be silent in that time,\n    because it is an evil time.",
      "14": "Seek good and not evil, so that you may live,\n    and then it will be like this for you:\n    The Lord, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you claim.",
      "15": "Hate evil and love good.\n    Establish justice in the city gate.\n    Perhaps the Lord, the God of Armies,\n        will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.",
      "16": "Therefore, this is what the Lord says,\n    the God of Armies, who is the Lord:\n    In the city squares there will be grief,\n    and in the streets they will say, “Woe, woe!”\n    They will summon the farmer to mourn\n    and the professional mourners to sing laments.",
      "17": "In all the vineyards there will be grief,\n    because I will pass through your midst, says the Lord.",
      "18": "Woe to those who long for the Day of the Lord!\n    What good will the Day of the Lord be for you?\n    It will be darkness and not light.",
      "19": "It will be as if a man flees from a lion,\n    but a bear meets him,\n    or he enters a house and rests his hand on a wall,\n    but a snake bites him.",
      "20": "Will not the Day of the Lord be darkness and not light,\n    gloom without a trace of brightness?",
      "21": "I hate, I reject, your festivals!\n    I do not delight in the aroma of the sacrifices at your sacred convocations.",
      "22": "Even if you offer up to me your whole burnt offerings and your grain offerings,\n    I will not accept them.\n    I will not pay any attention to your fellowship offerings of fattened calves.",
      "23": "Get the noise of your songs away from me!\n    I will not listen to the music of your harps.",
      "24": "But let justice roll like the waters,\n    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.",
      "25": "Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?",
      "26": "You lifted up images of Sakkuth, your king,\n    and of Kiyyun, your star god, which you made for yourselves.",
      "27": "So I will exile you beyond Damascus,\n    says the Lord, whose name is the God of Armies."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion,\nyou who feel secure on Mount Samaria,\n    you distinguished people of the leading nation,\n    to whom the house of Israel comes.",
      "2": "Travel to Kalneh and look.\n    Go from there to Hamath Rabbah,\n    and go down to Gath of the Philistines.\n    Are you better than those kingdoms?\n    Are their territories greater than your territory?",
      "3": "You who are trying to put off the evil day,\n    you bring near the session for violence!",
      "4": "Those who lie on ivory beds,\n    sprawling upon their couches,\n    eating lambs from the flock\n    and calves straight from the stall,",
      "5": "improvising tunes on the lyre,\n    composing music for themselves on musical instruments like David,",
      "6": "drinking large bowls of wine—\n    they slather themselves with the most expensive perfumed oils,\n    but they do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.",
      "7": "That is why they will go into exile as the first of the exiles.\n    Those who sprawl out at their feasts for the dead will depart.",
      "8": "The Lord God swears by himself,\n    declares the Lord, the God of Armies:\n    I detest the pride of Jacob,\n    and I hate his citadels,\n    so I will hand over the city and everything in it.",
      "9": "If ten men happen to survive in one house, they will die.",
      "10": "When a relative who burns the bodies comes to take away the bones from the house, he will say to whoever remains in the recesses of the house, “Is there anyone else still with you?” And they will say, “No one.” And he will say, “Silence! For you must not invoke the name of the Lord!”",
      "11": "Look, the Lord is indeed giving a command, and he will smash the largest house into fragments and the smallest house into splinters.",
      "12": "Do horses run on a rocky cliff?\n    Does anyone plow the sea with an ox?\n    Yet you turn justice into poison\n    and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.",
      "13": "You are rejoicing over Lo Debar.\n    You are saying, “Was it not by our strength that we captured Karnaim for ourselves?”",
      "14": "Indeed, I am about to raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel,\n    declares the Lord, the God of Armies.\n    They will oppress you from Lebo Hamath to the Canyon of the Arabah."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord God showed me: I saw that he was forming a locust swarm at the time when the late crops were beginning to sprout—the crops that were planted after the cuttings of hay for the king.",
      "2": "When the swarm had finished consuming the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? Look, he is so small!”",
      "3": "The Lord changed his decree about this. “It will not happen,” said the Lord.",
      "4": "This is what the Lord God showed me: I saw the Lord God calling for a trial by fire, which devoured the great deep and started to consume the land.",
      "5": "I said, “Lord God, please stop! How can Jacob stand? Look, he is so small!”",
      "6": "The Lord changed his decree about this. “This will not happen,” said the Lord God.",
      "7": "This is what he showed me: I saw the Lord standing by a wall that had been constructed with a plumb line. He had a plumb line in his hand.",
      "8": "The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Amos?”\nI said, “A plumb line.”\nThen the Lord said:\n    Look, I am about to set up a plumb line next to my people Israel.\n    I will no longer overlook their sin.",
      "9": "The high places of Isaac will be desolate,\n    and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined.\n    I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.",
      "10": "Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel:\nAmos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to endure all of his words.",
      "11": "This is what Amos says: “Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly go into exile away from its own soil.”",
      "12": "Then Amaziah said to Amos, “You seer, get out of here! Flee to the land of Judah. You may eat food and prophesy there.",
      "13": "But you must never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the sanctuary of the king and the national temple.”",
      "14": "Then Amos responded to Amaziah:\nI was not a prophet, nor was I a son of a prophet. Rather, I was a sheep breeder and I took care of sycamore fig trees.",
      "15": "But the Lord took me from tending flocks, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”",
      "16": "But now, hear the word of the Lord, you who are saying, “Do not prophesy against Israel” and “Do not preach against the house of Isaac.”",
      "17": "This is what the Lord says: “Your wife will be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be parceled out with a measuring line, and as for you, you will die upon unclean soil. And Israel will certainly go into exile far away from its own soil.”"
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "This is what the Lord God showed me: I saw a basket of ripe summer fruit.",
      "2": "Then he asked, “What do you see, Amos?”\nI said, “A basket of ripe summer fruit.”\nThen the Lord said to me, “The end is coming upon my people Israel. I will no longer overlook their sin.",
      "3": "The singing women of the palace will wail on that day, declares the Lord God. Many corpses—all over! Silence!”",
      "4": "Listen to this, you who trample on the needy\n        to wipe out the oppressed from the land,",
      "5": "who say, “When will the New Moon be over so that we can sell grain?\n    When will the Sabbath end so that we can open the grain bins?\n    Then we will make the bushel smaller and make the shekel weight heavier.\n    We will cheat with dishonest scales.",
      "6": "We will buy the poor for silver\n    and the needy for a pair of sandals.\n    We will sell the chaff with the grain.”",
      "7": "The Lord swears by the Pride of Jacob,\n    “I will never forget any of their deeds!”",
      "8": "Because of this, the land will shake,\n    and everyone living in it will mourn.\n    The whole land will rise up like the Nile.\n    It will surge and sink down again like the Nile of Egypt.",
      "9": "Here is what will happen on that day, declares the Lord God:\n    I will make the sun set at noon,\n    and I will bring darkness on the earth when it should be light.",
      "10": "I will turn your festivals into mourning\n    and all of your songs into a lamentation.\n    I will put sackcloth on all your waists\n    and baldness on every head.\n    I will make that day like the mourning for an only son,\n    and it will end like a bitter day.",
      "11": "Look, the days are coming, declares the Lord God,\n    when I will send a famine into the land—\n    not a famine of bread\n    nor a thirst for water,\n    but rather a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.",
      "12": "People will stumble from sea to sea\n    and from north to east.\n    They will roam back and forth seeking the word of the Lord,\n    but they will not find it.",
      "13": "On that day the beautiful virgins will faint,\n    and the young men will grow weak from thirst.",
      "14": "Those who swear by the shameful guilt of Samaria,\n    those who say, “As your god lives, Dan,”\n    or, “The way of Beersheba lives”—\n    they will fall, and they will never rise again."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said:\n    Strike the capitals on top of the pillars so that the thresholds shake.\n    Cut them off so that they fall on the heads of all the people,\n    and those who survive I will kill with the sword.\n    No one who flees from there will get away,\n    and not a single fugitive from among them will escape.",
      "2": "Even if they dig down to hell,\n    from there my hand will seize them.\n    And even if they ascend to heaven,\n    from there I will bring them down.",
      "3": "Even if they hide themselves on the top of Mount Carmel,\n    from there I will search for them, and I will seize them.\n    Even if they hide themselves from my sight at the bottom of the sea,\n    from there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them.",
      "4": "Even if they go into captivity in the presence of their enemies,\n    from there I will command the sword, and it will kill them.\n    And I will set my eye upon them for disaster and not for good.",
      "5": "The Lord God of Armies is the one who touches the earth, so that it melts.\n    All who dwell on it mourn.\n    All of it rises like the Nile,\n    and like the Nile of Egypt it sinks down again.",
      "6": "He is the one who builds his upper chambers in heaven.\n    He set the foundation for his vault upon the earth.\n    He is the one who summons the waters of the sea\n    and pours them out over the face of the earth—\n    the Lord is his name.",
      "7": "Are you not like Cushites to me, you children of Israel?\n    declares the Lord.\n    Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt\n    and the Philistines from Caphtor\n    and the Arameans from Kir?",
      "8": "Look, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom,\n    and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.\n    But I will never completely destroy the house of Jacob,\n    declares the Lord.",
      "9": "Listen! I am giving a command,\n    and among all the nations I will shake the house of Israel\n        as the contents of a sieve are shaken,\n    and not even one pebble will fall out to the ground.",
      "10": "By a sword, all the sinners among my people will die,\n    those who are saying, “Disaster will not overtake us. It will not confront us.”",
      "11": "In that day I will raise up the fallen shelter of David.\nI will repair the broken parts of its walls,\nand I will raise up its ruins.\nI will rebuild it as in days of old,",
      "12": "so that they will possess what remains of Edom,\nthat is, all the nations who are called by my name,\ndeclares the Lord, who is doing this.",
      "13": "Look, days are coming, declares the Lord,\nwhen the plowman will catch up with the reaper,\nand the one who tramples grapes will catch up with the one sowing the seed.\nThe mountains will drip sweet wine,\nand all the hills will wave with grain.",
      "14": "I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,\nand they will rebuild the desolate cities and dwell in them.\nThey will plant vineyards and drink their wine,\nand they will make gardens and eat their fruit.",
      "15": "I will plant them in their soil,\nand they will never again be uprooted from the soil\nthat I have given to them,\nsays the Lord your God."
    }
  },
  "Obadiah": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord God says about Edom.\nWe have heard news from the Lord, and an envoy has been sent among the nations:\n“Get up. Let us rise up against her in battle.”",
      "2": "Listen, I will make you insignificant among the nations. You will be completely despised.",
      "3": "You who live in the clefts of the rocky cliff, the pride of your heart has deceived you. Your dwelling is so high that you say in your heart, “Who can bring me down to the ground?”",
      "4": "Even if you would soar as high as an eagle, and even if your nest is set among the stars, I will bring you down from there, declares the Lord.",
      "5": "If thieves came to you, if robbers came by night—oh, what disaster awaits you!—wouldn’t they steal only until they had enough? If grape pickers came to you, wouldn’t they leave some grapes for gleaning?",
      "6": "Oh, how completely Esau will be ransacked! His hidden treasures will be searched out and looted!",
      "7": "All your allies will push you back to your border.\nThose who were at peace with you will deceive you and overpower you.\nThose who eat bread with you will lay a trap for you.\nThere is no understanding left in Edom.",
      "8": "Will I not destroy the wise men of Edom on that day, declares the Lord? Will I not take away from the mountain of Esau those who have understanding?",
      "9": "Your strong warrior, Teman, will be shattered by terror, so that everyone from the mountain of Esau will be cut down by the massacre.",
      "10": "Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever.",
      "11": "On the day when you stood by and watched, on the day when strangers carried away Jacob’s wealth, and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them.",
      "12": "But do not look down on your brother on the day of his misfortune.\nDo not rejoice over the people of Judah on the day when they are destroyed.\nDo not speak proudly on the day of distress.",
      "13": "Do not enter the gate of my people on the day of their disaster.\nDo not look down on their affliction on the day of their calamity.\nDo not seize their wealth on the day of their disaster.",
      "14": "Do not stand in the crossroads to cut off those who have escaped.\nDo not imprison his survivors on the day of distress.",
      "15": "Yes, the Day of the Lord is near for all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head.",
      "16": "For just as you Edomites have drunk on my holy mountain, so also all the nations will drink continually. Yes, they will drink and guzzle it down, and it will be as though the Edomites never existed.",
      "17": "But on Mount Zion, there will be some who escape, and it will be holy. The house of Jacob will recapture its territory.",
      "18": "The house of Jacob will be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, but the house of Esau will be stubble. The Israelites set them on fire and consume them. There will not be any survivors for the house of Esau.\nYes, the Lord has spoken.",
      "19": "People from the Negev will take possession of the mountains of Esau, and those from the Shephelah will take possession of the land of the Philistines. They will take possession of the territory of Ephraim and the territory of Samaria. Benjamin will take possession of Gilead.",
      "20": "Those from the army of the people of Israel who have been exiles will take possession of the territory of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, and the exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will take possession of the cities of the Negev.",
      "21": "Saviors will go up on Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau, and the kingdom will belong to the Lord."
    }
  },
  "Jonah": {
    "1": {
      "1": "So the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:",
      "2": "“Get up. Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach against it, for its people’s evil way has come up before me.”",
      "3": "But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and boarded the ship to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.",
      "4": "But the Lord hurled a great wind onto the sea, and there was such a great storm on the sea that the ship was about to break apart.",
      "5": "The sailors were afraid, and each one cried out to his gods. They threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the ship’s load.\nJonah had gone down into the hold of the ship. He was lying down and sleeping soundly.",
      "6": "The captain approached him and said, “How can you be sleeping so soundly? Get up and call on your god! Maybe your god will treat us with favor so that we will not perish.”",
      "7": "Then the sailors said to each other, “Come on, let’s cast lots so that we can find out whose fault it is that this disaster has come to us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.",
      "8": "So they said to him, “Please tell us whose fault it is that this disaster has come to us! What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? What people are you from?”",
      "9": "He answered, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”",
      "10": "Then the men were terrified and said to him, “What have you done?” The men already knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so.",
      "11": "Then, because the storm on the sea kept getting worse, they said to him, “What should we do to you, to quiet the sea that is raging against us?”",
      "12": "He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will calm down for you, for I know that this violent storm striking against you has come about because of me.”",
      "13": "Instead, the men rowed hard to return the ship to dry land, but they could not, because the storm on the sea kept getting worse for them.",
      "14": "So they cried out to the Lord and said, “Please, Lord, please do not let us perish because of this man’s life, and do not charge innocent blood against us, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.”",
      "15": "So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging.",
      "16": "Then the men feared the Lord greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.",
      "17": "Then the Lord provided a large fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish.",
      "2": "He said the following:\n    In my distress I called to the Lord,\n    and he answered me.\n    From the belly of the grave I cried out,\n    and you heard my voice.",
      "3": "You threw me into the depths,\n    into the heart of the seas.\n    The currents swept around me.\n    All your breakers and your waves swept over me.",
      "4": "I said, “I have been driven away from your sight.\n    Nevertheless, I will once again look toward your holy temple.”",
      "5": "Waters engulfed me so that I was near death.\n    The deep surrounded me.\n    Seaweed was wrapped around my head.",
      "6": "To the roots of the mountains I sank down.\n    The earth locked me behind its bars forever.\n    But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord, my God.",
      "7": "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord.\n    My prayer came to you, to your holy temple.",
      "8": "Those who cling to worthless idols forsake the mercy that is theirs.",
      "9": "But I, with a shout of thanksgiving, will indeed sacrifice to you.\n    What I have vowed, I will certainly pay in full.\n    Salvation belongs to the Lord!",
      "10": "Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time:",
      "2": "“Get up. Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.”",
      "3": "So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh just as the word of the Lord had commanded. Now Nineveh was a great city to God. It required a three-day walk.",
      "4": "Jonah walked through the city for a day, and he called out, “Forty more days and Nineveh is going to be overthrown!”",
      "5": "The men of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.",
      "6": "When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.",
      "7": "Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh.\nBy the decree of the king and his leading officials:\nDo not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything. Do not let them eat food or drink water.",
      "8": "Instead, let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call fervently to God. Let them turn from their evil way and from the violence that is in their hands.",
      "9": "Who knows? God may turn and relent. He may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.",
      "10": "When God saw their actions, that they had turned from their evil way, God relented from the disaster which he said he would bring on them, and he did not carry it out."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "But to Jonah all this seemed very bad, and he became very angry.",
      "2": "He prayed to the Lord, “Lord, wasn’t this exactly what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I previously fled to Tarshish, because I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and you relent from sending disaster.",
      "3": "So now, Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”",
      "4": "But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”",
      "5": "Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city. He made a shelter for himself there and sat in the shade under it, waiting to see what would happen in the city.",
      "6": "Then the Lord God provided a plant and made it grow up over Jonah to provide shade over his head, to relieve him from his discomfort. So Jonah was very happy about the plant.",
      "7": "But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, and it attacked the plant so that it withered.",
      "8": "When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, so he said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”",
      "9": "But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”\nJonah said, “I do have a right to be angry—angry enough to die!”",
      "10": "So the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant. You did not work for it or make it grow. It grew up in one night and perished after one night.",
      "11": "So should I not be concerned for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left—and also many animals?”"
    }
  },
  "Micah": {
    "1": {
      "1": "This is the word of the Lord that came to Micah from Moresheth, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. He saw this vision concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.",
      "2": "Listen, all you peoples!\n    Pay close attention, earth and all of you who fill it!\n    The Lord God will testify against you.\n    The Lord will testify from his holy temple.",
      "3": "Look! The Lord is coming out from his place.\n    He will come down and will trample the high places of the land.",
      "4": "The mountains will melt beneath him,\n    and the valleys will flow away like wax near a fire,\n    like water spilling down a mountainside.",
      "5": "All this will happen because of the rebellion of Jacob,\n    because of the sins of the house of Israel.\n    What is the rebellion of Jacob? Is it not Samaria?\n    What is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?",
      "6": "That is why I have sentenced Samaria to become\n        a heap of ruins in the open countryside,\n        a place where someone might plant a vineyard.\n    I have hurled down its stones into the valley.\n    I will expose its foundation.",
      "7": "All her carved idols will be crushed,\n    and all her wages will be burned with fire.\n    I will sentence all her useless images to destruction.\n    Because she collected a prostitute’s wages to obtain them,\n    they will become a prostitute’s wages again.",
      "8": "Because of this I must lament and grieve.\n    I must walk barefoot and naked.\n    I must howl like a jackal\n    and make a mourning shriek like an ostrich,",
      "9": "because her plague is incurable.\n    It has even spread to Judah.\n    It has arrived at the gate of my people.\n    It has come all the way up to Jerusalem.",
      "10": "Do not announce it in Gath.\n    Do not weep at all.\n    In Beth Ophrah roll around in the dust.",
      "11": "Pass by, inhabitants of Shaphir, naked and ashamed.\n    The inhabitants of Za’anan must not go out.\n    Beth Ezel mourns. It takes away its support from you.",
      "12": "The inhabitants of Maroth anxiously wait for good,\n    because disaster has come down from the Lord to the gates of Jerusalem.",
      "13": "Hitch fast horses to the chariot, you inhabitants of Lachish.\n    You were the beginning of sin for the Daughter of Zion,\n    because the rebellious deeds of Israel were found also in you.",
      "14": "Therefore you will give farewell gifts to Moresheth Gath.\n    The houses of Akzib will be undependable to the kings of Israel.",
      "15": "I will once again bring a conqueror to you, you inhabitants of Mareshah.\n    The glory of Israel will come to Adullam.",
      "16": "Shave your heads and cut off your hair\n        to mourn for the children that delight you.\n    Make yourself bald as a buzzard,\n    because your children will be taken away from you into exile."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Woe to those who plan wickedness,\nwho make preparations for evil while lying on their beds.\n    By the morning light they carry it out,\n    because it is in the power of their hands to do so.",
      "2": "They covet fields and seize them.\n    They covet houses and take them away.\n    They deprive a person of his house,\n    and a man of his inheritance.",
      "3": "Therefore this is what the Lord says:\n    Look, I am making plans against this family of clans,\n    plans for a disaster from which you cannot save your necks.\n    You will not be able to hold your heads high,\n    because it will be an evil time.",
      "4": "On that day a saying will arise about you.\n    People will moan this sad song:\n    “We have been completely devastated.\n    My people’s portion in the land is divided up.\n    He takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors.”",
      "5": "Because of this, there will be no one to measure off an allotted inheritance for you in the assembly of the Lord.",
      "6": "“Stop preaching,” they preach. “Do not preach about these things,”\n    but these charges will not be turned away.",
      "7": "Should the house of Jacob say,\n    “Is the Spirit of the Lord impatient?\n    Would he really do these things?”\n    Will my words fail to accomplish good things for people who walk uprightly?",
      "8": "But lately my people have stood up like an enemy.\n    You strip off the splendid robe from those who pass by\n    as they return safely from battle.",
      "9": "You drive the women among my people out of their comfortable houses.\n    You take away my splendor from their children forever.",
      "10": "Get up and leave,\n    for this will not be a place to rest,\n    because the impurity that destroys it will bring painful destruction.",
      "11": "If a man full of bluster and lies comes and says,\n    “I will preach for you about wine and beer,”\n    he would be just the preacher for these people.",
      "12": "I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob.\n    I will surely gather together the surviving remnant of Israel.\n    I will establish them like a flock in its fold,\n    like a herd in its pasture,\n    like a happy crowd of noisy people.",
      "13": "The one who breaks through the siege line will go up ahead of them.\n    They too will break out and pass through the gate,\n    and their king will cross over in front of them,\n        with the Lord as their head."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "I said:\n    Listen, you rulers of Jacob,\n    you leaders of the house of Israel.\n    Shouldn’t you recognize justice?",
      "2": "But you hate good and love evil.\n    You tear off the skin and the flesh from the bones.",
      "3": "You eat the flesh of my people\n    and peel off their skin.\n    You smash their bones.\n    You chop them up like pieces for the cooking pot,\n    like meat for the cauldron.",
      "4": "Then they will cry out to the Lord for help,\n    but he will not answer them.\n    He will hide his face from them at that time,\n    because their deeds were evil.",
      "5": "This is what the Lord says concerning the prophets who mislead my people:\n    Give them something to chew with their teeth, and they declare peace,\n    but they declare a holy war against anyone who doesn’t put something into their mouths.",
      "6": "Therefore, a night without prophetic vision will come upon you.\n    Darkness will come upon you, without any omens from God.\n    The sun will set for the prophets,\n    and daytime will become dark for them.",
      "7": "The seers will be ashamed,\n    and the fortune tellers will hide in disgrace.\n    They will all cover their mouths,\n    because there will be no answer from God.",
      "8": "I, on the other hand, I am full of power from the Spirit of the Lord,\n        full of judgment and strength,\n        to declare Jacob’s sinful rebellion to him\n            and Israel’s sin to him.",
      "9": "Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob.\n    Listen attentively, leaders of the house of Israel,\n    you who have contempt for justice and pervert everything that is right,",
      "10": "you who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with injustice.",
      "11": "Her leaders render verdicts for a bribe,\n    and her priests issue rulings for a payoff.\n    Her prophets foretell the future for silver,\n    yet they lean on the Lord and say,\n    “The Lord is in our midst, isn’t he? Disaster will not come upon us.”",
      "12": "Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field.\n    Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,\n    and the Temple Mount will become a wooded hill."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "In the last days, the mountain of the House of the Lord\n        will be established as the highest among the mountains.\n    It will be raised above the hills,\n    and peoples will stream to it like a river.",
      "2": "Many nations will come and say,\n    “Come, let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord,\n    to the house of the God of Jacob.\n    He will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.”\n    The law will go out from Zion\n    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.",
      "3": "He will render judgment between many peoples.\n    He will settle disputes between mighty nations from far away.\n    They will pound their swords into plowshares\n    and their spears into blades for trimming vines.\n    Nation will not raise the sword against nation,\n    and they will not learn how to wage war any longer.",
      "4": "Each man will sit under his own vine\n    and under his own fig tree.\n    There will be no one to make them afraid,\n    for the mouth of the Lord of Armies has spoken.",
      "5": "For all the other peoples walk in the names of their gods,\n    but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.",
      "6": "On that day, says the Lord,\n    I will bring in the lame\n    and gather the scattered,\n    even those I have afflicted.",
      "7": "I will establish the lame as survivors\n    and the scattered as a powerful nation.\n    The Lord will rule over them on Mount Zion\n        from that time on and forever.",
      "8": "But for you, watchtower of the flock,\n    for you, stronghold of the Daughter of Zion,\n    for you, the power to rule, which you had before, will come again.\n    The kingship will return to the Daughter of Jerusalem.",
      "9": "But now, why are you shouting so loudly?\n    Is it because you have no king among you?\n    Has the one who guided you perished,\n    so that pain now has gripped you like a woman giving birth?",
      "10": "Writhe and scream, Daughter of Zion,\n    like a woman giving birth, since now you must leave the city,\n    and you will seek shelter in the fields.\n    You will go to Babylon.\n    There you will be rescued.\n    There the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.",
      "11": "But now many nations have banded together against you.\n    They say, “Let her be degraded! Let our eyes gloat over Zion!”",
      "12": "But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord,\n    and they do not understand his plans,\n    namely, that he will gather them together like bundles of grain on the threshing floor.",
      "13": "Rise up and thresh, Daughter of Zion,\n    for I will turn your horns into iron,\n    and I will make your hoofs bronze,\n    and you will crush many peoples.\n    You will dedicate what they have gained to the Lord,\n    and their wealth to the Lord of all the earth."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Now, gather the troops, you daughter of troops.\nA siege is laid against us.\n    With a rod they will strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.",
      "2": "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,\n    though you are small among the clans of Judah,\n    from you, will go out the one who will be the ruler for me in Israel.\n    His goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.",
      "3": "Therefore the Lord will give them up,\n    until the time when the woman who is in labor bears a child.\n    Then the remaining survivors from his brothers will return to the people of Israel.",
      "4": "He will stand and shepherd with the strength of the Lord,\n    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.\n    They will dwell securely, for at that time he will be great to the ends of the earth.",
      "5": "This one will be their peace.\n    When Assyria invades our land\n    and tramples on our citadels,\n    we will raise against him seven shepherds\n    and eight leaders of men.",
      "6": "They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword\n    and the land of Nimrod with a drawn blade.\n    He will save us from Assyria\n    when it invades our land\n    and tramples on our territory.",
      "7": "There will be a surviving remnant of Jacob in the midst of many peoples,\n        like dew from the Lord,\n        like spring showers on the grass,\n        which do not wait around for a man,\n        and do not delay for human beings.",
      "8": "The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations,\n    in the midst of many peoples,\n    like a lion among animals of the forest,\n    like a young lion among flocks of sheep.\n    As he passes through, he crushes and tears them.\n    There is no one who can save them from him.",
      "9": "Your hand will be high above your enemies.\n    All your enemies will be cut off.",
      "10": "This is what will happen on that day, declares the Lord.\n    I will cut off your horses from your midst\n    and destroy your chariots.",
      "11": "I will cut off the cities of your land,\n    and I will destroy all your fortified cities.",
      "12": "I will cut off every form of witchcraft from your hands,\n    and you will have no one to read omens anymore.",
      "13": "I will cut off your carved images\n    and your sacred memorial stones from your midst,\n    and you will not worship the work of your hands anymore.",
      "14": "I will uproot your Asherah poles from your midst,\n    and I will destroy your cities.",
      "15": "In anger and wrath I will inflict vengeance\n        on the nations that have not listened to me."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Listen now to what the Lord is saying!\n    Get up. Plead your case to the mountains.\n    Let the hills hear your voice.",
      "2": "Listen, you mountains, to the accusation from the Lord.\n    Pay attention, you enduring foundations of the earth,\n    because the Lord is presenting a case against his people,\n    and he is indicting Israel.",
      "3": "My people, what have I done to you,\n    and how have I made you weary? Answer me!",
      "4": "I was the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt.\n    I redeemed you from the place where you were slaves.\n    I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam ahead of you.",
      "5": "My people, remember what Balak king of Moab planned,\n    and how Balaam son of Beor responded to him\n    when you were about to travel from Shittim to Gilgal,\n    so that you may acknowledge the Lord’s righteous acts.",
      "6": "With what am I to appear before the Lord?\n    How should I bow down to God on high?\n    Should I appear before him with burnt offerings,\n    with one-year-old calves?",
      "7": "Will the Lord be delighted with thousands of rams,\n    with tens of thousands of streams of oil?\n    Should I give my firstborn for my rebellion,\n    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?",
      "8": "He has told you, mankind, what is good.\n    What does the Lord require from you,\n    except to carry out justice and to love mercy\n    and to walk humbly with your God?",
      "9": "The voice of the Lord cries out to the city.\n    To fear your name is sound judgment.\n    Pay attention to the rod and to the one who appointed it.",
      "10": "You wicked house, do you still have treasures gained by wickedness\n    and dishonest measurements that are cursed?",
      "11": "Can I condone your dishonest scales and your bags full of false weights?",
      "12": "The city’s rich men are full of violence,\n    and its inhabitants speak falsehood.\n    Their tongues are treachery inside their mouths.",
      "13": "So I will wound you,\n    striking you down\n    and making you desolate because of your sins.",
      "14": "You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.\n    Your emptiness will remain inside you.\n    You will try to store things up,\n    but you will not save anything.\n    What you save, I will give to the sword.",
      "15": "You will sow, but you will not reap.\n    You will press olives, but you will not anoint yourself with oil.\n    You will trample grapes for juice, but you will not drink the wine.",
      "16": "You have observed the statutes of Omri,\n    and all the practices of the house of Ahab.\n    You have walked in their way of life,\n    so I will make you a hideous sight.\n    Your inhabitants will be subjected to contempt.\n    You will bear the shame of my people."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "I am miserable.\nI have become like someone gathering summer fruit\n        when it is time to glean the vineyard.\n    There is no bunch of grapes to eat,\n    none of the early figs I crave.",
      "2": "The faithful have been carried off from the land.\n    There is no one upright among mankind.\n    They all lie in wait for blood.\n    Each one hunts his brother with a net.",
      "3": "Both hands are skilled at evil.\n    The officials ask for bribes,\n    and the judges as well.\n    The important man says what he wants.\n    Together, they plot it out.",
      "4": "The best of them is like a brier bush,\n    the most upright like a hedge of thorns.\n    The day for your watchman,\n    the day for your punishment has come.\n    Now confusion has come for them.",
      "5": "Do not trust a neighbor.\n    Do not put confidence in a close friend.\n    Watch what comes out of your mouth,\n        even when you lie down with the wife you embrace.",
      "6": "For a son will declare that his father is a fool.\n    A daughter will rise up against her mother,\n    and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.\n    A man’s enemies are the members of his own household.",
      "7": "But as for me, I will keep watching for the Lord.\n    I will wait for God my Savior.\n    My God will hear me.",
      "8": "Do not rejoice over me, my enemy.\n    When I fall, I will rise.\n    When I sit in the darkness, the Lord will be a light for me.",
      "9": "Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord’s wrath,\n    until he pleads my case and obtains a favorable verdict for me.\n    He will bring me to the light.\n    I will see his righteousness.",
      "10": "Then my enemy will see this and will be covered with shame,\n    she who said to me, “Where is the Lord your God?”\n    My eyes will see her as she is being trampled like mud in the streets.",
      "11": "It will be a day to rebuild city walls.\n    On that day your boundary will be extended.",
      "12": "On that day people will come to you\n        from the lands of Assyria and the cities of Egypt,\n        from Egypt even to the River Euphrates,\n        from sea to sea and mountain to mountain.",
      "13": "The land will be laid waste because of its inhabitants,\n    as a result of the fruit of their deeds.",
      "14": "Shepherd your people with your staff,\n    the flock that is your inheritance,\n    the flock which dwells by itself in a forest,\n    in the middle of fertile pastureland.\n    Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in days of old.",
      "15": "As I did in the days you came out from the land of Egypt,\n        I will show you wonderful miracles.",
      "16": "The nations will see and be ashamed of their lack of strength.\n    They will place their hand over their mouth.\n    Their ears will be deaf.",
      "17": "They will lick up dust like a snake,\n    like the things that creep on the earth.\n    They will come from their hiding places, shaking with fear.\n    They will come trembling to the Lord our God,\n    and they will be afraid in your presence.",
      "18": "Who is a God like you, who forgives guilt,\n    and who passes over the rebellion of the survivors from his inheritance?\n    He does not hold onto his anger forever.\n    He delights in showing mercy.",
      "19": "He will have compassion on us again.\n    He will overcome our guilty deeds.\n    You will throw all their sins into the depths of the sea.",
      "20": "You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham,\n    as you swore to our fathers from days of old."
    }
  },
  "Nahum": {
    "1": {
      "1": "A threatening oracle against Nineveh.\nThe book of the vision of Nahum from Elkosh.",
      "2": "The Lord is a jealous and avenging God.\n    The Lord takes vengeance and displays his anger.\n    The Lord takes vengeance against his adversaries.\n    He will maintain his rage against his enemies.",
      "3": "The Lord is slow to anger, yet great in power.\n    The Lord will certainly not let the guilty go unpunished.\n    He marches out in the whirlwind and in the storm.\n    Storm clouds are like dust stirred up by his feet.",
      "4": "He rebukes the sea and makes it dry up.\n    He makes all the rivers run dry.\n    Bashan and Carmel are completely withered.\n    The buds of Lebanon are completely withered.",
      "5": "The mountains quake in front of him.\n    The hills melt away.\n    The earth in front of him rises up,\n    the whole world and all who live in it.",
      "6": "Who can withstand his anger?\n    Who can resist his fury?\n    His rage is poured out like fire,\n    and the rocks are torn down by him.",
      "7": "The Lord is good.\n    He is a place of safety in the day of distress.\n    He knows those who seek safety in him,",
      "8": "but he will bring this place to a complete end by an overwhelming flood.\n    He will drive his enemies into darkness.",
      "9": "No matter what you plot against the Lord, he will destroy your plot completely. Disaster will not need to strike them twice,",
      "10": "because like tangled thorns, like the liquor of drunkards, like fully dried stubble, they will be consumed.",
      "11": "Someone who plots evil against the Lord has gone out from you, but his wicked plans are worthless.",
      "12": "This is what the Lord says. Even though they are at full strength and are numerous, nevertheless they are sure to be cut off, and they will disappear. Even though I have humbled you, I will not humble you any longer.",
      "13": "Now I will break their yoke from your neck. I will tear apart the shackles that are on you.",
      "14": "The Lord has issued a decree against you: There will be no descendants to carry on your name. I will put an end to the carved idols and molten images in the temple of your gods. I will dig your grave because you are cursed.",
      "15": "Look! A herald is coming over the mountain to proclaim this good news:\n        Peace! Celebrate your sacred festivals, Judah!\n        Fulfill your sacred vows to praise God!\n        For never again will wickedness overwhelm you.\n        It has been completely destroyed."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "The enemy who will scatter you is advancing against you! Guard the rampart! Watch the road! Prepare for battle! Muster all your great strength!",
      "2": "For the Lord is about to restore the majesty of Jacob, as well as the majesty of Israel, even though their enemies have plundered them completely and have destroyed their vines.",
      "3": "The shields of the mighty warriors are dyed red.\n    The soldiers are dressed in scarlet garments.\n    The steel fittings of the chariots shine like fire on the day of battle.\n    The soldiers shake their spears.",
      "4": "The chariots race wildly through the streets.\n    They rush back and forth in the city squares.\n    They look like lightning.\n    They dart about like flashes of lightning.",
      "5": "The commander gives orders to his elite troops.\n    They fall over each other as they advance.\n    They rush to the city wall.\n    They set up the protective canopy over the battering ram.",
      "6": "The gates that hold back the river are opened,\n    and the palace is washed away.",
      "7": "She is stripped and is led away.\n    Her slave girls moan like doves\n    while they beat their breasts.",
      "8": "Nineveh was like a pool of water from her beginning,\n    but now her people are running away.\n    She cries out, “Stop! Stop!” but no one turns back.",
      "9": "Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold!\n    There is no end to the treasure.\n    There are riches of every kind of precious thing.",
      "10": "Destruction, devastation, and desolation!\n    Their hearts faint, their knees tremble,\n    every stomach churns, and each face turns pale!",
      "11": "What has become of the lions’ lair and the feeding place for young lions, where the lion, lioness, and lion’s cub prowled with nothing to fear?",
      "12": "The lion tore apart as much prey as his cubs needed and strangled prey to provide food for his lionesses. He filled his lairs with prey and his dens with torn flesh.",
      "13": "Beware! I am against you, declares the Lord of Armies. I will burn up your chariots in smoke. The sword will devour your young lions. You will no longer ravage the land. The voices of your messengers will no longer be heard."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Woe to the city of bloodshed! She is full of lies. She is filled with plunder. She is never without victims.",
      "2": "The crack of a whip! The clatter of wheels! Galloping horses and bouncing chariots!",
      "3": "Horsemen charging! Glittering swords! Flashing spears! Many wounded! Piles of carcasses! There is no end to the corpses—so many that people stumble over them.",
      "4": "All this is because of the many promiscuous deeds of the prostitute, a beautiful and pleasing mistress of all kinds of sorcery, who sells nations into slavery with her promiscuity and clans of people with her sorcery.",
      "5": "Beware! I am against you, declares the Lord of Armies. I will strip off your clothes! I will expose your nakedness to the nations and your shame to the kingdoms.",
      "6": "I will pelt you with filth. I will treat you with contempt. I will make you a public spectacle.",
      "7": "Everyone who sees you will turn away from you in disgust and say, “Nineveh has been devastated! Who will express grief for her? Where can I find someone to comfort you?”",
      "8": "Are you better than Thebes? She was located on the banks of the Nile. The waters surrounded her. Her strength was the sea, and her walls were the water.",
      "9": "Cush and Egypt had limitless strength. Put and the Libyans were among her allies.",
      "10": "Yet even she went into exile. Even her infants were smashed to pieces on every street corner. They cast lots to win her dignitaries. All her great men were bound with chains.",
      "11": "You too will be drunk and will hide yourself. You too will seek refuge from the enemy.",
      "12": "All your fortifications will be like fig trees with ripe fruit. If they are shaken, their figs will fall right into the mouth of the one who eats them.",
      "13": "Look! The troops among you are women in the face of your enemies. The gates of your land will be wide open. Fire will consume the bars of your gates.",
      "14": "Draw water to prepare yourselves for a siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Trample the mud and tread the clay! Make mud bricks to strengthen your walls!",
      "15": "There the fire will consume you. There the sword will cut you down. It will devour you as a swarm of grasshoppers would, even if you heap up your numbers like swarms of grasshoppers and locusts.",
      "16": "You have increased your merchants so that they are more than the stars of heaven! But they are like grasshoppers, which spread out and fly away.",
      "17": "Your courtiers are like locusts. Your field marshals are like swarming locusts! They camp in the walls on a cold day. Yet when the sun rises, they fly away, and no one knows where they are.",
      "18": "King of Assyria, your shepherds are drowsy! Your powerful men slumber! Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there are none left to gather together.",
      "19": "There is no healing for your wound. Your injury is fatal! All who hear what has happened to you will clap their hands for joy, for no one ever escaped your endless cruelty!"
    }
  },
  "Habakkuk": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The threatening oracle which the prophet Habakkuk saw.",
      "2": "How long, Lord, must I cry for help, but you do not listen?\n    I call out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save!",
      "3": "Why do you cause me to see injustice?\n    Why do you overlook misery?\n    Devastation and violence confront me.\n    There is strife, and tensions rise.",
      "4": "For this reason the law has become powerless.\n    Justice is never carried out.\n    In fact, the wicked overwhelm the righteous\n    so that justice is perverted.",
      "5": "Look at the nations and pay attention! Be completely dumbfounded, because I will do something in your lifetime that you will not believe, even though you are warned ahead of time.",
      "6": "Watch, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that savage, reckless nation. They will sweep across the whole width of the earth, seizing lands and homes that do not belong to them.",
      "7": "They are frightening and terrifying. They invent their own standard of justice and their own values.",
      "8": "Their horses are quicker than leopards and fiercer than wolves that prowl at night. Their war horses come galloping. Their war horses come from far away. They fly like vultures swooping down to devour.",
      "9": "All of them come to commit violence. Their hordes blow by like the desert wind and sweep up prisoners like sand.",
      "10": "They mock kings, and rulers are subjected to scorn. They laugh at every fortified city. They heap up siege ramps and capture cities.",
      "11": "But then the wind blows and passes over them, and they will bear their guilt—these men whose own strength is their god.",
      "12": "Are you not from ancient times, O Lord?\n    My God, my Holy One, you will not die.\n    Lord, you have made them your instrument of judgment.\n    You, our Rock, have established them as your instrument of discipline.",
      "13": "You whose eyes are too pure to tolerate evil,\n    you who are not able to condone wrongdoing,\n    why do you put up with treacherous people?\n    Why do you keep silent when the wicked swallow up those who are more righteous than they are?",
      "14": "You treat people like fish in the sea,\n    like creeping creatures that have no ruler.",
      "15": "The wicked man pulls them all up on a fishhook.\n    He hauls them in with a net.\n    He gathers them with his dragnet and is very happy about it.",
      "16": "Therefore he offers sacrifices to his nets\n    and burns incense to his dragnet,\n    because, through these, his catch is large,\n    and his food is plentiful.",
      "17": "Will he empty one net after another\n    and continue to destroy nations without sparing any?"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "I will stand at my watch post and station myself on the city wall. I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer he will give to my complaint.",
      "2": "Then the Lord answered me. He said:\nRecord the vision and write it plainly on tablets so that a herald may run with it.",
      "3": "Indeed, the vision is waiting for the appointed time. It longs for fulfillment and will not prove false. If it seems slow in coming, wait for it, because it will certainly come and will not be delayed.",
      "4": "Look, his soul is puffed up and is not righteous within him—but the righteous one will live by his faith.",
      "5": "Indeed, wine betrays that arrogant and restless one, because he is as greedy as the grave, and like death he is never satisfied. He gathers all the nations and collects all the peoples to himself.",
      "6": "All these people will make up proverbs and mocking poems against him, won’t they? They will say, “Woe to the one who accumulates what is not his. (How long will this last?) Woe to the one who makes himself rich by foreclosing on collateral.”",
      "7": "Won’t your creditors rise up suddenly? Won’t those who cause you to tremble wake up? You will become plunder for them.",
      "8": "Because you robbed many countries, all those who are left among the nations will rob you. You have shed human blood and committed violence against the land, the cities, and all the people who live in them.",
      "9": "Woe to the person who piles up dishonest income for his household, in order to raise his nest up high, to deliver himself from disaster.",
      "10": "By wiping out many nations, you have planned shame for your own house. You have sinned against your own life.",
      "11": "So the stones in the walls will cry out, and the wooden rafters will answer,",
      "12": "“Woe to the one who builds a town with bloodshed and establishes a town with injustice.”",
      "13": "Be sure of this: The Lord of Armies has determined that the things for which the peoples of the world labor are only fuel for the fire, and that the nations tire themselves out with nothing to show for it.",
      "14": "So the earth will be as filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters that cover the sea.",
      "15": "Woe to the person who gives intoxicating drinks to his neighbors, forcing them to drink from his rage, and making them drunk so that he can look at their nakedness.",
      "16": "You will be filled with shame instead of honor. Yes, you yourself will drink and expose your own nakedness. The cup in the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you, and complete disgrace will cover your glory.",
      "17": "You will be overwhelmed by the violence you have committed against Lebanon. Your devastation of the animals will terrify you, because you shed human blood and did violence to the land, to the town, and to its inhabitants.",
      "18": "What benefit is provided by a carved idol? It was hewn by its maker. What good is a cast statue? It teaches lies. Why would the maker trust his own creation? He makes useless gods that cannot speak.",
      "19": "Woe to him who says to a hunk of wood, “Wake up!” or who says, “Get up!” to a stone that cannot speak. Can that thing be your teacher? Although it is covered with gold and silver, there is no life in it at all.",
      "20": "But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let the whole earth be silent before him."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "This is the prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to shigionoth.",
      "2": "O Lord, I have heard the report about you,\n    and I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.\n    In the midst of our years revive those deeds.\n    In the midst of our years reveal them again.\n    In your rage, remember to have mercy.",
      "3": "God comes from Teman. Interlude\n    The Holy One comes from Mount Paran.\n    His splendor covers the heavens,\n    and his praises fill the earth.",
      "4": "His brightness is like lightning.\n    Lightning bolts flash out from his hand,\n        where his strength is hidden.",
      "5": "Contagious disease goes ahead of him,\n    and plague follows after him.",
      "6": "He stands up and shakes the earth.\n    He looks, and the nations jump in fright.\n    The ancient mountains are shattered.\n    The age-old hills are flattened.\n    But he goes on forever.",
      "7": "I saw the tents of Cushan overwhelmed by trouble.\n    The tent curtains in the land of Midian were trembling.",
      "8": "Were you angry with the rivers, Lord?\n    Was your anger against the rivers?\n    Or was your fury against the sea?\n    Is that why you hitched up your horses\n    and rode your chariots of salvation?",
      "9": "You unsheathed your bow Interlude\n    and called for arrows.\n    You split the earth with rivers.",
      "10": "When the mountains see you, they shake.\n    A flood of water sweeps through.\n    The great deep roars\n    and lifts its hands high.",
      "11": "The sun and the moon stand still in their palace\n        when your flying arrows flash,\n        when your spear is bright as lightning.",
      "12": "In fury you march through the earth.\n    In anger you trample the nations.",
      "13": "You march out to save your people,\n    to deliver your anointed one.\n    You strike the head of the wicked nation to lay him out Interlude\n        naked from his buttocks to his neck.",
      "14": "With their own shafts you pierce the heads of warriors\n        when they storm out to scatter us.\n    Their celebration is like that of those who devour the poor in secret,",
      "15": "but you trample on the sea with your horses,\n    on the surging, powerful waters.",
      "16": "When I hear about it, my stomach churns.\n    The sound makes my lips quiver.\n    My bones decay,\n    and my knees tremble,\n    as I wait for the day of disaster to come upon the people who attack us.",
      "17": "The fig tree may have no buds.\n    The vines may have no grapes.\n    The olive tree may fail to produce.\n    The fields may yield no food.\n    The sheep may be cut off from their flock,\n    and there may be no cattle in the barns,",
      "18": "but I will delight in the Lord\n    and rejoice in God who saves me.",
      "19": "The Lord God is my strength.\n    He will give me feet like a deer\n    and make me leap along the high hills.\nTo the choir director. On my stringed instruments."
    }
  },
  "Zephaniah": {
    "1": {
      "1": "This is the word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.",
      "2": "I will completely sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord.",
      "3": "I will take away man and beast. I will take away the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea and the stumbling blocks of the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth, declares the Lord.",
      "4": "I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off every trace of Baal from this place, as well as the name of the pagan priests, along with the regular priests.",
      "5": "I will also cut off those who worship on their rooftops, bowing down to the armies in the heavens, and those who worship by swearing to the Lord, and yet they also swear by Milcom.",
      "6": "I will also cut off those who turn away from following the Lord, those who have not sought the Lord or inquired of him.",
      "7": "Keep silent before the Lord God, for the Day of the Lord is at hand. Yes, the Lord has prepared a sacrifice. He has consecrated those who will attend it.",
      "8": "This is what will take place on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice: I will deal with the officials and the king’s sons and with all those who wear foreign clothing.",
      "9": "In the same day I will also deal with all who leap over the threshold, who fill their master’s house with violence and deceit.",
      "10": "On that day, declares the Lord, there will be crying from the Fish Gate and wailing from the Second Quarter and the sound of a great crashing from the hills.",
      "11": "Wail, you who sit in the marketplace, for all the merchants are destroyed. All those who weigh out silver will be cut off.",
      "12": "At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, to deal with the men who are complacent, like wine resting on its dregs, who say in their hearts, “The Lord will not do anything good. Neither will he do anything bad.”",
      "13": "Therefore their wealth will become plunder, and their houses a ruin. They will build houses but never live in them. They will plant vineyards, but they will not drink the wine.",
      "14": "The great Day of the Lord is near. It is near and coming very quickly. Listen! The sound of the Day of the Lord! The cry of the warrior is bitter.",
      "15": "That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and total destruction, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness,",
      "16": "a day for the ram’s horn and for the battle cry against the fortified cities and against the high towers.",
      "17": "I will bring distress upon all people, so that they walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord. That is why their blood will be poured out like dust, and their bowels will be spread like manure.",
      "18": "Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord’s wrath. Instead, the whole earth will be consumed by the fire of his jealousy, because he will make an end—yes, a terrifying end of all who dwell on the earth."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Gather yourselves together; yes, gather together, you shameless nation,",
      "2": "before the decree takes effect, before the day blows by like chaff, before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger comes upon you.",
      "3": "Seek the Lord, all you humble people of the earth who have carried out his commands. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Maybe then you will be sheltered in the day of the Lord’s anger.",
      "4": "Yes, Gaza will be deserted, and Ashkelon will be desolate. Ashdod’s people will be driven out by noon, and Ekron will be uprooted.",
      "5": "Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, the nation of the Kerethites! The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, the land of the Philistines. I will destroy you so that no one is left alive!",
      "6": "The seacoast will become pastureland, with shelters for shepherds and sheep pens for flocks.",
      "7": "It will become the possession of those who remain from the house of Judah. Their flocks will pasture there. In the houses of Ashkelon they will lie down in the evening, because the Lord their God will take care of them. He will restore their fortunes.",
      "8": "I have heard the taunts from Moab and the insults from the Ammonites as they have taunted my people and made proud claims against their territory.",
      "9": "Therefore as I live, declares the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, Moab will become like Sodom, and the people of Ammon like Gomorrah, a patch of ground overgrown with weeds and a salt pit that is desolate forever. The surviving remnant of my people will plunder them, and the remnant of my nation will take possession of their land.",
      "10": "This is what they will get for their pride, because they have taunted and talked arrogantly against the people of the Lord of Armies.",
      "11": "The Lord will be terrifying to them, when he will starve all the gods of the earth. Then all the distant nations will bow down to him, each of them in their own country.",
      "12": "You Cushites, you also will die by my sword.",
      "13": "Then he will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria. He will make Nineveh desolate, dry like the wilderness.",
      "14": "Flocks and herds will lie down there, with all sorts of other creatures. Screech owls and hedgehogs will live among its columns. Owls will hoot through the windows. Rubble will cover the thresholds. Even the cedar beams will be exposed.",
      "15": "This was the smug city that lived securely, that said to herself, “I am all there is. There are none that compare to me.” What a heap of ruins she has become, a place for wild animals to lie down! Everyone who passes by taunts her and shakes his fist."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Woe to the filthy, foul city, the city of oppressors.",
      "2": "She does not listen. She does not accept correction. She does not even trust the Lord or draw near to her God.",
      "3": "The officials within her are like roaring lions. Her judges are like hungry wolves in the evening that completely devour their prey by morning.",
      "4": "Her prophets are reckless, treacherous men. Her priests have profaned what is holy. They have committed violence against the law.",
      "5": "The Lord in her midst is just. He does no wrong. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He does not fail. But those who are unjust are shameless.",
      "6": "I have cut off nations. Their corner towers are in ruins. I have made their streets desolate, with no one passing by. Their cities are laid waste, with no one living there.",
      "7": "I said, “Certainly you will fear me. You will accept correction so that your dwelling place will not be destroyed by everything I have threatened.” But they eagerly sinned in everything they did.",
      "8": "So wait for me, declares the Lord, until the day that I rise up to plunder. For I am determined to gather the nations, to assemble the kingdoms, and to pour out my indignation upon them and all my furious anger. All the earth will be consumed with the fire of my zeal.",
      "9": "I will purify the lips of the people so that they all call on the name of the Lord and serve him side by side.",
      "10": "From beyond the rivers of Cush, my worshippers, my scattered people, will bring offerings to me.",
      "11": "In that day you will no longer bear the shame of your rebellions against me. Then I will remove the proud boasters from among you, and you will never again be arrogant on my holy hill.",
      "12": "But I will leave among you the people who are humble and weak. They will seek refuge in the name of the Lord.",
      "13": "The Israelites who remain will no longer act unjustly. They will not lie, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Instead, they will graze peacefully like sheep and lie down. No one will terrify them.",
      "14": "Sing out, daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, you daughter of Jerusalem.",
      "15": "The Lord has removed the judgment against you. He has turned back your enemy. Israel’s king, the Lord, is in your midst! You no longer need to fear disaster.",
      "16": "In that day Jerusalem will be told, “Do not be afraid, O Zion. Do not give up.",
      "17": "The Lord your God is with you as a hero who will save you. He takes great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.”",
      "18": "I will bring back those among you who grieve over the loss of the appointed feasts, those for whom the loss was a burden and a disgrace.",
      "19": "Look, at that time I will deal with those who mistreated you. I will rescue the lame and gather together the scattered. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame.",
      "20": "At that time I will bring you in. At that time I will gather you. I will give you a name and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, declares the Lord."
    }
  },
  "Haggai": {
    "1": {
      "1": "In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest.",
      "2": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. This people has said, “It is not the right time for the House of the Lord to be built.”",
      "3": "So the word of the Lord came through Haggai the prophet.",
      "4": "Is it time for you to live in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins?",
      "5": "Now this is what the Lord of Armies says. Consider your ways carefully.",
      "6": "You sow much seed but you harvest little. You eat but you are never satisfied. You drink but you never become drunk. You get dressed, but no one is warm. The one who makes money puts that money into a bag with a hole in it.",
      "7": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. Consider your ways carefully.",
      "8": "Go up to the mountains, bring lumber down, and build the House. I will be pleased with it, and I will be glorified, says the Lord.",
      "9": "You expected much, but look, there was little. When you brought it home, I blew it away.\nWhy did I do that? This is a declaration of the Lord of Armies. It is because my house lies in ruins while each of you is busy with your own house.",
      "10": "So it is because of you that the heavens have withheld the dew and the earth has withheld its produce.",
      "11": "I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the olive oil, on everything which the soil produces, on people, on livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.",
      "12": "Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the surviving remnant of the people, listened to the voice of the Lord their God and to the words of Haggai the prophet, because the Lord their God had sent him. So the people feared the Lord.",
      "13": "Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, spoke the Lord’s message to the people: “I am with you, declares the Lord.”",
      "14": "The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the surviving remnant of the people, and they came and worked on the house for the Lord of Armies, their God,",
      "15": "on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through Haggai the prophet.",
      "2": "Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the surviving remnant of the people.",
      "3": "Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look now? Doesn’t it seem like nothing in your eyes?",
      "4": "But now, be strong, Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest! Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Get to work, and I will be with you, declares the Lord of Armies.",
      "5": "This is the promise I made to you when you left Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Do not be afraid!",
      "6": "Listen, this is what the Lord of Armies says. Once again, in a little while, I myself will shake the heavens and the earth, the seas and the dry land.",
      "7": "I will shake all the nations, and the desired of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "8": "The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of Armies.",
      "9": "The glory of this second house will be greater than that of the first one, says the Lord of Armies. For in this place I will provide peace, declares the Lord of Armies.",
      "10": "On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet.",
      "11": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. Ask the priests about the law.",
      "12": "If someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and he touches bread, stew, wine, oil, or any food with the fold of the garment, will that food become holy?\nThe priests answered, “No.”",
      "13": "Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from contact with a dead body touches any of these things, will that thing become unclean?”\nThe priests answered, “It will be unclean.”",
      "14": "Then Haggai responded:\nThis is how it is with this people, and this is how it is with this nation in my presence, declares the Lord, and this is how it is with all the work of their hands. Everything that they offer there is unclean.",
      "15": "Now, consider your ways carefully, from the time before stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the Lord, up to this day.",
      "16": "Through all that time, whenever anyone came to a heap of grain to get twenty measures, there were only ten. Whenever anyone came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures, there were only twenty.",
      "17": "I struck you and all the work of your hands with blight, mildew, and hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord.",
      "18": "Consider your ways carefully, from today, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, all the way back to the day when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid. Consider this.",
      "19": "Is there still seed in the barn? The vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not produced fruit.\nBut from this day on, I will bless you.",
      "20": "The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month.",
      "21": "Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah. Say, “I will shake the heavens and the earth.",
      "22": "I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms. I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations. I will overturn the chariots and those who ride in them. The horses and their riders will go down, each one by the sword of his brother.",
      "23": "On that day, declares the Lord of Armies, I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant, declares the Lord, and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord of Armies.”"
    }
  },
  "Zechariah": {
    "1": {
      "1": "In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.",
      "2": "The Lord was very angry with your forefathers.",
      "3": "Therefore, now you are to tell this people that this is what the Lord of Armies says to them.\nReturn to me, declares the Lord of Armies, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "4": "Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed, “This is what the Lord of Armies says. Return, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.”\nBut our forefathers did not listen, nor did they pay attention to me, declares the Lord.",
      "5": "Your forefathers—where are they now? And those prophets—did they go on living indefinitely?",
      "6": "But my words and my statutes, which I commanded to my servants the prophets, caught up with our forefathers, didn’t they?\nThen they returned and said, “Because of our ways and our deeds, the Lord of Armies has done to us just as he planned to do to us.”",
      "7": "On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, that is, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.",
      "8": "I saw a vision at night. In it I saw a man seated on a red horse, standing among myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.",
      "9": "So I asked, “My lord, what are these?”\nThe angel who was speaking with me said to me, “I will show you what these are.”",
      "10": "Then the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, “These are the ones the Lord sent to range throughout the earth.”",
      "11": "They reported to the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have ranged throughout the earth. Look! All the earth is resting and quiet.”",
      "12": "Then the angel of the Lord said, “Lord of Armies, how long will you withhold compassion from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with whom you were indignant these seventy years?”",
      "13": "The Lord responded with kind and compassionate words to the angel who was speaking with me.",
      "14": "So the angel who was speaking with me said to me, “Proclaim this. This is what the Lord of Armies says.”\nI am very zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion,",
      "15": "and I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are complacent. When I was angry only a little, they added to the evil.",
      "16": "Therefore, this is what the Lord says. I have turned to Jerusalem with compassionate feelings. My house will be built in Jerusalem, declares the Lord of Armies, and the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.",
      "17": "Proclaim also this: This is what the Lord of Armies says. Once again my towns will overflow with prosperity. Once again the Lord will console Zion. Once again he will choose Jerusalem.",
      "18": "Then I looked up, and I saw that there were four horns.",
      "19": "I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these?”\nHe answered me, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”",
      "20": "Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen.",
      "21": "I asked, “What are these men coming to do?”\nHe answered, “These are the horns that scattered Judah to such an extent that no one could raise his head, but these craftsmen are coming to terrify them and to knock down the horns of those nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter her people.”"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Then I looked up, and I saw a man standing there with a measuring line in his hand.",
      "2": "I asked him, “Where are you going?”\nHe answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to determine its width and its length.”",
      "3": "At that moment, when the angel who was speaking with me was about to leave, another angel came to meet him and",
      "4": "said, “Run and tell this young man that Jerusalem will be inhabited as a city without walls because of the large number of people and livestock in it.",
      "5": "For I myself will be a wall of fire around it, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory within it.”",
      "6": "Attention! This is urgent! Flee from the land of the north, declares the Lord, for I have scattered you as the four winds of the heavens, declares the Lord.",
      "7": "Attention, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon.",
      "8": "For this is what the Lord of Armies says. For the sake of his glory he sent me to the nations that plundered you, because whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.",
      "9": "Yes, I myself will swing my hand over them, and they will become plunder for their own slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of Armies has sent me.",
      "10": "Sing loudly and rejoice, daughter of Zion. Yes, look! I am coming, and I will dwell among you, declares the Lord.",
      "11": "Many nations will be joined to the Lord on that day, and they will become my people. I will dwell among you, and you will know that the Lord of Armies has sent me to you.",
      "12": "Then the Lord will take possession of Judah as his special portion of the holy soil, and he will again choose Jerusalem.",
      "13": "Keep silent before the Lord, all flesh, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Then he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan was standing at his right hand to accuse him.",
      "2": "The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Isn’t this man a burning stick plucked from a fire?”",
      "3": "Now Joshua was clothed in filthy clothing and was standing in front of the Angel.",
      "4": "Then the Angel of the Lord spoke to those who were standing in front of him: “Remove his filthy clothing.”\nThen he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken your guilt away from you, so that I may clothe you in a special robe.”",
      "5": "I said, “Let them place a clean turban on his head.” So they placed a clean turban on his head and got him dressed, while the Angel of the Lord was standing by.",
      "6": "Then the Angel of the Lord spoke solemnly to Joshua:",
      "7": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. If you will walk in my ways and carry out my ministry, then you will also govern my house and watch over my courts, and I will give you access among those who are standing here.",
      "8": "Now listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates who sit in front of you—because these men are a sign. Look! I am going to bring my servant, the Branch.",
      "9": "Look carefully at the stone that I placed in front of Joshua! On one stone with seven facets I will engrave an inscription, declares the Lord of Armies, and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day.",
      "10": "On that day, declares the Lord of Armies, each one of you will invite his neighbor to join him under his vine and under his fig tree."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and woke me up in the same way that a man is awakened from sleep.",
      "2": "He said to me, “What do you see?”\nI said, “Look! Right there, I see a lampstand, made entirely of gold, with a basin on top of it, with seven lamps on it, and there are seven channels leading to the lamps that are on top of it.",
      "3": "There are two olive trees beside it, one to the right of the bowl, and one to its left.”",
      "4": "I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these, my lord?”",
      "5": "The angel who was speaking with me answered me, “Don’t you know what these are?”\nI answered, “No, my lord.”",
      "6": "So he said to me:\nThis is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel. Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "7": "What are you, you great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a level plain. Then he will bring out the capstone with shouts of “Grace! Grace be with it!”",
      "8": "Then the word of the Lord came to me:",
      "9": "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands will also finish it. Then you will know that the Lord of Armies has sent me to you.",
      "10": "For who despises the day of small things? They will rejoice to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.\nThese seven are the eyes of the Lord that range throughout the whole earth.",
      "11": "Then I asked him, “What are these two olive trees to the right and left of the lampstand?”",
      "12": "I asked him a second time, “What are the two olive branches that are beside the two gold conduits that pour out the golden oil?”",
      "13": "He said to me, “Don’t you know what these are?”\nI said, “No, my lord.”",
      "14": "Then he said, “These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of all the earth.”"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Again I lifted up my eyes and looked. I saw a flying scroll!",
      "2": "He asked me, “What do you see?”\nI said, “I see a flying scroll! It is thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide.”",
      "3": "Then he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of the whole earth: On the basis of the curse, everyone who steals will be expelled in one direction, and everyone who swears falsely will be expelled in the other direction.",
      "4": "I will send it out, declares the Lord of Armies, and it will go to the house of the thief and to the house of the one who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in his house and consume it, both wood and stone.”",
      "5": "Then the angel who was speaking with me came forward and said to me, “Lift up your eyes, now, and see what is going out.”",
      "6": "So I asked, “What is it?”\nHe replied, “This is the basket that is going out.”\nHe also said, “This is their guilt in all the earth.”",
      "7": "As I watched, the lead cover was lifted, and I saw that there was a woman sitting inside the basket.",
      "8": "He said, “This is Wickedness.” Then he pushed her down inside the basket, and he pushed the lead weight onto its opening.",
      "9": "Then I lifted up my eyes and looked again. There were two women coming toward me! The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork. They lifted up the basket between the earth and the heavens.",
      "10": "So I said to the angel who was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the basket?”",
      "11": "He told me, “To build a house for it in the land of Shinar. When it is ready, it will be set there on its foundation.”"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Then I turned and lifted up my eyes and looked again. There were four chariots coming out from between two mountains. The mountains were made of bronze.",
      "2": "The first chariot had red horses. The second chariot had black horses.",
      "3": "The third chariot had white horses. The fourth chariot had dappled horses. All of them were powerful.",
      "4": "So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these, my lord?”",
      "5": "The angel answered me, “These are the four spirits of the heavens, going forth from their stations to present themselves to the Lord of all the earth.",
      "6": "The driver with the black horses is going toward the land of the north, and the one with the white horses is following after them, and the one with the dappled horses is going toward the land of the south.”",
      "7": "Now the powerful horses came out, and they were eager to range throughout the earth. He said, “Go! Range throughout the earth.” So they ranged throughout the earth.",
      "8": "Then he called out to me and told me, “Look! Those who are going out toward the land of the north have caused my Spirit to rest in the land of the north.”",
      "9": "The word of the Lord came to me:",
      "10": "Take an offering from the exiles—from Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, who have come from Babylon—and on that very day go into the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah.",
      "11": "Take the silver and gold and make a crown, and place it on the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest.",
      "12": "Tell him that this is what the Lord of Armies says:\nThere is a man whose name is the Branch, because he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord.",
      "13": "He is the one who will build the temple of the Lord. He will be clothed with majesty, and he will sit and rule on his throne. He will be a priest on his throne, and there will be peaceful relations between the two offices.",
      "14": "The crown will be kept in the temple as a memorial for Helem and Tobijah and Jedaiah and Hen, son of Zephaniah.",
      "15": "Those who are far away will come and build the temple of the Lord, and you will know that the Lord of Armies has sent me to you. This will happen if you carefully obey the voice of the Lord your God."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Kislev.",
      "2": "The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem Melek with their men to plead for the favor of the Lord",
      "3": "by asking the priests who were at the house of the Lord of Armies and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done these many years?”",
      "4": "Then the word of the Lord of Armies came to me:",
      "5": "Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests.\nWhen you fasted and lamented during the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted?",
      "6": "And when you eat and drink, is it not for yourselves that you eat and drink?",
      "7": "Weren’t these the words that the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and when the Negev and the Shephelah were inhabited?",
      "8": "Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah:",
      "9": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. Execute true justice. Each man is to show kindness and compassion to his brother.",
      "10": "Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless child, the foreigner living among you, or the poor. Make sure that none of you plan evil in your heart against your brother.",
      "11": "But they refused to pay attention. They turned a stubborn shoulder and covered their ears so that they would not hear.",
      "12": "They made their hearts like the hardest rock so that they would not hear the law and the words that the Lord of Armies sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. As a result, the fierce anger from the Lord of Armies was great.",
      "13": "When I called, they would not listen. So when they called, I would not listen, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "14": "I scattered them with a windstorm, among all the nations which they did not know. So the land was left desolate behind them. No one traveled back and forth through it. They made the pleasant land desolate."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "The word of the Lord of Armies came:",
      "2": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. I am zealous for Zion with great zeal, and with great wrath I am zealous for her.",
      "3": "This is what the Lord says. I will certainly return to Zion, and I will dwell in the middle of Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Lord of Armies will be called the holy mountain.",
      "4": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, all of them with canes in their hand due to old age.",
      "5": "Then the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets.",
      "6": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. Although in those days this may seem unattainable to the surviving remnant of this people, will it also seem unattainable to me? declares the Lord of Armies.",
      "7": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. Look, I will save my people from the land where the sun rises and from the land where the sun sets,",
      "8": "and I will bring them to settle in the midst of Jerusalem. They will be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.",
      "9": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. Let your hands be strong so that the temple may be built—you who in these days are listening to these words from the mouths of the prophets, who were present on the day when the foundation of the house of the Lord of Armies was laid.",
      "10": "For before those days, there was no one who could pay for workmen or for animals. There was no peace from the adversary for anyone who went out or came in, because I had set every man against his neighbor.",
      "11": "But now I will not treat the surviving remnant of this people as in earlier days, declares the Lord of Armies.",
      "12": "Sowing will take place in peace. The vine will yield its fruit. The earth will yield its produce. The sky will provide its dew. I will give all these things as a possession to the surviving remnant of this people.",
      "13": "Just as you once were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so now I will save you. You will be a blessing. Do not be afraid. Let your hands be strong.",
      "14": "For this is what the Lord of Armies says. Just as I planned to bring disaster upon you when your fathers made me angry, says the Lord of Armies, so that I did not relent,",
      "15": "so in these days I plan to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah once again. Do not be afraid.",
      "16": "These are the things that you are to do: Speak the truth to one another. Render judgments that uphold truth, justice, and peace in your gates.",
      "17": "Do not plot evil in your hearts against each other. Do not love false oaths. Indeed I hate all these things, declares the Lord.",
      "18": "The word of the Lord of Armies came to me:",
      "19": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months will become times of rejoicing, joy, and gladness for the house of Judah. Therefore, all of you are to love truth and peace.",
      "20": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. People will still come as the inhabitants of many cities.",
      "21": "Then the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, “Let us go immediately to plead for the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of Armies. I myself will go.”",
      "22": "Then many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the Lord of Armies in Jerusalem and to plead for the favor of the Lord.",
      "23": "This is what the Lord of Armies says. In those days, ten men from among the speakers of every language of the nations will take firm hold of the hem of a Jew’s garment and say, “Let us go along with you, because we have heard that God is with you.”"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "A threatening oracle.\nThe word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrak,\nand against Damascus, its resting place,\nbecause the eye of the Lord is on mankind and on all the tribes of Israel.",
      "2": "It is also against Hamath, which borders on Damascus,\nand Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise.",
      "3": "Tyre has built a stronghold for herself and has piled up silver like dust,\n        and gold like dirt from the streets.",
      "4": "Look, the Lord will seize everything she possesses\n    and throw her wealth into the sea,\n    and she will be consumed by fire.",
      "5": "Ashkelon will see it and be afraid.\n    Gaza will writhe in anguish,\n    and Ekron too, because her hopes have been dashed.\n    The kingship will perish from Gaza,\n    and Ashkelon will no longer be inhabited.",
      "6": "A mixed race will live in Ashdod,\n    and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.",
      "7": "I will remove their blood from their mouths\n    and their detestable things from between their teeth.\n    Philistia too will be a remnant for our God,\n    and it will be like a clan in Judah.\n    Ekron will be like the Jebusites.",
      "8": "I will set up camp around my house,\n    as a guard against those passing back and forth.\n    The oppressor will never again march over them,\n    because now I am watching with my own eyes.",
      "9": "Rejoice greatly, Daughter of Zion!\n    Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!\n    Look! Your King is coming to you.\n    He is righteous and brings salvation.\n    He is humble and is riding on a donkey,\n    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.",
      "10": "I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim\n    and the horse from Jerusalem.\n    The battle bow will be taken away,\n    and he will proclaim peace to the nations.\n    His kingdom will extend from sea to sea,\n    from the River to the ends of the earth.",
      "11": "As for you,\n    because of the blood of my covenant with you,\n    I will release your prisoners from the waterless pit.",
      "12": "Return to the stronghold, you prisoners who have hope.\n    This very day I declare that I will restore double to you.",
      "13": "For I will bend Judah as my bow,\n    and I will load it with Ephraim.\n    I will rouse your sons, Zion,\n    against your sons, Greece,\n    and I will make you like a strong warrior’s sword.",
      "14": "The Lord will appear above them,\n    and his arrow will go out like lightning.\n    The Lord God will sound the ram’s horn,\n    and he will go forth in the windstorms from the south.",
      "15": "The Lord of Armies will defend them,\n    and they will eat.\n    They will overpower their enemies with sling stones.\n    Then they will drink,\n    and they will be boisterous as if drunk with wine.\n    They will be filled like a sprinkling bowl used at the corners of the altar.",
      "16": "On that day the Lord their God will save them as the flock of his people.\n    For like the jewels of a crown they will shine on his land.",
      "17": "Yes, what goodness it will have! What beauty!\n    Grain will make the young men thrive,\n    and new wine will make the young women thrive."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Ask the Lord, who makes storm clouds,\n    to give rain at the right time for the spring rains,\n    and he will provide showers of rain,\n    and there will be crops in the field for everyone.",
      "2": "But household gods speak wicked deception,\n    and the omen readers see illusions.\n    They report trivial dreams\n    and give false comfort.\n    That is why the people wander like sheep.\n    They are in trouble because they have no shepherd.",
      "3": "My anger burns against the shepherds,\n    and I will punish the leaders of the flock,\n    because the Lord of Armies cares for his flock, the house of Judah,\n    and he will make them like his majestic horse in battle.",
      "4": "From him will come the cornerstone,\n    from him the tent peg,\n    from him the battle bow,\n    from him every commander.",
      "5": "Together they will be like strong warriors,\n    going out into battle, trampling the enemy into the mud of the streets.\n    They will fight, because the Lord is with them,\n    and those who ride horses will be put to shame.",
      "6": "I will strengthen the house of Judah\n    and save the house of Joseph.\n    I will restore them,\n    because I have compassion on them.\n    It will be as if I had not rejected them,\n    because I am the Lord their God, and I will answer them.",
      "7": "Then Ephraim will become like a strong warrior,\n    and their hearts will be glad as if from wine.\n    Their children will see it and be glad.\n    Their hearts will rejoice in the Lord.",
      "8": "I will whistle for them and gather them in,\n    for I have redeemed them.\n    They will be as numerous as they were in the past.",
      "9": "Though I scattered them among the peoples,\n    yet in distant places they will remember me.\n    They will survive and return with their children.",
      "10": "I will bring them back from the land of Egypt,\n    and I will gather them from Assyria.\n    I will bring them to the land of Gilead and Lebanon,\n    and there will not be enough room for them.",
      "11": "They will pass through the sea of distress,\n    but the Lord will strike the waves in the sea.\n    All the depths of the Nile will become dry.\n    The pride of Assyria will be brought low.\n    The scepter of Egypt will depart.",
      "12": "I will make them strong in the Lord,\n    and they will walk in his name, declares the Lord."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Open your doors, Lebanon,\nso that fire may devour your cedars.",
      "2": "Wail, you fir trees, because the cedars have fallen.\n    The majestic trees have been destroyed.\n    Wail, oaks of Bashan,\n    for the impenetrable forest has been felled.",
      "3": "There is a sound of shepherds wailing,\n    because their splendor has been destroyed.\n    There is a sound of young lions roaring,\n    for the dense thickets of the Jordan have been destroyed.",
      "4": "This is what the Lord, my God, said.\nShepherd the flock which is to be slaughtered.",
      "5": "Those who buy them slaughter them and are not held accountable, and those who sell them say, “Bless the Lord! I have become rich!” Their own shepherds show them no compassion,",
      "6": "because I will no longer show compassion to the people of the land, declares the Lord.\nLook, I will bring it about that each one of them will fall into the hand of his neighbor and into the hand of his king. They will crush the land, and I will rescue no one from their hands.",
      "7": "So I shepherded the flock which is to be slaughtered, especially the most afflicted of the flock. I took two staffs for myself. One I called Favor and the other Union. Then I shepherded the flock.",
      "8": "I removed three shepherds in one month. I grew very impatient with the flock, and they really detested me.",
      "9": "So I said, “I will not shepherd you. Whatever is dying, let it die. Whatever is being destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who remain devour one another’s flesh.”",
      "10": "I took my staff, Favor, and I broke it in two, to cancel my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.",
      "11": "So it was cancelled on that day, and the most miserable of the flock, who were watching me, knew that this was the word of the Lord.",
      "12": "Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, pay me my wages. But if it does not, withhold them.” So they weighed out thirty pieces of silver as my wages.",
      "13": "Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, this magnificent price at which they valued me.” So I took the thirty pieces of silver, and I threw them into the House of the Lord, to the potter.",
      "14": "Then I broke my second staff, Union, to break the brotherhood between the house of Judah and the house of Israel.",
      "15": "Then the Lord said to me:\n    Take up once again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.",
      "16": "Watch closely. I myself am going to raise up a shepherd in the land, one who will pay no attention to those who are being lost, who will not search for the scattered, who will not heal the injured, who will not nourish those who remain standing, but who nevertheless will devour the meat of the fat sheep and even tear off their hoofs.",
      "17": "Woe to my worthless shepherd,\n        the one who deserts the flock.\n        May the sword strike his arm and his right eye!\n        May his arm wither away to nothing,\n        and his right eye become completely blind."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "An oracle, the word of the Lord concerning Israel. This is what the Lord declares, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of a man within him:",
      "2": "Look! I will make Jerusalem a cup that causes all the surrounding peoples to stagger. When there is a siege against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah.",
      "3": "On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will be seriously injured, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.",
      "4": "On that day, declares the Lord, I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness. But I will keep my eye on the house of Judah, and I will strike with blindness every horse that belongs to the other peoples.",
      "5": "Each of the leaders of the clans of Judah will say in his heart, “The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength through the Lord of Armies, their God.”",
      "6": "On that day I will make the leaders of the clans of Judah like a firepot that ignites the woods, and like a flaming torch among the sheaves. They will devour all the surrounding peoples, on the right and on the left. The people of Jerusalem will once again live in their own place—in Jerusalem!",
      "7": "The Lord also will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will not become greater than that of Judah.",
      "8": "On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Anyone among them who is feeble will be like David on that day, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the Lord, before them.",
      "9": "On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.",
      "10": "“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace, who pleads for mercy. Then they will look at me, the one they have pierced.”\nThey will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child. They will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves over his firstborn.",
      "11": "On that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, as great as the mourning for Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.",
      "12": "The land will mourn, each family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves;",
      "13": "the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves;",
      "14": "all the families that remain, each family by itself, and their wives by themselves."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "On that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.",
      "2": "In that day, declares the Lord of Armies, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will also remove the prophets and the impure spirit from the land.",
      "3": "If anyone still prophesies, his father and his mother who gave birth to him will tell him, “You shall not live, because you have spoken lies in the name of the Lord!” Then his father and his mother who gave birth to him will stab him when he prophesies.",
      "4": "In that day each of those prophets will be ashamed of his vision. When he prophesies, he will not put on a prophet’s garment made of hair in order to deceive.",
      "5": "Instead he will say, “I am not a prophet. I have been a tiller of the soil since my youth, when a man bought me.”",
      "6": "Someone will ask him, “What are these wounds on your body?” He will reply, “I received these wounds in the house of my friends.”",
      "7": "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,\n    and against the man who is my associate, declares the Lord of Armies.\n    Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered,\n    and I will turn my hand against the little ones.",
      "8": "This will take place in the whole land, declares the Lord:\n    Two thirds of those who remain in it will be cut off and perish,\n    but one third will be left in it.",
      "9": "I will put that third into the fire,\n    and I will refine them as silver is refined,\n    and I will test them as gold is tested.\n    They will call on my name, and I will answer them.\n    I will say, “This is my people.”\n    And they will say, “The Lord is my God.”"
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Listen! A day is coming for the Lord, when the plunder taken from you will be divided in your presence.",
      "2": "I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be taken, the houses plundered, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.",
      "3": "Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a day of battle.",
      "4": "On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. The Mount of Olives will be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley. Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and the other half toward the south.",
      "5": "You will flee through my mountain valley, because the mountain valley will reach to Azal. Yes, you will flee, just as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones will come with him.",
      "6": "On that day there will be no light. The light sources will freeze over.",
      "7": "It will be a unique day—known to the Lord—neither day nor night. But at evening time there will be light.",
      "8": "On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the eastern sea and half of it toward the western sea. It will continue to flow in summer and in winter.",
      "9": "The Lord will be King over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be the one, and his name will be the one.",
      "10": "The whole land will be changed into a plain, from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be elevated and remain in her place, from the Benjamin Gate to the place of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses.",
      "11": "It will be inhabited, and it will no longer be devoted to destruction. Jerusalem will dwell in security.",
      "12": "This will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have waged war against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are standing on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.",
      "13": "On that day there will be a great panic from the Lord among them. They will seize each other by the hand, and the hand of each one will be raised up against his neighbor.",
      "14": "Even Judah will fight against Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected: gold, silver, and clothing in great abundance.",
      "15": "In the same way a plague will afflict the horses, the mules, the camels, the donkeys, and all the animals that will be in those camps.",
      "16": "Then every survivor who is left from all the nations that went up against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of Armies, and to celebrate the Festival of Shelters.",
      "17": "But if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Armies, no rain will fall on them.",
      "18": "If the family of clans from Egypt will not go up and enter in, they will be struck by the plague that the Lord used to strike the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Shelters.",
      "19": "This will be the punishment for Egypt as well as the punishment for all the nations that will not go up to celebrate the Festival of Shelters.",
      "20": "In that day this will be inscribed on the bells of the horses: “Holy to the Lord.” The cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like the sprinkling bowls in front of the altar.",
      "21": "Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of Armies, and all who sacrifice will come and take some of them and cook in them. In that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Armies."
    }
  },
  "Malachi": {
    "1": {
      "1": "An oracle. The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.",
      "2": "I have loved you, says the Lord.\nBut you say, “How have you loved us?”\nWas not Esau Jacob’s brother? declares the Lord. I loved Jacob,",
      "3": "but I hated Esau. I turned Esau’s mountains into a desolate place, and I turned the territory he possessed over to the wild jackals.",
      "4": "Edom will certainly say, “We have been beaten down, but we will return, and we will rebuild the ruins.”\nThis is what the Lord of Armies says. They may rebuild, but I will tear it down. Edom will be called a wicked territory, and the Edomites will be called the people whom the Lord has denounced forever.",
      "5": "Your eyes will see this, and you will say, “The Lord is great—even beyond the border of Israel!”",
      "6": "A son honors his father. A servant honors his master. If I am a father, where is my honor? If I am a master, where is the reverence owed to me? This is what the Lord of Armies says to you. The priests are the ones who despise my name.\nYou say, “How have we despised your name?”",
      "7": "You despise my name by bringing defiled food to my altar.\nBut you say, “How have we defiled you?”\nYou defile me when you say, “The Lord’s table deserves no respect.”",
      "8": "When you bring a blind animal as a sacrifice, isn’t that evil? When you bring something lame and sick, isn’t that evil? Try bringing that to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he receive you with favor? This is what the Lord of Armies says.",
      "9": "Now ask for God’s favor so that he may be gracious to us.\nWith offerings like this from your hand, will he receive you with favor? This is what the Lord of Armies says.",
      "10": "I wish there was someone among you who would shut the temple doors so you would not keep lighting useless fires on my altar! I find nothing pleasing about you, says the Lord of Armies. I am not pleased with an offering from your hand.",
      "11": "Yes, from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, my name will be great among the nations! In every place incense and a pure offering will be presented to my name, because my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "12": "But you are profaning my name when you say, “The Lord’s table is polluted, and we despise the things offered on it, the food that is on it.”",
      "13": "You also say, “What drudgery!” and you snort at it with contempt, says the Lord of Armies. You bring something torn, something lame, something sick, and present it as an offering. Should I be pleased with something like that from your hand? says the Lord.",
      "14": "Cursed is the cheater who vows to offer a male animal from his flock, but then he sacrifices a defective animal to the Lord instead. Indeed, I am a great king, says the Lord of Armies, and my name will be feared among the nations."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Now, you priests, this commandment is for you.",
      "2": "If you do not listen, if you do not set your heart on giving glory to my name, says the Lord of Armies, then I will send the curse against you. I will curse your blessings. In fact, I have already cursed your offerings because you are not putting your heart into it.",
      "3": "Yes, I will rebuke your offspring. I will smear animal bowels and their contents on your faces, the bowels produced by your festivals, and you will be hauled off with them.",
      "4": "You will know that I sent you this commandment, so that my covenant with Levi may continue, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "5": "My covenant with him was life and peace, which I gave to him. It was a covenant of reverence, and he revered me. He respected my name.",
      "6": "The true law was in his mouth, and no injustice was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness. He turned many away from guilt.",
      "7": "The lips of a priest should be guardians of knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth because he is a messenger of the Lord of Armies.",
      "8": "But you priests have turned from the way. You have made many people stumble in regard to the law. You have ruined the covenant with Levi, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "9": "So I have made you despised and humiliated in the view of all the people, because you are not keeping my ways but are showing favoritism in carrying out the law.",
      "10": "Don’t we all have one Father? Hasn’t one God created us? Why then do we violate our vows to each other, polluting the covenant of our fathers?",
      "11": "Judah has acted unfaithfully. A detestable thing was done in Israel and in Jerusalem when Judah polluted the holy place of the Lord, which the Lord loves. Judah is married to the daughter of a foreign god.",
      "12": "May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any man who does this, both the one who is awake and the one who answers, even if he brings an offering to the Lord of Armies!",
      "13": "This is the second thing you do: You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and crying, because there is no longer any favorable response to your offering, and God is not pleased with anything from your hand.",
      "14": "So you ask, “Why is this happening?” This is why—because the Lord is a witness in the case between you and the wife you married when you were young, because you have betrayed her—though she was your partner, the wife with whom you made a covenant!",
      "15": "No one has done this who has a remnant of the Spirit. And why one? He is seeking offspring from God. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not act unfaithfully against the wife you married when you were young.",
      "16": "He hates divorce! That is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. He hates it when a person wears violence as a garment. That is what the Lord of Armies says. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be unfaithful.",
      "17": "You have made the Lord weary with your words. You say, “How have we made him weary?” Whenever you say that anyone who does evil is good in the Lord’s eyes or that the Lord takes pleasure in evildoers. Or whenever you say, “Where is the God of justice?”"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Look! I am sending my messenger! He will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord, whom you are seeking, will come to his temple! The Messenger of the Covenant, in whom you delight, will surely come, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "2": "But who can endure the day when he comes? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire, like launderers bleach!",
      "3": "He will be seated like a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and like silver. They will belong to the Lord and bring him an offering in righteousness.",
      "4": "Judah and Jerusalem’s offerings will be pleasing to the Lord as they were in the days of old, in years long ago.",
      "5": "I will approach you to judge you. I will be quick to give testimony against those who practice occult arts, those who commit adultery, those who swear false oaths, those who cheat workers out of their wages, those who wrong a widow and a fatherless child, those who turn away a resident alien—all those who do not fear me, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "6": "Certainly I, the Lord, do not change. That is why you, sons of Jacob, have not come to an end.",
      "7": "Since 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 Armies.\nYou say, “In what way should we return?”",
      "8": "Will a man rob God? You are robbing me!\nYou say, “How have we robbed you?”\nIn regard to the tithe and the special offering.",
      "9": "You are being cursed since all of you, the whole nation, are robbing me.",
      "10": "Bring the complete tithe to the storehouse so that there may be food in my house. Just test me in this, says the Lord of Armies. See whether I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour down blessing on you, until there is more than enough.",
      "11": "I will restrain the devouring swarm so that it will not destroy your produce from your soil. Your vine in the field will not be without fruit, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "12": "All the nations will call you blessed, because you will be a delightful land, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "13": "Your words against me are harsh, says the Lord.\nYou ask, “How have we spoken against you?”",
      "14": "You say, “Serving God is pointless. What have we gained by carefully keeping his requirements and by walking around like mourners before the Lord of Armies?",
      "15": "Now we will call the arrogant blessed. Even evildoers are built up. They even test God and get away with it.”",
      "16": "Then those who fear the Lord spoke with each other. The Lord gave them his attention and listened. A book of remembrance was written in front of him for those who fear the Lord and have regard for his name.",
      "17": "They will be mine, says the Lord of Armies, on the day I make them my treasured possession. I will spare them just as a man spares his son who serves him.",
      "18": "Then you will again see the distinction between a righteous person and a wicked person, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Look! The day is coming, burning like a blast furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble. The day that is coming will set them on fire, says the Lord of Armies, a day that will not leave behind a root or branch for them.",
      "2": "But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise, and there will be healing in its wings. You will go out and jump around like calves from the stall.",
      "3": "You will trample the wicked. They will surely be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I take action, says the Lord of Armies.",
      "4": "Remember the law of my servant Moses, which I commanded to him at Horeb to serve as statutes and judgments over all Israel.",
      "5": "Look! I am going to send Elijah the prophet to you before the great and fearful day of the Lord comes!",
      "6": "He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with complete destruction."
    }
  },
  "Matthew": {
    "1": {
      "1": "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.",
      "2": "Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.",
      "3": "Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron was the father of Ram.",
      "4": "Ram was the father of Amminadab. Amminadab was the father of Nahshon. Nahshon was the father of Salmon.",
      "5": "Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed was the father of Jesse.",
      "6": "Jesse was the father of King David.\nDavid was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.",
      "7": "Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam was the father of Abijah. Abijah was the father of Asa.",
      "8": "Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat was the father of Joram. Joram was the father of Uzziah.",
      "9": "Uzziah was the father of Jotham. Jotham was the father of Ahaz. Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah.",
      "10": "Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh. Manasseh was the father of Amon. Amon was the father of Josiah.",
      "11": "Josiah was the father of Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the Babylonian exile.",
      "12": "After the Babylonian exile, Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel.",
      "13": "Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud. Abiud was the father of Eliakim. Eliakim was the father of Azor.",
      "14": "Azor was the father of Zadok. Zadok was the father of Achim. Achim was the father of Eliud.",
      "15": "Eliud was the father of Eleazar. Eleazar was the father of Matthan. Matthan was the father of Jacob.",
      "16": "Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom Jesus was born (who is called Christ).",
      "17": "So altogether there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the Babylonian exile, and fourteen generations from the Babylonian exile to Christ.",
      "18": "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. His mother, Mary, was pledged in marriage to Joseph. Before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.",
      "19": "Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her. So he decided to divorce her privately.",
      "20": "But as he was considering these things, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.",
      "21": "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”",
      "22": "All this happened to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:",
      "23": "“Look, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son. And they will name him Immanuel,” which means, “God with us.”",
      "24": "When Joseph woke up from his sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him. He took Mary home as his wife,",
      "25": "but he was not intimate with her until she gave birth to her firstborn son. And he named him Jesus."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, when Herod was king, Wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem. They asked,",
      "2": "“Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”",
      "3": "When King Herod heard this, he was alarmed, and all Jerusalem with him.",
      "4": "He gathered together all the people’s chief priests and experts in the law. He asked them where the Christ was to be born.",
      "5": "They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, because this was written through the prophet:",
      "6": "You, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are certainly not least among the rulers of Judah: because out of you will come a ruler, who will shepherd my people, Israel.”",
      "7": "Then Herod secretly summoned the Wise Men and found out from them exactly when the star had appeared.",
      "8": "He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you find him, report to me, so that I may also go and worship him.”",
      "9": "After listening to the king, they went on their way. Then the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them, until it stood still over the place where the child was.",
      "10": "When they saw the star, they rejoiced with overwhelming joy.",
      "11": "After they went into the house and saw the child with Mary, his mother, they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.",
      "12": "Since they had been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route.",
      "13": "After the Wise Men were gone, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to Joseph in a dream. He said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, because Herod will search for the child in order to kill him.”",
      "14": "Joseph got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt.",
      "15": "He stayed there until the death of Herod. This happened to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”",
      "16": "When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Wise Men, he was furious. He issued orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding countryside, from two years old and under. This was in keeping with the exact time he had learned from the Wise Men.",
      "17": "Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:",
      "18": "A voice was heard in Ramah,\n    weeping and great mourning,\n    Rachel weeping for her children,\n    and she refused to be comforted,\n    because they are no more.",
      "19": "After Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. The angel said,",
      "20": "“Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to kill the child are dead.”",
      "21": "Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.",
      "22": "But when he heard that Archelaus, Herod’s son, had succeeded his father as ruler in Judea, he was afraid to go there. Since he had been warned in a dream, he went to the region of Galilee.",
      "23": "When he arrived there, he settled in a city called Nazareth. So what was spoken through the prophets was fulfilled: “He will be called a Nazarene.”"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "In those days, John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying,",
      "2": "“Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is near!”",
      "3": "Yes, this is he of whom this was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:\nA voice of one crying out in the wilderness,\n“Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”",
      "4": "John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.",
      "5": "Then Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him.",
      "6": "They were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins.",
      "7": "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?",
      "8": "Therefore produce fruit in keeping with repentance!",
      "9": "Do not think of saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.",
      "10": "Already the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.",
      "11": "I baptize you with water for repentance. But the one who comes after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.",
      "12": "His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”",
      "13": "Then Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John at the Jordan.",
      "14": "But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?”",
      "15": "But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, because it is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John let him.",
      "16": "After Jesus was baptized, he immediately went up out of the water. Suddenly, the heavens were opened for him! He saw the Spirit of God, descending like a dove and landing on him,",
      "17": "<J>and a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.”</J>"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.",
      "2": "After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.",
      "3": "The Tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.”",
      "4": "<J>But Jesus answered, “It is written:\nMan shall not live by bread alone,\nbut by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.”</J>",
      "5": "Then the Devil took him into the holy city. He placed him on the pinnacle of the temple,",
      "6": "and he said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written:\nHe will command his angels concerning you. And they will lift you up in their hands,\nso that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”",
      "7": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Again, it is written:\nYou shall not test the Lord your God.”</J>",
      "8": "Again the Devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.",
      "9": "He said to him, “I will give you all of these things, if you will bow down and worship me.”",
      "10": "<J>Then Jesus said to him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written:\nWorship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”</J>",
      "11": "Then the Devil left him, and just then angels came and served him.",
      "12": "When Jesus heard that John was put in prison, he withdrew into Galilee.",
      "13": "He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.",
      "14": "He did this to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:",
      "15": "Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,\n    along the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,\n    Galilee of the Gentiles,",
      "16": "the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light,\n    and on those dwelling in the region and the shadow of death a light has dawned.",
      "17": "<J>From that time, Jesus began to preach: “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is near.”</J>",
      "18": "As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, since they were fishermen.",
      "19": "<J>He said to them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”</J>",
      "20": "They immediately left their nets and followed him.",
      "21": "Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. Jesus called them.",
      "22": "Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.",
      "23": "Jesus traveled throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness among the people.",
      "24": "News about him spread throughout all Syria. People brought to him all who were ill with various diseases and suffering severe pains, the demon-possessed, those who experienced seizures, and the paralyzed. Then he healed them.",
      "25": "Large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "<J>When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up onto a mountain. When he sat down, his disciples came to him.</J>",
      "2": "<J>He opened his mouth and began to teach them. He said these things:</J>",
      "3": "<J>“Blessed are the poor in spirit,\n    because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Blessed are those who mourn,\n    because they will be comforted.</J>",
      "5": "<J>Blessed are the gentle,\n    because they will inherit the earth.</J>",
      "6": "<J>Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,\n    because they will be filled.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Blessed are the merciful,\n    because they will receive mercy.</J>",
      "8": "<J>Blessed are the pure in heart,\n    because they will see God.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Blessed are the peacemakers,\n    because they will be called sons of God.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,\n    because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.</J>",
      "11": "<J>“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.</J>",
      "12": "<J>Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. In fact, that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”</J>",
      "13": "<J>“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its flavor, how will it become salty again? Then it is no good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.</J>",
      "14": "<J>You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden.</J>",
      "15": "<J>People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket. No, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.</J>",
      "16": "<J>In the same way let your light shine in people’s presence, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.</J>",
      "17": "<J>“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy them but to fulfill them.</J>",
      "18": "<J>Amen I tell you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not even the smallest letter, or even part of a letter, will in any way pass away from the Law until everything is fulfilled.</J>",
      "19": "<J>So whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.</J>",
      "20": "<J>Indeed I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and experts in the law, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.</J>",
      "21": "<J>“You have heard that it was said to people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.’</J>",
      "22": "<J>But I tell you that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be subject to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ will have to answer to the Sanhedrin. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of hell fire.</J>",
      "23": "<J>“So if you are about to offer your gift at the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you,</J>",
      "24": "<J>leave your gift there in front of the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother. Then come and offer your gift.</J>",
      "25": "<J>“If someone accuses you, reach an agreement with him quickly, while you are with him on the way. Otherwise your accuser may bring you to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Amen I tell you: You will never get out until you have paid the last penny.</J>",
      "27": "<J>“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’</J>",
      "28": "<J>but I tell you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.</J>",
      "29": "<J>If your right eye causes you to fall into sin, pluck it out and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.</J>",
      "30": "<J>If your right hand causes you to fall into sin, cut it off and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.</J>",
      "31": "<J>“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’</J>",
      "32": "<J>But I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, causes her to be regarded as an adulteress. And whoever marries the divorced woman is regarded as an adulterer.</J>",
      "33": "<J>“Again you have heard that it was said to people long ago, ‘Do not break your oaths, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.’</J>",
      "34": "<J>But I tell you, do not swear at all: not by heaven, because it is God’s throne;</J>",
      "35": "<J>and not by earth, because it is his footstool; and not by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King.</J>",
      "36": "<J>And do not swear by your own head, since you cannot make one hair white or black.</J>",
      "37": "<J>Instead, let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes,’ or ‘No, no.’ Whatever goes beyond these is from the Evil One.</J>",
      "38": "<J>“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’</J>",
      "39": "<J>But I tell you, do not resist an evildoer. If someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.</J>",
      "40": "<J>If anyone wants to sue you to take away your shirt, give him your coat too.</J>",
      "41": "<J>Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.</J>",
      "42": "<J>Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.</J>",
      "43": "<J>“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’</J>",
      "44": "<J>But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,</J>",
      "45": "<J>so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.</J>",
      "46": "<J>Indeed if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even tax collectors do that, don’t they?</J>",
      "47": "<J>If you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the unbelievers do that?</J>",
      "48": "<J>So then, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”</J>"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "<J>“Be careful that you do not do your righteous works in front of people, so that they will notice. If you do, you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.</J>",
      "2": "<J>So whenever you perform acts of mercy, do not sound a trumpet for yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be praised by people. Amen I tell you: They have received their reward.</J>",
      "3": "<J>Instead, when you perform acts of mercy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Then your acts of mercy will be in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.</J>",
      "5": "<J>“Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by people. Amen I tell you: They have received their reward.</J>",
      "6": "<J>But whenever you pray, go into your private room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what others cannot see, will reward you.</J>",
      "7": "<J>“And when you pray, do not babble like the heathen, since they think that they will be heard because of their many words.</J>",
      "8": "<J>However do not be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask him.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Therefore pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Give us today our daily bread.</J>",
      "12": "<J>Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.</J>",
      "13": "<J>Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’</J>",
      "14": "<J>“Indeed if you forgive people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.</J>",
      "15": "<J>But if you do not forgive people their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.</J>",
      "16": "<J>“Whenever you fast, do not make yourself look sad like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces to show everyone that they are fasting. Amen I tell you: They have received their reward.</J>",
      "17": "<J>But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,</J>",
      "18": "<J>so that it is not apparent to people that you are fasting, but only to your Father who sees what is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.</J>",
      "19": "<J>“Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.</J>",
      "20": "<J>But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.</J>",
      "21": "<J>Because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.</J>",
      "22": "<J>“The eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.</J>",
      "23": "<J>But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!</J>",
      "24": "<J>“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.</J>",
      "25": "<J>“For this reason I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?</J>",
      "26": "<J>Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?</J>",
      "27": "<J>“Which of you can add a single moment to his lifespan by worrying?</J>",
      "28": "<J>Why do you worry about clothing? Consider how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin,</J>",
      "29": "<J>but I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these.</J>",
      "30": "<J>If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not clothe you even more, you of little faith?</J>",
      "31": "<J>“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’</J>",
      "32": "<J>For the unbelievers chase after all these things. Certainly your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.</J>",
      "33": "<J>But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.</J>",
      "34": "<J>So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”</J>"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "<J>“Stop judging, so that you will not be judged.</J>",
      "2": "<J>For with whatever standard you judge, you will be judged, and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.</J>",
      "3": "<J>Why do you focus on the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye?</J>",
      "4": "<J>How will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ when, in fact, you have a beam in your own eye?</J>",
      "5": "<J>Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.</J>",
      "6": "<J>“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces.</J>",
      "7": "<J>“Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened for you.</J>",
      "8": "<J>For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, would give him a stone?</J>",
      "10": "<J>Or who, if his son asks for a fish, would give him a snake?</J>",
      "11": "<J>Then if you know how to give good gifts to your children, even though you are evil, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!</J>",
      "12": "<J>“So do for others whatever you want people to do for you, because this is the Law and the Prophets.</J>",
      "13": "<J>“Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it.</J>",
      "14": "<J>How narrow is the gate, and how difficult is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it.</J>",
      "15": "<J>“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.</J>",
      "16": "<J>By their fruit you will recognize them. You do not gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do you?</J>",
      "17": "<J>So then, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit.</J>",
      "18": "<J>A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.</J>",
      "19": "<J>Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.</J>",
      "20": "<J>So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.</J>",
      "21": "<J>Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.</J>",
      "22": "<J>Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?’</J>",
      "23": "<J>Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’</J>",
      "24": "<J>“Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on bedrock.</J>",
      "25": "<J>The rain came down, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house. But it did not fall, because it was founded on bedrock.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Everyone who hears these words of mine but does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.</J>",
      "27": "<J>The rain came down, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—it was completely destroyed.”</J>",
      "28": "<J>When Jesus finished speaking these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching,</J>",
      "29": "<J>because he taught them as one who had authority, and not like their experts in the law.</J>"
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him.",
      "2": "Just then, a leper came to him and bowed down to him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”",
      "3": "Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean.” Immediately he was healed of his leprosy.",
      "4": "<J>Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one. Instead, go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”</J>",
      "5": "When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him and pleaded with him,",
      "6": "“Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed and suffering terribly.”",
      "7": "<J>Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”</J>",
      "8": "The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof. But only say the word, and my servant will be healed.",
      "9": "For I am also a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”",
      "10": "<J>When Jesus heard this, he marveled. He said to those who were following him, “Amen I tell you: I have not found such great faith in anyone in Israel.</J>",
      "11": "<J>I tell you that many will come from the east and the west and will recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.</J>",
      "12": "<J>But the children of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”</J>",
      "13": "<J>Jesus said to the centurion, “Go. Let it be done for you as you have believed.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.</J>",
      "14": "When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed with a fever.",
      "15": "He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She got up and began to serve him.",
      "16": "When evening came, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed. He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.",
      "17": "This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He took up our weaknesses and carried away our diseases.”",
      "18": "When Jesus saw a large crowd gathering around him, he gave orders to go over to the other shore.",
      "19": "Then an expert in the law came and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”",
      "20": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”</J>",
      "21": "Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”",
      "22": "<J>But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”</J>",
      "23": "When he got into a boat, his disciples followed him.",
      "24": "Suddenly a terrible storm came up on the sea, so that their boat was covered by the waves. But Jesus was sleeping.",
      "25": "They went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to die!”",
      "26": "<J>He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a complete calm.</J>",
      "27": "The men were amazed, saying, “What kind of a man is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”",
      "28": "When he arrived at the other side, in the region of the Gergesenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him there. They were very dangerous, so that nobody could pass that way.",
      "29": "Suddenly they cried out, “What do we have to do with you, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”",
      "30": "There was a large herd of pigs feeding some distance away from them.",
      "31": "The demons begged him, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”",
      "32": "<J>He told them, “Go!”\nSo the demons came out of the men and went into the pigs. Immediately the whole herd of pigs rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the water.</J>",
      "33": "Those who were feeding the pigs fled and went into the town. They reported everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men.",
      "34": "Then the entire town came out to meet Jesus. When they saw him, they begged him to leave their region."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Jesus got into a boat, crossed over, and came to his own town.",
      "2": "<J>There people brought to him a man who was paralyzed, lying on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven.”</J>",
      "3": "Then some of the experts in the law said among themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”",
      "4": "<J>Since Jesus knew their thoughts, he said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?</J>",
      "5": "<J>Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?</J>",
      "6": "<J>But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” he then said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”</J>",
      "7": "The man got up and went home.",
      "8": "When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.",
      "9": "<J>As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting in the tax collector’s booth. He said to him, “Follow me.” Matthew got up and followed him.</J>",
      "10": "As Jesus was reclining at the table in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were actually there too, eating with Jesus and his disciples.",
      "11": "When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”",
      "12": "<J>When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “The healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.</J>",
      "13": "<J>Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ In fact, I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”</J>",
      "14": "Then John’s disciples came to him and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast at all?”",
      "15": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Can the attendants of the bridegroom mourn while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.</J>",
      "16": "No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, because the patch would tear away from the garment, and the hole would be made even worse.",
      "17": "And people do not pour new wine into old wineskins. If they did, the skins would burst, the wine would be spilled, and the skins would be ruined. Instead they pour new wine into fresh wineskins. By doing that, both are preserved.”",
      "18": "As he was saying these things to them, there was a ruler who came, bowed down to him, and said, “My daughter has just died. But come, place your hand on her, and she will live.”",
      "19": "Jesus got up and followed him, as did his disciples.",
      "20": "Just then, a woman who had been suffering from chronic bleeding for twelve years came up from behind and touched the fringe of his garment.",
      "21": "For she had been saying to herself, “If I just touch his garment, I will be healed.”",
      "22": "<J>When Jesus turned around and saw her, he said, “Take heart, daughter! Your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment.</J>",
      "23": "When Jesus came into the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd,",
      "24": "<J>he said to them, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but is sleeping.”\nBut they laughed at him.</J>",
      "25": "When the crowd was sent out of the house, Jesus went in, took the girl by the hand, and she was raised.",
      "26": "News of this went out through the entire region.",
      "27": "As Jesus left that place, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”",
      "28": "<J>When he entered the house, the blind men came to him. Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”\nThey told him, “Yes, Lord.”</J>",
      "29": "<J>Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done for you.”</J>",
      "30": "<J>And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus warned them emphatically, “See to it that no one learns about this.”</J>",
      "31": "But they went out and spread the word about him throughout that entire region.",
      "32": "Just as they were leaving, people brought to him a demon-possessed man who could not talk.",
      "33": "After the demon was driven out, the mute man spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel!”",
      "34": "But the Pharisees said, “He drives out demons by the ruler of demons.”",
      "35": "Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness.",
      "36": "When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were troubled and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd.",
      "37": "<J>Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.</J>",
      "38": "<J>Therefore pray that the Lord of the harvest will send out workers into his harvest.”</J>"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Jesus called his twelve disciples to himself and gave them authority to drive out unclean spirits and to heal every disease and every sickness.",
      "2": "These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee and his brother John;",
      "3": "Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;",
      "4": "Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.",
      "5": "<J>Jesus sent these twelve out and commanded them, “Do not go among the Gentiles, and do not enter any town of the Samaritans.</J>",
      "6": "<J>Go instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.</J>",
      "7": "<J>As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near!’</J>",
      "8": "<J>Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Do not take gold, silver, or bronze in your money belts.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Do not take a bag for the journey, or two coats, sandals, or a staff, because the worker deserves his support.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Whenever you enter a town or village, find out who is worthy and stay there until you leave.</J>",
      "12": "<J>As you enter the household, give it your greeting.</J>",
      "13": "<J>If the household is worthy, let your peace rest on it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.</J>",
      "14": "<J>If anyone does not receive you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet as you leave that house or that town.</J>",
      "15": "<J>Amen I tell you: It will be more bearable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.</J>",
      "16": "<J>“Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.</J>",
      "17": "<J>Be on guard against people. They will hand you over to councils, and they will whip you in their synagogues.</J>",
      "18": "<J>You will be brought into the presence of governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.</J>",
      "19": "<J>Whenever they hand you over, do not be worried about how you will respond or what you will say, because what you say will be given to you in that hour.</J>",
      "20": "<J>In fact you will not be the ones speaking, but the Spirit of your Father will be speaking through you.</J>",
      "21": "<J>“Brother will hand over his brother to death, and a father will do the same with his child. Children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.</J>",
      "22": "<J>You will be hated by all people because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.</J>",
      "23": "<J>And when they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. Amen I tell you: You will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.</J>",
      "24": "<J>“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor is a servant above his master.</J>",
      "25": "<J>It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If the master of the house was called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!</J>",
      "26": "<J>“So do not be afraid of them, because there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, and nothing hidden that will not be made known.</J>",
      "27": "<J>What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.</J>",
      "28": "<J>Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.</J>",
      "29": "<J>“Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without the knowledge and consent of your Father.</J>",
      "30": "<J>And even the hairs of your head are all numbered.</J>",
      "31": "<J>So do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.</J>",
      "32": "<J>“Everyone who confesses me before others, I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven.</J>",
      "33": "<J>But whoever denies me before others, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.</J>",
      "34": "<J>“Do not think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.</J>",
      "35": "<J>For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.</J>",
      "36": "<J>A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.</J>",
      "37": "<J>“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.</J>",
      "38": "<J>Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.</J>",
      "39": "<J>Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.</J>",
      "40": "<J>“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.</J>",
      "41": "<J>Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. Whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward.</J>",
      "42": "<J>Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink because he is my disciple—Amen I tell you—he will never lose his reward.”</J>"
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he moved on from there to teach and preach in their towns.",
      "2": "While John was in prison, he heard about the things Christ was doing. He sent two of his disciples",
      "3": "to ask him, “Are you the Coming One or should we wait for someone else?”",
      "4": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Go, report to John what you hear and see:</J>",
      "5": "<J>The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the gospel is preached to the poor.</J>",
      "6": "<J>Blessed is the one who does not take offense at me.”</J>",
      "7": "<J>As these two were leaving, Jesus began to talk to the crowds about John. “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?</J>",
      "8": "<J>What did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? No, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.</J>",
      "9": "<J>So what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you! And he is much more than a prophet.</J>",
      "10": "<J>This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’</J>",
      "11": "<J>Amen I tell you: Among those born of women there has not appeared anyone greater than John the Baptist. Yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.</J>",
      "12": "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been advancing forcefully and forceful people are seizing it.",
      "13": "In fact, all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.",
      "14": "If you are willing to receive it, he is the Elijah who was to come.",
      "15": "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.",
      "16": "“To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces who call to others,",
      "17": "‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not mourn.’",
      "18": "John did not come eating or drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’",
      "19": "But the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘See, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her actions.”",
      "20": "Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles were performed, because they did not repent.",
      "21": "<J>“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles which were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.</J>",
      "22": "<J>But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.</J>",
      "23": "<J>You, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to heaven? No, you will go down to hell. For if the miracles performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.</J>",
      "24": "<J>But I tell you that it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”</J>",
      "25": "<J>At that time, Jesus continued, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from clever and learned people and have revealed them to little children.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Yes, Father, because this was pleasing to you.</J>",
      "27": "<J>Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him.</J>",
      "28": "<J>“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.</J>",
      "29": "<J>Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.</J>",
      "30": "<J>For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”</J>"
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick heads of grain and eat them.",
      "2": "But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, what your disciples are doing is unlawful on the Sabbath.”",
      "3": "But he said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?",
      "4": "He entered God’s house and ate the Bread of the Presence, which was lawful only for the priests to eat, not for him or his companions.",
      "5": "Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath days, the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?",
      "6": "<J>But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Yet if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.</J>",
      "8": "<J>For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”</J>",
      "9": "Going on from there, he went into their synagogue.",
      "10": "A man was there who had a withered hand. Looking for a way to accuse Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on Sabbath days?”",
      "11": "<J>He said to them, “Who among you, if you have one sheep that falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?</J>",
      "12": "<J>How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”</J>",
      "13": "<J>Then he told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was restored, as healthy as the other one.</J>",
      "14": "But the Pharisees went out and plotted against him, considering how they might put him to death.",
      "15": "Since Jesus was aware of this, he withdrew from that place. Large crowds followed him and he healed them all.",
      "16": "He ordered them not to tell others about him.",
      "17": "This happened to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet:",
      "18": "Here is my servant whom I have chosen,\n    the one I love, in whom I am well pleased.\n    I will put my Spirit on him,\n    and he will proclaim justice to the nations.",
      "19": "He will not quarrel or cry out,\n    and no one will hear his voice in the streets.",
      "20": "A bruised reed he will not break.\n    A smoldering wick he will not put out,\n    until he leads justice to victory.",
      "21": "And in his name the nations will hope.",
      "22": "Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and unable to speak was brought to him. Jesus healed him so that he was able to speak and to see.",
      "23": "All the people were amazed and said, “Can this be the Son of David?”",
      "24": "But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”",
      "25": "<J>Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and every town or household divided against itself will not stand.</J>",
      "26": "If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?",
      "27": "<J>Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges.</J>",
      "28": "<J>But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.</J>",
      "29": "<J>Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and take his goods, unless he first ties up the strong man? Only then can he plunder his house.</J>",
      "30": "“Whoever is not with me is against me. And whoever does not gather with me scatters.",
      "31": "<J>Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven—either in this age or in the one to come.</J>",
      "33": "“Either make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad. Indeed, a tree is known by its fruit.",
      "34": "You offspring of vipers! How can you say anything good, since you are evil? For what the mouth speaks flows from the heart.",
      "35": "The good man brings good out of his good treasure, and the evil man brings evil out of his evil treasure.",
      "36": "<J>I tell you that on the day of judgment people will give account of every careless word they have spoken.</J>",
      "37": "<J>In fact by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”</J>",
      "38": "Then some of the experts in the law and Pharisees replied, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”",
      "39": "<J>But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation wishes for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.</J>",
      "40": "For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.",
      "41": "<J>The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. But one even greater than Jonah is here.</J>",
      "42": "The Queen of the South will be raised up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But one even greater than Solomon is here.",
      "43": "<J>“When an unclean spirit has gone out of someone, it passes through dry places looking for rest, but it does not find it.</J>",
      "44": "<J>Then it says, ‘I will return to the home I came from.’ And when it has returned, it finds the place empty, swept, and put in order.</J>",
      "45": "<J>Then it takes along with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter in and live there. So the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first. That is how it will be for this evil generation too.”</J>",
      "46": "While he was still speaking to the crowd, his mother and his brothers happened to be standing outside, wanting to talk to him.",
      "47": "Someone said to him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to talk to you.”",
      "48": "<J>But he replied to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? And who are my brothers?”</J>",
      "49": "<J>He reached out his hand toward his disciples and said, “See, my mother and my brothers!</J>",
      "50": "<J>For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”</J>"
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "That same day Jesus left the house and was sitting by the sea.",
      "2": "A large crowd gathered around him. So he stepped into a boat and sat down, while all the people stood on the shore.",
      "3": "<J>He told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen, a sower went out to sow.</J>",
      "4": "<J>As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it.</J>",
      "5": "<J>Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil. Immediately the seed sprang up, because the soil was not deep.</J>",
      "6": "<J>But when the sun rose, the seed was scorched. Because it had no root, it withered away.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Other seed fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked it.</J>",
      "8": "<J>But some seed fell on good ground and produced grain: some one hundred times, some sixty, and some thirty times more than was sown.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”</J>",
      "10": "<J>The disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”</J>",
      "11": "<J>He answered them, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but it has not been given to them.</J>",
      "12": "<J>For whoever has will be given even more, and he will have an abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.</J>",
      "13": "<J>This is why I speak to them in parables, because even though they see, they do not see; and even though they hear, they do not hear or understand.</J>",
      "14": "<J>In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled which says,\nYou will hear clearly, but you will never understand. You will see clearly, but you will never perceive.</J>",
      "15": "<J>Because this people’s heart has grown callous, their ears are hard of hearing. They have closed their eyes. Otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, turn, and I would heal them.</J>",
      "16": "<J>“But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.</J>",
      "17": "<J>Amen I tell you: Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you are seeing, but they did not see it. They longed to hear what you are hearing, but they did not hear it.</J>",
      "18": "<J>“So listen carefully to the parable of the sower.</J>",
      "19": "<J>When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the Evil One comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the seed that was sown along the path.</J>",
      "20": "<J>The seed that was sown on rocky ground is the person who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy,</J>",
      "21": "<J>yet he is not deeply rooted and does not endure. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away.</J>",
      "22": "<J>The seed that was sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the worry of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it produces no fruit.</J>",
      "23": "<J>But the seed that was sown on the good ground is the one who continues to hear and understand the word. Indeed he continues to produce fruit: some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty times more than was sown.”</J>",
      "24": "<J>He presented another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.</J>",
      "25": "<J>But while people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.</J>",
      "26": "<J>When the plants sprouted and produced heads of grain, the weeds also appeared.</J>",
      "27": "<J>The servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where did the weeds come from?’</J>",
      "28": "<J>He said to them, ‘An enemy did this.’ The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and gather up the weeds?’</J>",
      "29": "<J>‘No,’ he answered, ‘because when you gather up the weeds, you might pull up the wheat along with them.</J>",
      "30": "<J>Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First, gather up the weeds, bind them in bundles, and burn them. Then, gather the wheat into my barn.”’”</J>",
      "31": "<J>He presented another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.</J>",
      "32": "<J>It is one of the smallest of seeds. But when it grows, it is larger than the other plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”</J>",
      "33": "<J>He spoke another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, which a woman took and mixed into a bushel of flour until the whole batch was leavened.”</J>",
      "34": "<J>Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the crowds. He did not speak to them without telling a parable.</J>",
      "35": "<J>This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:\nI will open my mouth in parables,\nI will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.</J>",
      "36": "Then Jesus sent the people away and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”",
      "37": "<J>He answered them, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.</J>",
      "38": "<J>The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the Evil One.</J>",
      "39": "<J>The enemy who sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the world. The reapers are angels.</J>",
      "40": "<J>Therefore, just as the weeds are gathered up and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the world.</J>",
      "41": "<J>The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will pull out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and those who continue to break the law.</J>",
      "42": "<J>The angels will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.</J>",
      "43": "<J>Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.</J>",
      "44": "<J>“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again. In his joy, he goes away and sells all that he has and buys that field.</J>",
      "45": "<J>“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls.</J>",
      "46": "<J>When he found one very valuable pearl, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.</J>",
      "47": "<J>“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.</J>",
      "48": "<J>When the net was filled, they pulled it onto the shore. They sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but threw the bad ones away.</J>",
      "49": "<J>That is how it will be at the end of the world. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous who are among them.</J>",
      "50": "<J>And they will throw the wicked into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”</J>",
      "51": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Did you understand all these things?”\nThey answered him, “Yes.”</J>",
      "52": "<J>He said to them, “Therefore every expert in the law who has been trained as a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his treasure both new things and old things.”</J>",
      "53": "When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.",
      "54": "Jesus entered his hometown and taught in their synagogue. As a result, the people were amazed and said, “Where did this fellow get this wisdom and these miracles?",
      "55": "Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother named Mary? And aren’t James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas his brothers?",
      "56": "And aren’t all of his sisters here with us? Where then did this fellow get all of these things?”",
      "57": "<J>And they took offense at him.\nBut Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown and in his own house.”</J>",
      "58": "He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "At that time, Herod the tetrarch heard the news about Jesus.",
      "2": "He said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist! He has risen from the dead! That is why these powers are working in him.”",
      "3": "For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.",
      "4": "John had been telling him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”",
      "5": "Although Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet.",
      "6": "But when it was Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced among them. This pleased Herod.",
      "7": "So he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.",
      "8": "Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”",
      "9": "Although this saddened the king, because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that it be done.",
      "10": "He sent the order and had John beheaded in prison.",
      "11": "His head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.",
      "12": "John’s disciples came, took the body, and buried it. Then they went and reported this to Jesus.",
      "13": "When Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns.",
      "14": "When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw a large crowd. He had compassion on them and healed their sick.",
      "15": "When evening came, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place and the hour is already late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”",
      "16": "<J>But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”</J>",
      "17": "They told him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”",
      "18": "<J>“Bring them here to me,” he replied.</J>",
      "19": "Then he instructed the people to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish. After looking up to heaven, he blessed them. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples. The disciples gave the food to the people.",
      "20": "They all ate and were filled. They picked up twelve basketfuls of what was left over from the broken pieces.",
      "21": "Those who ate were about five thousand men, not even counting women and children.",
      "22": "Immediately Jesus urged the disciples to get into the boat and to go ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.",
      "23": "After he had dismissed the crowd, he went up onto the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.",
      "24": "By then the boat was quite a distance from shore, being pounded by the waves because the wind was against it.",
      "25": "In the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came toward them, walking on the sea.",
      "26": "When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and cried out in fear, “It’s a ghost!”",
      "27": "<J>But Jesus spoke to them at once, saying, “Take heart! It is I! Do not be afraid.”</J>",
      "28": "Peter answered him and said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”",
      "29": "<J>Jesus said, “Come!”\nPeter stepped down from the boat, walked on the water, and went toward Jesus.</J>",
      "30": "But when he saw the strong wind, he was afraid. As he began to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”",
      "31": "<J>Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”</J>",
      "32": "When they got into the boat, the wind stopped.",
      "33": "Those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God!”",
      "34": "When they had crossed over, they came to the shore at Gennesaret.",
      "35": "When the men of that place recognized him, they sent word into all the surrounding region. They brought to him all who were sick",
      "36": "and begged that they might just touch the fringe of his garment. All who touched it were completely cured."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "Then the Pharisees and experts in the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked,",
      "2": "“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”",
      "3": "<J>He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?</J>",
      "4": "<J>For example, God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of his father or mother should be put to death.’</J>",
      "5": "But you say that if someone tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might have received from me has been dedicated as a gift to God,’",
      "6": "that man does not need to honor his father or his mother. And so you set aside the word of God for the sake of your tradition.",
      "7": "<J>Hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:</J>",
      "8": "<J>These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.</J>",
      "9": "<J>They worship me in vain, teaching human rules as if they are doctrines.”</J>",
      "10": "<J>Then he summoned the crowd and said to them, “Listen and understand.</J>",
      "11": "<J>What goes into the mouth does not make a person unclean, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.”</J>",
      "12": "Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard this saying?”",
      "13": "<J>He answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted.</J>",
      "14": "<J>Let them go. They are blind guides of the blind. And if the blind are guiding the blind, both will fall into a pit.”</J>",
      "15": "Peter replied and said to him, “Explain the parable to us.”",
      "16": "<J>Jesus said, “Do you still not understand?</J>",
      "17": "<J>Do you not understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated into the latrine?</J>",
      "18": "But whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart. That is what defiles a person.",
      "19": "To be sure, out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and blasphemies.",
      "20": "These are the things that defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person.”",
      "21": "Jesus left that place and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon.",
      "22": "There a Canaanite woman from that territory came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! A demon is severely tormenting my daughter!”",
      "23": "But he did not answer her a word.\nHis disciples came and pleaded, “Send her away, because she keeps crying out after us.”",
      "24": "<J>He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”</J>",
      "25": "But she came and knelt in front of him, saying, “Lord, help me.”",
      "26": "<J>He answered her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to their little dogs.”</J>",
      "27": "“Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet their little dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”",
      "28": "<J>Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith is great! It will be done for you, just as you desire.” And her daughter was healed at that very hour.</J>",
      "29": "Jesus moved on from there and went along the Sea of Galilee. He went up onto the mountain and sat there.",
      "30": "Large crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, those unable to speak, and many others. They put them down at his feet, and he healed them.",
      "31": "As a result, the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healed, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.",
      "32": "<J>Jesus summoned his disciples and said, “I feel compassion for the people, because they have remained with me already three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they might faint on the way.”</J>",
      "33": "The disciples said to him, “Where can we get so many loaves in the wilderness to satisfy such a large crowd?”",
      "34": "<J>Jesus asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”\nThey said, “Seven, and a few small fish.”</J>",
      "35": "He instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground.",
      "36": "He took the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, and broke them. He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.",
      "37": "They all ate and were filled. They picked up seven basketfuls of the broken pieces that were left over.",
      "38": "Those who ate numbered four thousand men, without counting the women and children.",
      "39": "After Jesus sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and, as a test, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.",
      "2": "<J>But he answered them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather because the sky is red.’</J>",
      "3": "<J>In the morning you say, ‘It will be stormy weather today because the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times!</J>",
      "4": "<J>An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” He left them and went away.</J>",
      "5": "When his disciples came to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread along.",
      "6": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Watch out and be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”</J>",
      "7": "They were discussing this among themselves and said, “It is because we did not bring any bread.”",
      "8": "<J>Since Jesus knew what they were saying, he said, “You of little faith! Why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you brought no bread?</J>",
      "9": "<J>Do you still not understand? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many basketfuls you picked up?</J>",
      "10": "Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how many basketfuls you picked up?",
      "11": "<J>How is it that you do not understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”</J>",
      "12": "Then they understood that he was not warning them about the yeast in bread, but about the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.",
      "13": "<J>When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”</J>",
      "14": "They said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”",
      "15": "<J>He said to them, “But you, who do you say that I am?”</J>",
      "16": "Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”",
      "17": "<J>Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.</J>",
      "18": "<J>And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it.</J>",
      "19": "<J>I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”</J>",
      "20": "<J>Then he commanded the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.</J>",
      "21": "From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised again.",
      "22": "Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “May you receive mercy, Lord! This will never happen to you.”",
      "23": "<J>But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a snare to me because you are not thinking the things of God, but the things of men.”</J>",
      "24": "<J>Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.</J>",
      "25": "<J>In fact whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.</J>",
      "26": "<J>After all, what will it benefit a person if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what can a person give in exchange for his soul?</J>",
      "27": "<J>For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father together with his angels, and then he will repay everyone according to his actions.</J>",
      "28": "<J>Amen I tell you: Some who are standing here will certainly not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”</J>"
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "Six days later Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James; and he led them up onto a high mountain by themselves.",
      "2": "There he was transfigured in front of them. His face was shining like the sun. His clothing became as white as the light.",
      "3": "Just then, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus.",
      "4": "Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you want, I will make three shelters here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”",
      "5": "While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them. Just then, a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him.”",
      "6": "When the disciples heard this, they fell face down and were terrified.",
      "7": "<J>Jesus approached and as he touched them, he said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.”</J>",
      "8": "When they opened their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus alone.",
      "9": "<J>As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Do not tell anyone what you have seen until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”</J>",
      "10": "His disciples asked him, “Then why do the experts in the law say that Elijah must come first?”",
      "11": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Yes, Elijah is coming and will restore all things,</J>",
      "12": "<J>but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him. Instead they did to him whatever they desired. In the same way the Son of Man will also suffer at their hands.”</J>",
      "13": "Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.",
      "14": "When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt in front of him.",
      "15": "“Lord,” he said, “have mercy on my son because he has seizures and is suffering terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.",
      "16": "I brought him to your disciples, but they were not able to cure him.”",
      "17": "<J>Jesus answered, “O unbelieving and perverse generation! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.”</J>",
      "18": "Jesus rebuked the demon, and it went out of the boy, and he was cured from that hour.",
      "19": "Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why were we unable to drive it out?”",
      "20": "<J>He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen I tell you: If you have faith like a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.</J>",
      "21": "But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”",
      "22": "<J>While they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men.</J>",
      "23": "They will kill him, but on the third day he will be raised.” And they were greatly distressed.",
      "24": "<J>When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”</J>",
      "25": "<J>He said, “Yes.”\nWhen he came into the house, Jesus spoke first, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect tolls or a tax? From their own sons or from others?”</J>",
      "26": "<J>Peter said to him, “From others.”\nJesus said to him, “Then the sons are exempt.</J>",
      "27": "<J>But, so that we do not offend them, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take the first fish that you pull up. When you open its mouth, you will find a silver coin. Take that coin and give it to them for me and for you.”</J>"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "At that time the disciples approached Jesus and asked, “Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”",
      "2": "Jesus called a little child, had him stand in the middle of them,",
      "3": "<J>and said, “Amen I tell you: Unless you are turned and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.</J>",
      "5": "And whoever receives a little child like this one in my name receives me.",
      "6": "<J>“But, if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Woe to the world because of temptations to sin. Temptations must come, but woe to that person through whom the temptation comes!</J>",
      "8": "<J>“If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to be thrown into the eternal fire with two hands or two feet.</J>",
      "9": "<J>If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to be thrown into hell fire with two eyes.</J>",
      "10": "<J>See to it that you do not look down on one of these little ones, because I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.</J>",
      "11": "<J>For the Son of Man came to save what was lost.</J>",
      "12": "<J>“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go looking for the one that wandered away?</J>",
      "13": "<J>If he finds it—Amen I tell you—he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not wander away.</J>",
      "14": "<J>In the same way, your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to perish.</J>",
      "15": "<J>“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his sin just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother.</J>",
      "16": "<J>But if he will not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’</J>",
      "17": "<J>If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And, if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector.</J>",
      "18": "<J>Amen I tell you: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.</J>",
      "19": "<J>Amen I tell you again: If two of you on earth agree to ask for anything, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.</J>",
      "20": "<J>In fact where two or three have gathered together in my name, there I am among them.”</J>",
      "21": "<J>Then Peter came up and asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? As many as seven times?”</J>",
      "22": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you as many as seventy-seven times.</J>",
      "23": "<J>For this reason the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.</J>",
      "24": "<J>When he began to settle them, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Because the man was not able to pay the debt, his master ordered that he be sold, along with his wife, children, and all that he owned to repay the debt.</J>",
      "26": "<J>“Then the servant fell down on his knees in front of him, saying, ‘Master, be patient with me, and I will pay you everything!’</J>",
      "27": "<J>The master of that servant had pity on him, released him, and forgave him the debt.</J>",
      "28": "<J>“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began choking him, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’</J>",
      "29": "<J>“So his fellow servant fell down and begged him, saying, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back!’</J>",
      "30": "<J>But he refused. Instead he went off and threw the man into prison until he could pay back what he owed.</J>",
      "31": "<J>“When his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were very distressed. They went and reported to their master everything that had taken place.</J>",
      "32": "<J>“Then his master called him in and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt when you begged me to.</J>",
      "33": "<J>Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?’</J>",
      "34": "<J>His master was angry and handed him over to the jailers until he could pay back everything he owed.</J>",
      "35": "<J>“This is what my heavenly Father will also do to you unless each one of you forgives his brother from his heart.”</J>"
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.",
      "2": "Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.",
      "3": "Some Pharisees came in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”",
      "4": "<J>He answered, “Haven’t you read that from the beginning their Maker ‘made them male and female,’</J>",
      "5": "<J>and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will be one flesh’?</J>",
      "6": "<J>So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate.”</J>",
      "7": "They asked him, “Then why did Moses command a man to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?”",
      "8": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Because of your hard hearts, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but it was not that way from the beginning.</J>",
      "9": "<J>I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the grounds of her sexual immorality, and marries another woman is committing adultery.”</J>",
      "10": "His disciples said to him, “If this is the relationship of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”",
      "11": "<J>But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given.</J>",
      "12": "<J>For example, there are eunuchs who were born that way, and others who were castrated by people, and others who decided to remain unmarried because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept this should accept it.”</J>",
      "13": "Then some people brought little children to Jesus to have him place his hands on them and pray. But the disciples rebuked them.",
      "14": "<J>Then Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”</J>",
      "15": "After he placed his hands on them, he left that place.",
      "16": "There was a man who came to him and said, “Teacher, what good thing should I do that I may have eternal life?”",
      "17": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? Only one is good. But if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”</J>",
      "18": "<J>“Which ones?” the man asked him.\nJesus said, “‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony.</J>",
      "19": "<J>Honor your father and mother.’ And, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”</J>",
      "20": "The young man said to him, “I have kept all these. What am I still lacking?”",
      "21": "<J>Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”</J>",
      "22": "But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had many possessions.",
      "23": "<J>Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen I tell you: It will be very hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.</J>",
      "24": "<J>Again I tell you: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”</J>",
      "25": "When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?”",
      "26": "<J>Jesus looked at them and said, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”</J>",
      "27": "Then Peter answered, “Look, we have left everything and followed you! What then will we have?”",
      "28": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Amen I tell you: In the renewal, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.</J>",
      "29": "<J>Everyone who has left homes or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, because of my name, will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.</J>",
      "30": "Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”"
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "“Indeed the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.",
      "2": "After agreeing to pay the workers a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.",
      "3": "He also went out about the third hour and saw others standing unemployed in the marketplace.",
      "4": "<J>To these he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.’ So they went.</J>",
      "5": "Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour and did the same thing.",
      "6": "<J>When he went out about the eleventh hour, he found others standing unemployed. He said to them, ‘Why have you stood here all day unemployed?’</J>",
      "7": "<J>“They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’\n“He told them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’</J>",
      "8": "<J>When it was evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last group and ending with the first.’</J>",
      "9": "“When those who were hired around the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius.",
      "10": "When those who were hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But they each received a denarius too.",
      "11": "After they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner:",
      "12": "‘Those who were last worked one hour, and you made them equal to us who have endured the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’",
      "13": "<J>“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not make an agreement with me for a denarius?</J>",
      "14": "<J>Take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last one hired the same as I also gave to you.</J>",
      "15": "<J>Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’</J>",
      "16": "<J>In the same way, the last will be first, and the first, last.”</J>",
      "17": "As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside; and on the way he said to them,",
      "18": "<J>“Look, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and experts in the law, and they will condemn him to death.</J>",
      "19": "<J>They will hand him over to the Gentiles to mock, flog, and crucify him. On the third day he will be raised.”</J>",
      "20": "Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to him with her sons, kneeling and asking something of him.",
      "21": "<J>He said to her, “What do you want?”\nShe said to him, “Promise that in your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right hand and one on your left hand.”</J>",
      "22": "<J>But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”\nThey said to him, “We are.”</J>",
      "23": "<J>He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not for me to give; rather these places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”</J>",
      "24": "When the ten heard this, they were angry with the two brothers.",
      "25": "<J>But Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.</J>",
      "26": "<J>It will not be that way among you. Instead whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant,</J>",
      "27": "<J>and whoever wants to be first among you will be your slave—</J>",
      "28": "<J>just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”</J>",
      "29": "As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him.",
      "30": "There were two blind men sitting by the road. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they shouted, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!”",
      "31": "The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be quiet. But they shouted even louder, “Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!”",
      "32": "<J>Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?”</J>",
      "33": "They told him, “Lord, open our eyes.”",
      "34": "Jesus was moved with compassion and touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight, and they followed him."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,",
      "2": "<J>telling them, “Go to the village ahead of you. Immediately you will find a donkey tied there along with her colt. Untie them and bring them to me.</J>",
      "3": "<J>If anyone says anything to you, you are to say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”</J>",
      "4": "This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:",
      "5": "Tell the daughter of Zion: Look, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.",
      "6": "The disciples went and did just as Jesus commanded them.",
      "7": "They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their outer clothing on them, and he sat on it.",
      "8": "A very large crowd spread their outer clothing on the road. Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them out on the road.",
      "9": "The crowds who went in front of him and those who followed kept shouting,\nHosanna to the Son of David!\nBlessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!\nHosanna in the highest!",
      "10": "When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, asking, “Who is this?”",
      "11": "And the crowds were saying, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”",
      "12": "Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all those who were selling and buying in the temple. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.",
      "13": "<J>He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers!”</J>",
      "14": "The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.",
      "15": "But when the chief priests and the experts in the law saw the wonders he performed and heard the children calling out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant.",
      "16": "<J>They said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?”\n“Yes,” Jesus told them, “Have you never read,\n    From the lips of little children and nursing babies\n    you have prepared praise?”</J>",
      "17": "He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.",
      "18": "As he returned to the city early in the morning, he was hungry.",
      "19": "<J>Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. He said to it, “May there never be fruit from you again!”\nImmediately the fig tree withered away.</J>",
      "20": "When the disciples saw it, they were amazed and asked, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”",
      "21": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Amen I tell you: If you have faith, and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you told this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it would be done.</J>",
      "22": "<J>Whatever you ask for in prayer, as you believe, you will receive.”</J>",
      "23": "When Jesus went into the temple courts, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him while he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things?” and “Who gave you this authority?”",
      "24": "<J>Jesus answered them, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer it, I will tell you by what authority I do these things.</J>",
      "25": "The baptism of John, where was it from? From heaven or from men?”\nThey discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’",
      "26": "But if we say, ‘From men,’ we are afraid of the crowd, since they all regard John as a prophet.”",
      "27": "<J>So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”\nHe said to them, “Then I will not tell you by what authority I do these things.”</J>",
      "28": "<J>“What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’</J>",
      "29": "<J>He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went.</J>",
      "30": "<J>He came to the second and said the same thing. The second son answered, ‘I will go, sir,’ but he did not go.</J>",
      "31": "<J>Which of the two did the will of his father?”\nThey said to him, “The first.”\nJesus said to them, “Amen I tell you: The tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.</J>",
      "32": "<J>For John came to you in the way of righteousness, but you did not believe him. However, the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him. Even when you saw this, you did not change your mind and believe him.</J>",
      "33": "“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. He leased it out to some tenant farmers and went away on a journey.",
      "34": "When the time approached to harvest the fruit, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.",
      "35": "The tenant farmers seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.",
      "36": "Then the landowner sent even more servants than the first time. The tenant farmers treated them the same way.",
      "37": "Finally, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.",
      "38": "But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance!’",
      "39": "They took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.",
      "40": "So when the landowner comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?”",
      "41": "They told him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end. Then he will lease out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his fruit when it is due.”",
      "42": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:\nThe stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.\nThis was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?</J>",
      "43": "<J>“That is why I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruit.</J>",
      "44": "<J>Whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”</J>",
      "45": "When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was talking about them.",
      "46": "Although they were looking for a way to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds because the people regarded him as a prophet."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "Jesus spoke to them again in parables. He said,",
      "2": "<J>“The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.</J>",
      "3": "<J>He sent out his servants to summon those who were invited to the wedding banquet, but they did not want to come.</J>",
      "4": "<J>“Then he sent out other servants and said, ‘Tell those who are invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet!’</J>",
      "5": "<J>“But those who were invited paid no attention and went off, one to his own farm, another to his business.</J>",
      "6": "<J>The rest seized the king’s servants, mistreated them, and killed them.</J>",
      "7": "<J>As a result, the king was very angry. He sent his army and killed those murderers and burned their town.</J>",
      "8": "<J>“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.</J>",
      "9": "<J>So go to the main crossroads and invite as many as you find to the wedding banquet.’</J>",
      "10": "<J>Those servants went out to the roads and gathered together everyone they found, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.</J>",
      "11": "<J>But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.</J>",
      "12": "<J>He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wearing wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.</J>",
      "13": "<J>Then the king told the servants, ‘Tie him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’</J>",
      "14": "<J>For many are called, but few are chosen.”</J>",
      "15": "Then the Pharisees went out and plotted together how to trap him in his words.",
      "16": "They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God in accord with the truth. You are not concerned about gaining anyone’s approval because you are not swayed by appearances.",
      "17": "So tell us, what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”",
      "18": "<J>But Jesus knew their evil purpose and said, “Why are you testing me, hypocrites?</J>",
      "19": "<J>Show me the coin used for the tax.”\nThey brought him a denarius.</J>",
      "20": "<J>He asked them, “Whose image and inscription is this?”</J>",
      "21": "<J>“Caesar’s,” they replied to him.\nThen he said to them, “Therefore give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”</J>",
      "22": "When they heard this, they were amazed. Then they left him and went away.",
      "23": "That same day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to him. They asked him a question:",
      "24": "“Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies without having children, his brother should marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.’",
      "25": "Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one died after he married her, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother.",
      "26": "It was the same with the second brother, the third, and all the way to the seventh.",
      "27": "Last of all, the woman died.",
      "28": "So then, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since they all married her?”",
      "29": "<J>“You are mistaken,” Jesus replied, “since you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.</J>",
      "30": "<J>In fact, in the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage. Instead they are like the angels of God in heaven.</J>",
      "31": "<J>And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you never read what was spoken to you by God:</J>",
      "32": "<J>‘I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”</J>",
      "33": "When the crowds heard his answer, they were amazed at his teaching.",
      "34": "When they heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees met together.",
      "35": "One of them who was an expert in the law asked him a question, trying to trap him.",
      "36": "“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?”",
      "37": "<J>Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’</J>",
      "38": "<J>This is the first and greatest commandment.</J>",
      "39": "<J>The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’</J>",
      "40": "<J>All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.”</J>",
      "41": "<J>While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question:</J>",
      "42": "<J>“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”\nThey said to him, “The Son of David.”</J>",
      "43": "<J>He said to them, “Then how can David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying,</J>",
      "44": "<J>The Lord said to my Lord,\n    ‘Sit at my right hand,\n    until I put your enemies\n    under your feet’?”</J>",
      "45": "<J>“So if David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”</J>",
      "46": "No one was able to answer him a word, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples.",
      "2": "<J>He said, “The experts in the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.</J>",
      "3": "<J>So practice and observe whatever they tell you. But do not do as they do, because they do not practice what they preach.</J>",
      "4": "<J>They tie up heavy loads, burdens that are hard to carry, and place them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to help them.</J>",
      "5": "<J>They do all their works to be seen by people. They make their phylacteries wide and lengthen the fringes of their garments.</J>",
      "6": "<J>They love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues,</J>",
      "7": "<J>the greetings in the marketplaces, and being called ‘Rabbi’ by people.</J>",
      "8": "<J>But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Also do not call anyone on earth your ‘Father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.</J>",
      "10": "<J>And you are not to be called ‘leaders,’ for you have one Leader, the Christ.</J>",
      "11": "<J>But the greatest among you will be your servant.</J>",
      "12": "<J>Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.</J>",
      "13": "<J>“But woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven right in front of people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor do you permit those who are trying to enter to do so.</J>",
      "14": "<J></J>",
      "15": "<J>Woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel the sea and the land to make one convert, and then when he is converted, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.</J>",
      "16": "<J>“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’</J>",
      "17": "<J>You blind fools! After all, which is greater: the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold?</J>",
      "18": "<J>And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obligated.’</J>",
      "19": "<J>You blind men! After all, which is greater: the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?</J>",
      "20": "<J>So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it.</J>",
      "21": "<J>Also, whoever swears by the temple, swears by it and by him who dwells in it.</J>",
      "22": "<J>And whoever swears by heaven, swears by God’s throne and by him who sits on it.</J>",
      "23": "<J>“Woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give ten percent of your mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. You should have done these things and not failed to do the other things.</J>",
      "24": "<J>Blind guides, you strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!</J>",
      "25": "<J>“Woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of a cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and dish so that the outside may become clean too.</J>",
      "27": "<J>“Woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that appear beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead people’s bones and every kind of uncleanness.</J>",
      "28": "<J>In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.</J>",
      "29": "<J>“Woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,</J>",
      "30": "<J>and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have joined with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’</J>",
      "31": "<J>By saying this you testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.</J>",
      "33": "<J>You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape being condemned to hell?</J>",
      "34": "<J>“Look, this is why I am sending you prophets, wise men, and experts in the law. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town.</J>",
      "35": "<J>As a result, you will be held responsible for all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.</J>",
      "36": "<J>Amen I tell you: All these things will come upon this generation.</J>",
      "37": "<J>“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!</J>",
      "38": "<J>Look, your house is left to you desolate.</J>",
      "39": "<J>For I tell you, you will certainly not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”</J>"
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "As Jesus left the temple and was walking away, his disciples came up to him to call his attention to the temple buildings.",
      "2": "<J>Then he replied to them, “Do you see all of these things? Amen I tell you: Not one stone here will be left on another that will not be thrown down.”</J>",
      "3": "<J>While he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the world?”</J>",
      "4": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Watch out that no one deceives you.</J>",
      "5": "<J>Because many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will deceive many people.</J>",
      "6": "<J>You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, because all these things must happen; but that is not yet the end.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.</J>",
      "8": "<J>But all these things are only the beginning of birth pains.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Then they will hand you over to be persecuted, and they will put you to death. You will be hated by all nations because of my name.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Then many will fall away from faith. They will betray each other and hate each other.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.</J>",
      "12": "<J>Because lawlessness will increase, the love of many will grow cold.</J>",
      "13": "<J>But whoever endures to the end will be saved.</J>",
      "14": "<J>This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.</J>",
      "15": "<J>“Therefore when you see the abomination that causes desolation, that was spoken of through the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place—let the reader understand—</J>",
      "16": "<J>then those who are in Judea should flee to the mountains.</J>",
      "17": "<J>The one on the housetop should not go down to take anything out of his house.</J>",
      "18": "<J>The one who is in the field should not return to get his clothes.</J>",
      "19": "<J>How terrible it will be for those who are pregnant or are nursing babies in those days!</J>",
      "20": "<J>Pray that your flight will not take place in the winter or on a Sabbath.</J>",
      "21": "<J>For at that time there will be great distress, unlike any that has happened since the beginning of the world until now, and unlike any that will happen again.</J>",
      "22": "<J>If those days were not shortened, nobody would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.</J>",
      "23": "<J>“At that time if anyone tells you, ‘Look, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There he is,’ do not believe it.</J>",
      "24": "<J>For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive even the elect, if it were possible.</J>",
      "25": "<J>“See, I have told you in advance.</J>",
      "26": "<J>So if they tell you, ‘Look! There he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out there, or ‘Look! Here he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.</J>",
      "27": "<J>Just as the lightning flashes from the east and shines as far as the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes.</J>",
      "28": "<J>Wherever the carcass may be, there the vultures will gather.</J>",
      "29": "<J>“Immediately after the misery of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.</J>",
      "30": "<J>Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. And at that time all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.</J>",
      "31": "<J>He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.</J>",
      "32": "<J>“Learn this lesson from the fig tree. When its branch has become tender and produces leaves, you know that summer is near.</J>",
      "33": "<J>In the same way, when you see all these things, know that he is near, right at the doors.</J>",
      "34": "<J>Amen I tell you: This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place.</J>",
      "35": "<J>Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.</J>",
      "36": "<J>“No one knows when that day and hour will be, not the angels of heaven, not even the Son, but only the Father.</J>",
      "37": "<J>Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when the Son of Man returns.</J>",
      "38": "<J>In fact, in the days before the flood people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the very day that Noah entered the ark.</J>",
      "39": "<J>And they did not realize what was coming until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be when the Son of Man returns.</J>",
      "40": "<J>“At that time two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.</J>",
      "41": "<J>Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.</J>",
      "42": "<J>So be alert, because you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.</J>",
      "43": "<J>But understand this: If the master of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.</J>",
      "44": "<J>You also need to be ready for this reason: The Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect him.</J>",
      "45": "<J>“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give them their food at the proper time?</J>",
      "46": "<J>Blessed is that servant whom his master finds doing this when he returns.</J>",
      "47": "<J>Amen I tell you: He will put him in charge of all that he has.</J>",
      "48": "<J>But if that servant is wicked and says in his heart, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’</J>",
      "49": "<J>and he begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards,</J>",
      "50": "<J>the master of that servant will return on a day when he does not expect it and at an hour he does not know.</J>",
      "51": "<J>The master will cut him in two and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”</J>"
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "<J>“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.</J>",
      "2": "<J>Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.</J>",
      "3": "<J>When the foolish ones took their lamps, they did not take any oil with them;</J>",
      "4": "<J>but the wise took oil in their containers with their lamps.</J>",
      "5": "<J>While the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.</J>",
      "6": "<J>But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’</J>",
      "7": "<J>Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps.</J>",
      "8": "<J>The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.’</J>",
      "9": "<J>But the wise answered, ‘No, there may not be enough for us and for you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’</J>",
      "10": "<J>But while they were away buying oil, the bridegroom came. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Later, the other virgins also came and said, ‘Lord, Lord, let us in.’</J>",
      "12": "<J>But he answered, ‘Amen I tell you: I do not know you.’</J>",
      "13": "<J>Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.</J>",
      "14": "<J>“You see, the kingdom of heaven is like a man going on a journey. He called his servants and entrusted his possessions to them.</J>",
      "15": "<J>To one he gave five talents, to another two talents, and to still another one talent, each according to his own ability. Then he went on his journey.</J>",
      "16": "<J>The servant who had received the five talents immediately put them to work and gained five more talents.</J>",
      "17": "<J>In the same way, the servant who had received the two talents gained two more.</J>",
      "18": "<J>But the servant who had received one talent went away, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money.</J>",
      "19": "<J>“After a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.</J>",
      "20": "<J>The servant who received the five talents came and brought five more talents. He said, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’</J>",
      "21": "<J>“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’</J>",
      "22": "<J>“The servant who received the two talents came and said, ‘Master, you entrusted me with two talents. See, I have gained two more talents.’</J>",
      "23": "<J>“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’</J>",
      "24": "<J>“Then the servant who received one talent came and said, ‘Master, I knew that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter seed.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Since I was afraid, I went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’</J>",
      "26": "<J>“His master answered him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! You knew that I reap where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter seed?</J>",
      "27": "<J>Well then, you should have deposited my money with the bankers so that when I came I would get my money back with interest.</J>",
      "28": "<J>Take the talent away from him and give it to the servant who has the ten talents.</J>",
      "29": "<J>Because everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.</J>",
      "30": "<J>Throw that worthless servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’</J>",
      "31": "<J>“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.</J>",
      "32": "<J>All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.</J>",
      "33": "<J>He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.</J>",
      "34": "<J>Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.</J>",
      "35": "<J>For I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.</J>",
      "36": "<J>I was lacking clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.’</J>",
      "37": "<J>“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink?</J>",
      "38": "<J>When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or lacking clothes and clothe you?</J>",
      "39": "<J>When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’</J>",
      "40": "<J>“The King will answer them, ‘Amen I tell you: Just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.’</J>",
      "41": "<J>“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the Devil and his angels.</J>",
      "42": "<J>For I was hungry and you did not give me food to eat. I was thirsty and you did not give me anything to drink.</J>",
      "43": "<J>I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, lacking clothes and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not take care of me.’</J>",
      "44": "<J>“Then they will also answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or lacking clothes or sick or in prison and did not serve you?’</J>",
      "45": "<J>“At that time he will answer them, ‘Amen I tell you: Just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’</J>",
      "46": "<J>And they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”</J>"
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples,",
      "2": "<J>“You know that after two days it will be the Passover, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”</J>",
      "3": "Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas.",
      "4": "They plotted together how to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.",
      "5": "But they said, “Not during the Festival, or else there might be a riot among the people.”",
      "6": "When Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,",
      "7": "a woman approached him holding an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. She poured it on his head as he was reclining at the table.",
      "8": "But when his disciples saw this, they were upset and said, “Why this waste?",
      "9": "This perfume could have been sold for a lot of money and given to the poor.”",
      "10": "<J>Jesus was aware of this and said to them, “Why are you causing trouble for this woman? She has done a beautiful thing for me.</J>",
      "11": "You are always going to have the poor with you, but you are not always going to have me.",
      "12": "When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.",
      "13": "<J>Amen I tell you: Wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told in memory of her.”</J>",
      "14": "Then one of the Twelve, the one named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests",
      "15": "and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver.",
      "16": "From that time on Judas was looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus.",
      "17": "On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”",
      "18": "<J>He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him the Teacher says, ‘My time is near. I will observe the Passover with my disciples at your house.’”</J>",
      "19": "The disciples did as Jesus commanded them and prepared the Passover.",
      "20": "When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve.",
      "21": "<J>As they were eating, he said, “Amen I tell you: One of you will betray me.”</J>",
      "22": "They were very sad and began to say to him one after another, “Surely, not I, Lord?”",
      "23": "<J>He replied, “The one who dipped his hand in the bowl with me will betray me.</J>",
      "24": "<J>The Son of Man is going just as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had not been born.”</J>",
      "25": "<J>Judas, who betrayed him, replied, “Surely, not I, Rabbi?”\nHe said to him, “Yes, you are the one.”</J>",
      "26": "<J>While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples. He said, “Take, eat, this is my body.”</J>",
      "27": "<J>Then he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it all of you,</J>",
      "28": "<J>for this is my blood of the new testament, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.</J>",
      "29": "<J>I tell you that I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”</J>",
      "30": "After they sang a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.",
      "31": "<J>Then Jesus said to them, “This night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’</J>",
      "32": "<J>But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”</J>",
      "33": "Peter answered him, “Even if all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.”",
      "34": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Amen I tell you: Tonight before the rooster crows you will deny me three times.”</J>",
      "35": "Peter said to him, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you.” And all the disciples said the same.",
      "36": "<J>Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane. He told his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.”</J>",
      "37": "He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and he began to be sorrowful and distressed.",
      "38": "<J>Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death. Stay here, and keep watch with me.”</J>",
      "39": "<J>He went a little farther, fell on his face, and prayed. He said, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”</J>",
      "40": "<J>He came to the disciples and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, “So, were you not able to stay awake with me for one hour?</J>",
      "41": "<J>Watch and pray, so that you do not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”</J>",
      "42": "<J>He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to pass from me unless I drink it, may your will be done.”</J>",
      "43": "Again he returned and found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy.",
      "44": "He left them again, went away, and prayed a third time. He said the same words as before.",
      "45": "<J>Then he returned to his disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.</J>",
      "46": "<J>Rise. Let us go. Look, my betrayer is near.”</J>",
      "47": "While Jesus was still speaking, suddenly Judas (one of the Twelve) arrived. With him was a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people.",
      "48": "Now the betrayer had given them a sign: “The one I kiss is the man. Arrest him.”",
      "49": "Immediately he went to Jesus and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.",
      "50": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Friend, why are you here?”\nThen they advanced, took hold of Jesus, and arrested him.</J>",
      "51": "Suddenly, one of the men with Jesus reached out his hand, drew his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.",
      "52": "<J>Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place, because all who take the sword will die by the sword.</J>",
      "53": "<J>Do you not realize that I could call on my Father, and at once he would provide me with more than twelve legions of angels?</J>",
      "54": "<J>But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?”</J>",
      "55": "<J>At that same time Jesus said to the crowd, “Have you come out to arrest me with swords and clubs as if I were a robber? Day after day I was sitting in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me.</J>",
      "56": "But all this has happened so that the writings of the prophets would be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.",
      "57": "Those who had arrested Jesus led him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the experts in the law and the elders were assembled.",
      "58": "Peter was following him at a distance and went as far as the courtyard of the high priest. He went inside and sat down with the guards to see how it would turn out.",
      "59": "The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they could put him to death.",
      "60": "They found none, even though many false witnesses came forward. Finally two came forward",
      "61": "and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”",
      "62": "The high priest stood up and said to him, “Have you no answer? What is this that these men are testifying against you?”",
      "63": "But Jesus remained silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I place you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God!”",
      "64": "<J>Jesus said to him, “It is as you have said. But I tell you, soon you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”</J>",
      "65": "Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? See, you have just heard the blasphemy!",
      "66": "What do you think?”\nThey answered, “He is deserving of death!”",
      "67": "Then they spit in his face and punched him. Some slapped him",
      "68": "and said, “Prophesy to us, Christ! Who hit you?”",
      "69": "Meanwhile Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant girl came to him and said, “You were also with Jesus the Galilean.”",
      "70": "But he denied it in front of everyone, saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”",
      "71": "When Peter went out to the entryway, someone else saw him and said to those who were there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”",
      "72": "Again Peter denied it with an oath and said, “I do not know the man.”",
      "73": "After a little while those who stood by came and said to Peter, “Surely you are also one of them because even your accent gives you away.”",
      "74": "Then he began to curse and to swear, “I do not know the man!” Just then the rooster crowed.",
      "75": "And Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly."
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people reached the decision to put Jesus to death.",
      "2": "They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pontius Pilate, the governor.",
      "3": "Then when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he felt remorse. He brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders",
      "4": "and said, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? That’s your problem.”",
      "5": "He threw the pieces of silver into the temple and left. Then he went out and hanged himself.",
      "6": "The chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, “It is not lawful to put these into the treasury, since it is blood money.”",
      "7": "They reached a decision to buy the potter’s field with the money, as a burial place for foreigners.",
      "8": "So that field has been called The Field of Blood to this day.",
      "9": "Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:\nThey took the thirty pieces of silver, the price the sons of Israel had set for him,",
      "10": "and they gave them for the potter’s field, just as the Lord commanded me.",
      "11": "<J>When Jesus stood in the presence of the governor, the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”\nJesus said to him, “It is as you say.”</J>",
      "12": "When he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing.",
      "13": "Then Pilate said to him, “Don’t you hear how many things they are testifying against you?”",
      "14": "But he did not answer him—not even one word, so that the governor was very surprised.",
      "15": "At the time of the Festival the governor had a custom to release to the crowd any one prisoner they wanted.",
      "16": "At that time they were holding a notorious prisoner named Barabbas.",
      "17": "So when they were assembled, Pilate said to them, “Which one do you want me to release to you? Barabbas—or Jesus, who is called Christ?”",
      "18": "For Pilate knew that they had handed Jesus over to him because of envy.",
      "19": "While he was sitting on the judgment seat, Pilate’s wife sent him a message. “Have nothing to do with that righteous man,” she said, “since I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him.”",
      "20": "But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus put to death.",
      "21": "The governor asked them, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?”\n“Barabbas!” they said.",
      "22": "Pilate said to them, “Then what should I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?”\nThey all said to him, “Crucify him!”",
      "23": "But the governor said, “Why? What has he done wrong?”\nBut they kept shouting even louder: “Crucify him!”",
      "24": "When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing and that instead it was turning into a riot, he took water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, “I am innocent of this righteous man’s blood. It is your responsibility.”",
      "25": "And all the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”",
      "26": "Then he released Barabbas to them, but he had Jesus flogged and handed him over to be crucified.",
      "27": "Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole cohort of soldiers around him.",
      "28": "They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.",
      "29": "They twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand, knelt in front of him, and mocked him by saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”",
      "30": "They spit on him, took the staff, and hit him repeatedly on his head.",
      "31": "After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.",
      "32": "As they were going out of the city, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon. They forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.",
      "33": "They came to a place called Golgotha, which means “The place of the skull.”",
      "34": "They offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.",
      "35": "After they had crucified him, they divided his clothing among themselves by casting lots.",
      "36": "Then they sat down and were keeping watch over him there.",
      "37": "Above his head they posted the written charge against him: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”",
      "38": "At the same time two criminals were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.",
      "39": "People who passed by kept insulting him, shaking their heads,",
      "40": "and saying, “You who were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”",
      "41": "In the same way the chief priests, experts in the law, and elders kept mocking him. They said,",
      "42": "“He saved others, but he cannot save himself. If he’s the King of Israel, let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.",
      "43": "He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now, if he wants him, because he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”",
      "44": "In the same way even the criminals who were crucified with him kept insulting him.",
      "45": "From the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land.",
      "46": "<J>About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”</J>",
      "47": "When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “This fellow is calling for Elijah.”",
      "48": "Immediately one of them ran, took a sponge, and soaked it with sour wine. Then he put it on a stick and gave him a drink.",
      "49": "The rest said, “Leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”",
      "50": "After Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.",
      "51": "Suddenly, the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and rocks were split.",
      "52": "Tombs were opened, and many bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were raised to life.",
      "53": "Those who came out of the tombs went into the holy city after Jesus’ resurrection and appeared to many people.",
      "54": "When the centurion and those who were guarding Jesus with him saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified and said, “Truly this was the Son of God.”",
      "55": "Many women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and who had served him were there, watching from a distance.",
      "56": "Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.",
      "57": "When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus.",
      "58": "He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered that it be given to him.",
      "59": "Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,",
      "60": "and laid it in his own new tomb that he had cut in the rock. He rolled a large stone over the tomb’s entrance and left.",
      "61": "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there sitting opposite the tomb.",
      "62": "On the next day, which was the day after the Preparation Day, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered in the presence of Pilate",
      "63": "and said, “Sir, we remembered what that deceiver said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise again.’",
      "64": "So give a command that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Otherwise his disciples might steal his body and tell the people, ‘He is risen from the dead.’ And this last deception will be worse than the first.”",
      "65": "Pilate said to them, “You have a guard. Go, make it as secure as you know how.”",
      "66": "So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and posting a guard."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.",
      "2": "Suddenly, there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and going to the tomb, he rolled away the stone and was sitting on it.",
      "3": "His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow.",
      "4": "The guards were so terrified of him that they shook and became like dead men.",
      "5": "<J>The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.</J>",
      "6": "<J>He is not here. He has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead! And look, he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.’ See, I have told you!”</J>",
      "8": "They hurried away from the tomb, with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.",
      "9": "<J>Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!”\nThey approached, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go, tell my brothers that they should go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”</J>",
      "11": "As they were on their way, there were some members of the guard who went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened.",
      "12": "After the chief priests had assembled with the elders and had reached a decision, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers",
      "13": "and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came at night and stole him away while we were sleeping.’",
      "14": "If the governor hears about it, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”",
      "15": "After the soldiers took the money, they did as they were instructed. And this story has been repeated among the Jews until this day.",
      "16": "The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them.",
      "17": "When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some hesitated because they were uncertain.",
      "18": "<J>Jesus approached and spoke to them saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.</J>",
      "19": "<J>Therefore go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,</J>",
      "20": "<J>and by teaching them to keep all the instructions I have given you. And surely I am with you always until the end of the age.”</J>"
    }
  },
  "Mark": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.",
      "2": "This is how it is written in the prophet Isaiah:\nLook, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,\nwho will prepare the way for you.",
      "3": "A voice of one calling out in the wilderness,\n“Prepare the way of the Lord.\nMake his paths straight.”",
      "4": "John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.",
      "5": "The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him. They were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins.",
      "6": "John was clothed in camel’s hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey.",
      "7": "He preached, “One more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals!",
      "8": "I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”",
      "9": "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.",
      "10": "Just as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.",
      "11": "And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.”",
      "12": "The Spirit immediately sent Jesus out into the wilderness.",
      "13": "He was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels were serving him.",
      "14": "After John was put in prison, Jesus went to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.",
      "15": "<J>“The time is fulfilled,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near! Repent, and believe in the gospel.”</J>",
      "16": "As Jesus was going along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea, since they were fishermen.",
      "17": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”</J>",
      "18": "Immediately they left their nets and followed him.",
      "19": "Going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat mending the nets.",
      "20": "Immediately Jesus called them. They left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.",
      "21": "Then they went into Capernaum.\nOn the next Sabbath day, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach.",
      "22": "They were amazed at his teaching, because he was teaching them as one who has authority and not as the experts in the law.",
      "23": "Just then there was a man with an unclean spirit in their synagogue. It cried out,",
      "24": "“What do we have to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”",
      "25": "<J>Jesus rebuked the spirit, saying, “Be quiet! Come out of him!”</J>",
      "26": "The unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions, and after crying out with a loud voice, it came out of him.",
      "27": "Everyone was so amazed that they began to discuss this with each other. They said, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits, and they obey him!”",
      "28": "News about him spread quickly through all the region of Galilee.",
      "29": "They left the synagogue and went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew.",
      "30": "Simon’s mother-in-law was lying in bed, sick with a fever. Without delay they told Jesus about her.",
      "31": "He went to her, took her by the hand, and raised her up. The fever left her, and she began to serve them.",
      "32": "That evening, when the sun had set, the people kept bringing to him all who were sick and demon-possessed.",
      "33": "The whole town gathered at the door.",
      "34": "He healed many people who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons. But he did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew who he was.",
      "35": "Jesus got up early in the morning, while it was still dark, and went out. He withdrew to a solitary place and was praying there.",
      "36": "Simon and his companions searched for him,",
      "37": "and, when they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is looking for you!”",
      "38": "<J>He told them, “Let’s go somewhere else, to the neighboring villages, so that I can preach there too. In fact, that is why I have come.”</J>",
      "39": "Then he went throughout the whole region of Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.",
      "40": "A leper came to Jesus. He knelt down and begged him, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”",
      "41": "<J>Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. “I am willing,” he told him. “Be clean.”</J>",
      "42": "Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was healed.",
      "43": "Then Jesus gave him a stern warning and immediately sent him away.",
      "44": "<J>He told him, “See that you do not say anything to anyone. Instead go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the sacrifices for your cleansing that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”</J>",
      "45": "But after the man left, he began to proclaim it widely. He spread the word so much that Jesus was no longer able to enter a town openly but stayed outside in deserted places. Yet people kept coming to him from all directions."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "When Jesus again entered Capernaum some days later, people heard that he was home.",
      "2": "So many people were gathered together that there was no more room, not even by the door, and he was speaking the word to them.",
      "3": "Some people came to him bringing a paralyzed man, carried by four men.",
      "4": "Since they could not bring the man to Jesus because of the crowd, they dug through the roof above where he was. When they had made an opening, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralyzed man was lying.",
      "5": "<J>When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”</J>",
      "6": "But there were some experts in the law sitting there and thinking in their hearts,",
      "7": "“Why does this fellow speak like this? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins except God alone?”",
      "8": "<J>Jesus immediately knew in his spirit that they were thinking this way within themselves. He asked them, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?</J>",
      "9": "<J>Which is easier: to tell the paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your stretcher, and walk’?</J>",
      "10": "<J>But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralyzed man,</J>",
      "11": "<J>“I tell you, get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”</J>",
      "12": "At once the man got up, picked up the stretcher, and went out in front of everyone. So they were all amazed and glorified God. They said, “We have never seen anything like this!”",
      "13": "Jesus went out again along the sea. The whole crowd went to him, and he taught them.",
      "14": "<J>As he was passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him. And Levi got up and followed him.</J>",
      "15": "Then when Jesus was reclining at a table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples because many of them also were following him.",
      "16": "When the experts in the law and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?”",
      "17": "<J>When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”</J>",
      "18": "John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. They came and asked Jesus, “Why is it that John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?”",
      "19": "<J>Jesus said to them, “The friends of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.</J>",
      "20": "<J>But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then on that day they will fast.</J>",
      "21": "No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the patch shrinks, the new tears away from the old, and a worse tear is made.",
      "22": "No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will pour out, and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”",
      "23": "Once on a Sabbath day, Jesus was passing through the grain fields, and his disciples began to pick heads of grain as they walked along.",
      "24": "The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?”",
      "25": "<J>He replied to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry (he and his companions)?</J>",
      "26": "He entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the Bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for anyone to eat, except for the priests. He also gave some to his companions.”",
      "27": "<J>Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.</J>",
      "28": "<J>So the Son of Man is the Lord even of the Sabbath.”</J>"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there with a withered hand.",
      "2": "They were watching Jesus closely to see if he would heal the man on the Sabbath day, so that they could accuse him.",
      "3": "<J>He said to the man with the withered hand, “Step forward!”</J>",
      "4": "<J>Then he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.</J>",
      "5": "<J>Then he looked around at them with anger, deeply grieved at the hardness of their hearts. He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” The man stretched it out, and his hand was restored.</J>",
      "6": "The Pharisees left and immediately began to conspire against Jesus with the Herodians, plotting how they might kill him.",
      "7": "Jesus withdrew to the sea with his disciples. A large crowd followed him from Galilee, Judea,",
      "8": "Jerusalem, Idumaea, and beyond the Jordan, as well as from around Tyre and Sidon. A large crowd came to him when they heard all that he was doing.",
      "9": "He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that the people would not crush him.",
      "10": "Since he had healed many people, all those who had illnesses were pressing forward to touch him.",
      "11": "Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down in front of him, crying out, “You are the Son of God!”",
      "12": "But he warned them sternly that they should not tell who he was.",
      "13": "Jesus went up the mountain, summoned those he wanted, and they came to him.",
      "14": "He appointed twelve whom he designated apostles, so that they would be with him and so that he could send them out to preach",
      "15": "and to have authority to drive out demons.",
      "16": "He appointed the Twelve: Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter;",
      "17": "then James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the nickname Boanerges, which means “Sons of Thunder”;",
      "18": "also Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus; finally, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot,",
      "19": "and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.",
      "20": "They went into a house. A crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat a meal.",
      "21": "When his own people heard this, they went out to take control of him, because they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”",
      "22": "The experts in the law who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He drives out demons by the ruler of demons.”",
      "23": "<J>Jesus called them together and spoke to them in parables. “How can Satan drive out Satan?</J>",
      "24": "<J>If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.</J>",
      "25": "<J>And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.</J>",
      "26": "<J>And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is finished.</J>",
      "27": "<J>On the other hand, no one can enter a strong man’s house to steal his possessions unless he ties up the strong man first. Then he can plunder his house.</J>",
      "28": "<J>Amen I tell you: Everything will be forgiven people, their sins and whatever blasphemies they may speak.</J>",
      "29": "<J>But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”</J>",
      "30": "Jesus said this because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”",
      "31": "Then his mother and his brothers arrived. While they were standing outside, they sent word to Jesus, calling for him.",
      "32": "A crowd was sitting around him. They began to tell him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you.”",
      "33": "<J>He replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”</J>",
      "34": "<J>He looked at those who sat around him in a circle and he said, “Look, my mother and my brothers!</J>",
      "35": "<J>For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”</J>"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Another time Jesus began to teach by the sea. Such a large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the sea. The whole crowd was on the seashore.",
      "2": "<J>Then he taught them many things in parables. As he taught them, he said,</J>",
      "3": "<J>“Listen! There was a sower who went out to sow.</J>",
      "4": "<J>As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.</J>",
      "5": "<J>Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up right away because it did not have deep soil.</J>",
      "6": "<J>When the sun rose, it was scorched, and because it did not have much root, it withered.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Some seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, so it did not produce fruit.</J>",
      "8": "<J>Still other seed fell on good ground and yielded fruit, sprouting and growing and producing a crop: some thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred times as much as was sown.”</J>",
      "9": "<J>Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”</J>",
      "10": "When Jesus was alone, those who were around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables.",
      "11": "<J>He said to them, “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but everything comes in parables to those who are outside,</J>",
      "12": "<J>so that\nthey will certainly see but not perceive,\nand they will certainly hear but not understand.\nOtherwise, they might turn and be forgiven.”</J>",
      "13": "<J>Then he asked them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand any of the parables?</J>",
      "14": "<J>The sower sows the word.</J>",
      "15": "<J>These are the ones along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and immediately takes away the word that was sown in them.</J>",
      "16": "<J>Some are like the ones sown on rocky ground: as soon as they hear the word, they immediately welcome it with joy.</J>",
      "17": "<J>Yet since they have no root in themselves, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away.</J>",
      "18": "<J>Still others are sown among the thorns. These are the ones who hear the word,</J>",
      "19": "<J>but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth and desires for other things enter in and choke the word, so it becomes unfruitful.</J>",
      "20": "<J>But the ones sown on the good ground are those who hear the word, accept it, and produce fruit: some thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred times as much as was sown.”</J>",
      "21": "<J>He also said to them, “A lamp is not brought out to be put under a basket or under a bed, is it? Isn’t it placed on a lampstand?</J>",
      "22": "<J>For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not come to light.</J>",
      "23": "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”",
      "24": "<J>He went on to tell them, “Pay attention to what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you, and more will be given to you.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Yes, whoever has will be given more. And whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”</J>",
      "26": "<J>He said, “The kingdom of God is like this: A man scatters seed on the ground,</J>",
      "27": "<J>and while he sleeps and rises, night and day, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.</J>",
      "28": "<J>The ground produces fruit on its own: first the blade, then the head, then the full grain in the head.</J>",
      "29": "<J>When the crop is ready, he swings the sickle without delay, because the harvest has come.”</J>",
      "30": "<J>Then he said, “To what should we compare the kingdom of God? Or with what parable may we picture it?</J>",
      "31": "<J>It is like a mustard seed, which when sown on the ground is one of the smallest of all the seeds planted in the ground.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Yet when it is planted, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the sky can nest under its shade.”</J>",
      "33": "With many similar parables he continued to speak the word to them, as much as they were able to hear.",
      "34": "He did not speak to them without a parable. But when he was alone with his disciples, he explained everything to them.",
      "35": "<J>On that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s go over to the other side.”</J>",
      "36": "After leaving the crowd behind, the disciples took him along in the boat, just as he was. Other small boats also followed him.",
      "37": "A great windstorm arose, and the waves were splashing into the boat, so that the boat was quickly filling up.",
      "38": "Jesus himself was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. They woke him and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are about to drown?”",
      "39": "<J>Then he got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” The wind stopped, and there was a great calm.</J>",
      "40": "<J>He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still lack faith?”</J>",
      "41": "They were filled with awe and said to one another, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "They went to the other side of the sea, into the region of the Gerasenes.",
      "2": "As soon as Jesus stepped out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs to meet him.",
      "3": "The man lived in the tombs. Nobody could bind him anymore, not even with a chain.",
      "4": "For he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he pulled the chains apart and broke the shackles in pieces. Nobody had the strength to subdue him.",
      "5": "Night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was constantly crying out and cutting himself with stones.",
      "6": "When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down in front of him.",
      "7": "He cried out with a loud voice, “What do I have to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you to swear by God not to torment me.”",
      "8": "<J>For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”</J>",
      "9": "Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”\n“My name is Legion,” he replied, “because we are many.”",
      "10": "He begged Jesus repeatedly that he would not send them out of the region.",
      "11": "There was a large herd of pigs there feeding on the hillside.",
      "12": "The demons begged him, “Send us to the pigs so we may enter them.”",
      "13": "Jesus gave them permission. The unclean spirits went out and entered the pigs. Then the herd of about two thousand pigs rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned.",
      "14": "Those who were feeding the pigs ran and reported this in the city and the countryside.\nPeople came to see what had happened.",
      "15": "When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.",
      "16": "Those who had seen it described for these people what had happened to the demon-possessed man, and they told them about the pigs.",
      "17": "They began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.",
      "18": "As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to stay with Jesus.",
      "19": "<J>But Jesus would not let him. Instead, he told him, “Go home to your people, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you.”</J>",
      "20": "The man left and began to proclaim in the Decapolis everything Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed.",
      "21": "When Jesus had again crossed over in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him near the sea.",
      "22": "Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet",
      "23": "and repeatedly pleaded with him, “My little daughter is near death. Please come and place your hands on her so that she may be healed and live.”",
      "24": "Jesus went with him, and a large crowd was following him, pressing tightly against him.",
      "25": "A certain woman who was there had a discharge of blood for twelve years.",
      "26": "She had suffered much under the care of many physicians and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse.",
      "27": "When she heard what was being said about Jesus, she went up behind him in the crowd and touched his robe.",
      "28": "She said, “If I just touch his robe, I will be healed.”",
      "29": "Immediately her flow of blood stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.",
      "30": "<J>At that moment, Jesus knew that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”</J>",
      "31": "His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing tightly against you and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’”",
      "32": "Nevertheless he kept looking around to see who had done this.",
      "33": "The woman was trembling with fear since she knew what had happened to her. She came forward, fell down in front of him, and told him the whole truth.",
      "34": "<J>He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your suffering.”</J>",
      "35": "While he was still speaking, people from the synagogue ruler’s house arrived, saying, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher anymore?”",
      "36": "<J>But when Jesus heard this report, he told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.”</J>",
      "37": "He did not allow anyone to follow him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James.",
      "38": "They went into the house of the synagogue ruler, and Jesus saw a commotion with people weeping and wailing loudly.",
      "39": "<J>When he entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.”</J>",
      "40": "They laughed at him. But after he put everyone out, he took the father of the child, her mother, and those who were with him and went in where the child was.",
      "41": "<J>Grasping the hand of the child, he said to her, “Talitha, koum!” (When translated, that means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!”)</J>",
      "42": "Immediately the little girl stood up and began to walk around. (She was twelve years old.) They were completely and utterly amazed.",
      "43": "Then he gave them strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and he told them to give her something to eat."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Jesus left there and went to his hometown. His disciples followed him.",
      "2": "When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue. Many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did this man learn these things? What is this wisdom that has been given to this man? How is it that miracles such as these are performed by his hands?",
      "3": "Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.",
      "4": "<J>Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own house.”</J>",
      "5": "He could not do any miracles there except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.",
      "6": "He was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went around the villages teaching.",
      "7": "Jesus called the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. He gave them authority over the unclean spirits.",
      "8": "He instructed them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their money belts.",
      "9": "They were to put on sandals but not to wear two coats.",
      "10": "<J>He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Any place that will not receive you or listen to you, as you leave there, shake off the dust that is under your feet as a testimony against them.”</J>",
      "12": "They went out and preached that people should repent.",
      "13": "They also drove out many demons. They anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.",
      "14": "King Herod heard about this because Jesus’ name had become well known. Herod was saying, “John the Baptizer has been raised from the dead! That is why these powers are at work in him.”",
      "15": "But others were saying, “He is Elijah.” Still others were saying, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.”",
      "16": "When Herod heard this, he said, “This is John, the man I beheaded. He was raised.”",
      "17": "For it was Herod who had sent men to arrest John. He had him bound in prison because Herod had married Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.",
      "18": "Indeed, John had been telling him, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”",
      "19": "Herodias held a grudge against John and wanted to put him to death, but she could not,",
      "20": "because Herod feared John. He knew that John was a righteous and holy man, so he kept him safe. When Herod listened to John, he was perplexed in many ways, yet he gladly kept listening to him.",
      "21": "An opportune day came when it was Herod’s birthday. He gave a banquet for his nobles, the military officers, and the prominent men of Galilee.",
      "22": "When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you.”",
      "23": "With an oath he promised her, “Whatever you ask of me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom.”",
      "24": "She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?”\nHerodias said, “The head of John the Baptizer.”",
      "25": "The girl hurried right back to the king and made her request: “I want you to give me the head of John the Baptist on a platter right now.”",
      "26": "The king was very sad. But because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her.",
      "27": "The king sent an executioner at once and ordered him to bring John’s head. He went, beheaded John in prison,",
      "28": "brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother.",
      "29": "When John’s disciples heard about this, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.",
      "30": "The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught.",
      "31": "<J>He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.” For there were so many people coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat.</J>",
      "32": "They went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.",
      "33": "But many people saw them leave and knew where they were going. They ran there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.",
      "34": "When Jesus stepped out of the boat, he saw a large crowd. His heart went out to them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. He began to teach them many things.",
      "35": "It was already late in the day when his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already very late.",
      "36": "Send them away so they can go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”",
      "37": "<J>But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.”\nThey asked him, “Should we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?”</J>",
      "38": "<J>He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go see.”\nWhen they found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.”</J>",
      "39": "He directed everyone to sit down in groups on the green grass.",
      "40": "They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties.",
      "41": "Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, and blessed the loaves and broke them. Then he kept giving pieces to his disciples to set in front of them. He also divided the two fish among them all.",
      "42": "They all ate and were satisfied.",
      "43": "Then they picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish.",
      "44": "There were five thousand men who ate the loaves.",
      "45": "Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he himself dismissed the crowd.",
      "46": "After he had sent them off, he went up the mountain to pray.",
      "47": "When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and Jesus was alone on the land.",
      "48": "He saw them straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he went to them, walking on the sea. He was ready to pass by them.",
      "49": "When they saw him walking on the sea, they thought he was a ghost, and they cried out.",
      "50": "<J>They all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke with them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Do not be afraid.”</J>",
      "51": "Then he climbed up into the boat with them, and the wind stopped. They were completely amazed,",
      "52": "because they had not understood about the loaves. Instead, their hearts were hardened.",
      "53": "When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there.",
      "54": "As soon as they stepped out of the boat, people recognized Jesus.",
      "55": "They ran around that whole region and began to bring sick people on their stretchers to where they heard he was.",
      "56": "Wherever he entered villages, cities, or the countryside, they were laying sick people in the marketplaces and pleading with him that they might just touch the edge of his garment. And all who touched it were made well."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "The Pharisees and some of the experts in the law came from Jerusalem and gathered around Jesus.",
      "2": "They saw some of his disciples eating bread with unclean (that is, unwashed) hands.",
      "3": "In fact, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they scrub their hands with a fist, holding to the tradition of the elders.",
      "4": "When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions they adhere to, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches.",
      "5": "The Pharisees and the experts in the law asked Jesus, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Instead they eat bread with unclean hands.”",
      "6": "<J>He answered them, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites. As it is written:\nThese people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.</J>",
      "7": "<J>They worship me in vain, teaching human rules as if they\n    were doctrines.</J>",
      "8": "<J>“You abandon God’s commandment but hold to human tradition like the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other such things.”</J>",
      "9": "<J>He continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside God’s commandment to keep your own tradition.</J>",
      "10": "<J>For example, Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever speaks evil of his father or mother must be put to death.’</J>",
      "11": "<J>But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or mother, “Whatever help you might have received from me is corban”’ (which means an offering),</J>",
      "12": "<J>then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.</J>",
      "13": "<J>So you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. You do many things like that.”</J>",
      "14": "<J>He called the crowd to him again and said, “Everyone, listen to me and understand.</J>",
      "15": "<J>There is nothing outside of a man that can make him unclean by going into him. But the things that come out of a man are what make a man unclean.</J>",
      "16": "<J>If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”</J>",
      "17": "After he had left the crowd and entered a house, his disciples asked him about this illustration.",
      "18": "<J>He said, “Are you lacking in understanding too? Do you not understand that whatever goes into a man from the outside cannot make him unclean?</J>",
      "19": "<J>For it does not enter his heart but goes into his stomach and goes out of him into the latrine—in this way all foods are purified.”</J>",
      "20": "<J>He continued, “What comes out of a man, that is what makes a man unclean.</J>",
      "21": "<J>In fact, from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual sins, theft, murder,</J>",
      "22": "<J>adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, unrestrained immorality, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness.</J>",
      "23": "<J>All these evil things proceed from within and make a person unclean.”</J>",
      "24": "Jesus got up and went from there to the region of Tyre and Sidon. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but he could not remain hidden.",
      "25": "Instead, when a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him, she immediately came and fell down at his feet.",
      "26": "This woman was a Greek, of Syro-Phoenician origin. She asked him to drive the demon out of her daughter.",
      "27": "<J>Jesus said to her, “Let the children be fed first, because it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to their little dogs.”</J>",
      "28": "“Lord,” she answered, “their little dogs under the table also eat some of the children’s crumbs.”",
      "29": "<J>Then he said to her, “Because of this statement, go! The demon has gone out of your daughter.”</J>",
      "30": "She went home, found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.",
      "31": "Jesus left the region of Tyre again and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, within the region of the Decapolis.",
      "32": "They brought a man to him who was deaf and had a speech impediment. They pleaded with Jesus to place his hand on him.",
      "33": "Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue.",
      "34": "<J>After he looked up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”)</J>",
      "35": "Immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was set free, and he began to speak plainly.",
      "36": "Jesus gave the people strict orders to tell no one, but the more he did so, the more they kept proclaiming it.",
      "37": "They were amazed beyond measure and said, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!”"
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples and said to them,",
      "2": "<J>“I feel compassion for the crowd because they have already stayed with me three days and do not have anything to eat.</J>",
      "3": "<J>If I send them home hungry, they will faint on the way. Some of them have come from a long distance.”</J>",
      "4": "<J>His disciples replied, “Where can anyone get enough bread to feed these people here in this deserted place?”</J>",
      "5": "<J>He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”\n“Seven,” they said.</J>",
      "6": "<J>He commanded the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves, gave thanks, and broke them. He gave the pieces to his disciples to distribute to the crowd, and they did so.</J>",
      "7": "<J>They also had a few small fish. He blessed them and said that these should be distributed as well.</J>",
      "8": "The people ate and were satisfied. They picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.",
      "9": "About four thousand men were there. Then he sent them away.",
      "10": "Right after that, Jesus got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.",
      "11": "The Pharisees came and began to argue with him. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven.",
      "12": "<J>He sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Amen I tell you: No such sign will be given to this generation.”</J>",
      "13": "After he left them and got back into the boat, he crossed to the other side.",
      "14": "They had forgotten to take bread along except for one loaf that they had with them in the boat.",
      "15": "<J>“Watch out,” Jesus warned them. “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”</J>",
      "16": "They began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.",
      "17": "<J>Since Jesus knew this, he said to them, “Why are you discussing your lack of bread? Do you still not understand or comprehend? Do you have a hardened heart?</J>",
      "18": "<J>You have eyes—do you not see? You have ears—do you not hear? Do you not remember?</J>",
      "19": "<J>When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of broken pieces did you pick up?”\n“Twelve,” they told him.</J>",
      "20": "<J>“And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of broken pieces did you pick up?”\n“Seven,” they said.</J>",
      "21": "<J>He said to them, “Do you still not comprehend?”</J>",
      "22": "They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought him a blind man and begged him to touch him.",
      "23": "He took hold of the blind man’s hand and led him out of the village. When he had spit on his eyes, he placed his hands on him and asked him, “Do you see anything?”",
      "24": "The man looked up and said, “I see people. To me they look like trees walking.”",
      "25": "Then Jesus placed his hands on his eyes again. The man opened his eyes and his sight was restored. He could see everything clearly.",
      "26": "<J>Jesus sent him home, saying, “Do not go into the village.”</J>",
      "27": "<J>Jesus went away with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”</J>",
      "28": "They told him, “John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others say one of the prophets.”",
      "29": "<J>“But who do you say I am?” he asked them.\nPeter answered him, “You are the Christ.”</J>",
      "30": "Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.",
      "31": "<J>Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things; be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the experts in the law; be killed; and after three days rise again.</J>",
      "32": "He was speaking plainly to them. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.",
      "33": "<J>But after turning around and looking at his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have your mind set on the things of God, but the things of men.”</J>",
      "34": "<J>He called the crowd and his disciples together and said to them, “If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.</J>",
      "35": "<J>For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.</J>",
      "36": "<J>After all, what good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?</J>",
      "37": "<J>Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?</J>",
      "38": "<J>In fact, whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”</J>"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "<J>He said to them, “Amen I tell you: There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come with power.”</J>",
      "2": "<J>After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and led them up a high mountain where they were alone by themselves. There he was transfigured in front of them.</J>",
      "3": "His clothes became radiant, dazzling white, whiter than anyone on earth could bleach them.",
      "4": "And Elijah appeared to them together with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.",
      "5": "<J>Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”</J>",
      "6": "He did not know what to say because they were terrified.",
      "7": "<J>A cloud appeared and overshadowed them, and a voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him.”</J>",
      "8": "Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus alone.",
      "9": "As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.",
      "10": "They kept the matter to themselves, discussing with one another what this “rising from the dead” meant.",
      "11": "They asked him, “Why do the experts in the law say that Elijah must come first?”",
      "12": "<J>He said to them, “Elijah does come first and restores all things. Why was it also written about the Son of Man that he must suffer many things and be rejected?</J>",
      "13": "But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they wanted, just as it was written about him.”",
      "14": "When they returned to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and some experts in the law were arguing with them.",
      "15": "As soon as all the people in the crowd saw Jesus, they were very excited and ran to greet him.",
      "16": "<J>He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?”</J>",
      "17": "<J>One man from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who has a spirit that makes him unable to speak.</J>",
      "18": "<J>Wherever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.”</J>",
      "19": "<J>“O unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied. “How long will I be with you? How long will I put up with you? Bring him to me.”</J>",
      "20": "They brought the boy to Jesus. As soon as the spirit saw him, it threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell on the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.",
      "21": "<J>Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has this been happening to him?”\n“From childhood,” he said.</J>",
      "22": "“It has often thrown him into the fire and into the water to kill him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”",
      "23": "<J>“If you can?” Jesus said to him. “All things are possible for the one who believes.”</J>",
      "24": "<J>The child’s father immediately cried out and said with tears, “I do believe. Help me with my unbelief!”</J>",
      "25": "<J>When Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit. “You mute and deaf spirit,” he said, “I command you to come out of him and never enter him again!”</J>",
      "26": "The spirit screamed, shook the boy violently, and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many of them said, “He’s dead!”",
      "27": "But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him up, and he stood up.",
      "28": "When Jesus went into a house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why were we not able to drive it out?”",
      "29": "<J>He said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out, except by prayer and fasting.”</J>",
      "30": "They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know this,",
      "31": "<J>because he was teaching his disciples. He told them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. But three days after he is killed, he will rise.”</J>",
      "32": "But they did not understand the statement and were afraid to ask him about it.",
      "33": "<J>They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”</J>",
      "34": "But they remained silent, because on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.",
      "35": "<J>Jesus sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he will be the last of all and the servant of all.”</J>",
      "36": "Then he took a little child and placed him in their midst. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them,",
      "37": "<J>“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me, welcomes not just me but also him who sent me.”</J>",
      "38": "<J>John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name. We tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”</J>",
      "39": "<J>But Jesus said, “Do not try to stop him, because no one who does a miracle in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil about me.</J>",
      "40": "<J>Whoever is not against us is for us.</J>",
      "41": "<J>Amen I tell you: Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ, will certainly not lose his reward.</J>",
      "42": "<J>“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall into sin, it would be better for him if he were thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around his neck.</J>",
      "43": "<J>If your hand causes you to fall into sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed, than to have two hands and go into hell, into the unquenchable fire,</J>",
      "44": "‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’",
      "45": "<J>If your foot causes you to fall into sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, than to have two feet and be thrown into hell,</J>",
      "46": "‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’",
      "47": "<J>If your eye causes you to fall into sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,</J>",
      "48": "<J>‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’</J>",
      "49": "<J>For everyone will be salted with fire.</J>",
      "50": "<J>Salt is good. But if the salt loses its flavor, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”</J>"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Jesus got up and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Crowds gathered around him again and, as he usually did, he taught them.",
      "2": "Some Pharisees came to test him and asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”",
      "3": "<J>He replied, “What did Moses command you?”</J>",
      "4": "They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”",
      "5": "<J>But Jesus told them, “He wrote this command for you because of your hard hearts.</J>",
      "6": "<J>But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.</J>",
      "7": "<J>For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,</J>",
      "8": "<J>and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”</J>",
      "10": "In the house his disciples asked him about this again.",
      "11": "<J>He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.</J>",
      "12": "<J>If she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”</J>",
      "13": "Some people began bringing little children to Jesus so that he would touch them. But the disciples rebuked them.",
      "14": "<J>When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said, “Let the little children come to me! Do not hinder them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.</J>",
      "15": "<J>Amen I tell you: Whoever will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”</J>",
      "16": "And he took the little children in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.",
      "17": "As Jesus was setting out on a journey, one man ran up to him and knelt in front of him. He asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”",
      "18": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one—God.</J>",
      "19": "<J>You know the commandments. ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’”</J>",
      "20": "The man replied, “Teacher, I have kept all these since I was a child.”",
      "21": "<J>Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack. Go, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”</J>",
      "22": "When he heard this, he looked sad and went away grieving, because he had great wealth.",
      "23": "<J>Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”</J>",
      "24": "<J>The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus told them again, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in their riches to enter the kingdom of God!</J>",
      "25": "<J>It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”</J>",
      "26": "They were even more astonished and said to one another, “Who then can be saved?”",
      "27": "<J>Jesus looked at them and said, “For people, it is impossible, but not for God, because all things are possible for God.”</J>",
      "28": "Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.”",
      "29": "<J>Jesus said, “Amen I tell you: There is no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the gospel,</J>",
      "30": "<J>who now at this time will fail to receive one hundred times as much: houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields (along with persecutions)—and in the coming age: eternal life.</J>",
      "31": "<J>But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”</J>",
      "32": "<J>They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was leading them. The disciples were amazed, and the others who followed were afraid. He took the Twelve aside again and began to tell them what was going to happen to him.</J>",
      "33": "<J>“Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the experts in the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles.</J>",
      "34": "<J>They will mock him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”</J>",
      "35": "James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him and said, “Teacher, we wish that you would do for us whatever we ask.”",
      "36": "<J>He said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?”</J>",
      "37": "They said to him, “Promise that we may sit, one at your right and one at your left, in your glory.”",
      "38": "<J>But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with?”</J>",
      "39": "<J>“We can,” they replied.\nJesus told them, “You will drink the cup that I am going to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with.</J>",
      "40": "But to sit at my right or at my left is not for me to give; rather, these places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”",
      "41": "When the ten heard this, they were angry with James and John.",
      "42": "<J>Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.</J>",
      "43": "<J>But that is not the way it is to be among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant,</J>",
      "44": "<J>and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave of all.</J>",
      "45": "<J>For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”</J>",
      "46": "They came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, a blind man, Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road begging.",
      "47": "When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”",
      "48": "Many told him to be quiet, but he kept shouting all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”",
      "49": "Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”\nThey called the blind man, saying, “Cheer up! Get up. He is calling you!”",
      "50": "He tossed aside his outer garment, jumped up, and went to Jesus.",
      "51": "<J>“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.\nThe blind man replied, “Rabboni, I want to see again.”</J>",
      "52": "<J>Jesus told him, “Go. Your faith has made you well.” Immediately he received his sight and began following Jesus on the road.</J>"
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples",
      "2": "<J>and told them, “Go into the village ahead of you. As soon as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here.</J>",
      "3": "<J>If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it, and he will send it back here without delay.’”</J>",
      "4": "They left and found a colt on the street, tied at a door; and they untied it.",
      "5": "Some who were standing there asked them, “What are you doing, untying that colt?”",
      "6": "The disciples answered them just as Jesus had instructed them, and the men let them go.",
      "7": "They brought the colt to Jesus, threw their garments on it, and Jesus sat on it.",
      "8": "Many people spread their garments on the road. Others spread branches that they had cut from the fields.",
      "9": "Those who went in front and those who followed were crying out,\nHosanna!\nBlessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!",
      "10": "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!\nHosanna in the highest!",
      "11": "Jesus went into the temple courts in Jerusalem and looked around at everything. Since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.",
      "12": "The next day, after they had set out from Bethany, Jesus was hungry.",
      "13": "When he saw a fig tree in leaf in the distance, he went to see if he might find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, since it was not the season for figs.",
      "14": "<J>Jesus said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And his disciples were listening.</J>",
      "15": "They came to Jerusalem. Jesus went into the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying in the temple courts. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those who were selling doves.",
      "16": "He would not allow anyone to carry any merchandise through the temple courts.",
      "17": "<J>He began to teach them: “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers’!”</J>",
      "18": "The chief priests and the experts in the law heard this and were looking for a way to kill him. Indeed they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.",
      "19": "When evening came, Jesus and his disciples would leave the city.",
      "20": "As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered down to the roots.",
      "21": "Peter remembered and said, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”",
      "22": "<J>Jesus replied, “Have faith in God.</J>",
      "23": "<J>Amen I tell you: Whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.</J>",
      "24": "<J>Therefore I tell you, everything that you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.</J>",
      "26": "<J>But if you do not forgive, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins.”</J>",
      "27": "They went into Jerusalem again. As he was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the experts in the law, and the elders came to him.",
      "28": "They asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do these things?”",
      "29": "<J>Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.</J>",
      "30": "<J>The baptism of John—was it from heaven or from men? Answer me.”</J>",
      "31": "<J>They discussed this with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’</J>",
      "32": "<J>But if we say, ‘From men’. . . .” (They feared the crowd, because everybody held that John really was a prophet.)</J>",
      "33": "<J>So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”\nJesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”</J>"
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Jesus began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to some tenant farmers and went on a journey.",
      "2": "When it was time, he sent a servant to the tenants to receive his share of the vineyard’s produce.",
      "3": "They took him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.",
      "4": "Again, he sent another servant to them. But they hit him on the head and treated him shamefully.",
      "5": "Then he sent another servant, but they killed that one. He also sent many others; some they beat, and others they killed.",
      "6": "<J>He still had one left, a dearly loved son. Finally, he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’</J>",
      "7": "But those tenant farmers said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’",
      "8": "They seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.",
      "9": "<J>So what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenant farmers and give the vineyard to others.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Have you not read this Scripture:\nThe stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.</J>",
      "11": "<J>The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes?”</J>",
      "12": "They were looking for a way to arrest him, because they knew that he had spoken the parable against them. But they feared the crowd, so they left him and went away.",
      "13": "The Jewish leaders sent some Pharisees and some Herodians to Jesus to try to trap him in what he said.",
      "14": "They came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are honest and do not play favorites, since you are not partial to anyone, but you teach the way of God on the basis of the truth. Is it lawful to pay a tax to Caesar or not?",
      "15": "<J>Should we pay it or not?”\nSince Jesus knew their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why do you keep testing me? Bring me a denarius so that I can look at it.”</J>",
      "16": "<J>So they brought one.\nHe said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?”\n“Caesar’s,” they answered him.</J>",
      "17": "<J>Then Jesus told them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”\nAnd they were amazed at him.</J>",
      "18": "Next some Sadducees (who say that there will be no resurrection) came to him. They asked him a question:",
      "19": "“Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves behind a wife but no child, then his brother should take his wife and raise up children for his brother.’",
      "20": "“Now there were seven brothers. The first one took a wife and died without leaving children.",
      "21": "The second one married her and died, leaving no children. The third one did the same.",
      "22": "The seven left no children. Last of all, the woman also died.",
      "23": "So when they rise in the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since all seven had her as a wife?”",
      "24": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Isn’t this the reason you are mistaken: that you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?</J>",
      "25": "<J>In fact, when people rise from the dead, they do not marry, and they are not given in marriage, but they are like angels in heaven.</J>",
      "26": "<J>But about the dead—that they are raised—have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?</J>",
      "27": "<J>He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken.”</J>",
      "28": "One of the experts in the law approached after he heard their discussion. When he saw that Jesus had answered them well, he asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?”",
      "29": "<J>Jesus answered, “The most important is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one.</J>",
      "30": "<J>You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’</J>",
      "31": "<J>The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”</J>",
      "32": "The expert in the law said to him, “Well said, teacher. You have spoken correctly on the basis of the truth that he is one, and there is no other besides him.",
      "33": "To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”",
      "34": "<J>When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.</J>",
      "35": "<J>While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he responded by saying, “How is it that the experts in the law say that the Christ is the Son of David?</J>",
      "36": "<J>David himself said by the Holy Spirit:\nThe Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand,\nuntil I make your enemies a footstool under your feet.’</J>",
      "37": "<J>“David himself calls him Lord, so how can he be his son?” The large crowd listened to him with delight.</J>",
      "38": "<J>He also said to them in his teaching, “Beware of the experts in the law who like to walk around in long robes and receive greetings in the marketplaces.</J>",
      "39": "<J>They love the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.</J>",
      "40": "<J>They devour widows’ houses and offer long prayers to look good. These men will receive greater condemnation.”</J>",
      "41": "<J>Jesus sat down opposite the offering box and was watching how the crowd put money into it. Many rich people put in large amounts.</J>",
      "42": "One poor widow came and put in two small bronze coins, worth less than a penny.",
      "43": "<J>He called his disciples together and said to them, “Amen I tell you: This poor widow put more into the offering box than all the others.</J>",
      "44": "<J>For they all gave out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all that she had to live on.”</J>"
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "As Jesus was leaving the temple courts, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher, look what impressive stones these are, and what impressive buildings!”",
      "2": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Do you see these large buildings? There will not be one stone here left on top of another. They will all be thrown down.”</J>",
      "3": "As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,",
      "4": "“Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be fulfilled?”",
      "5": "<J>Jesus began by telling them, “Be careful that no one deceives you.</J>",
      "6": "<J>Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many.</J>",
      "7": "<J>“Whenever you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled. Such things must happen, but the end is not yet.</J>",
      "8": "<J>In fact, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.</J>",
      "9": "<J>But be on your guard! People will hand you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues. You will stand in the presence of rulers and kings for my sake as a witness to them.</J>",
      "10": "<J>And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Whenever they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand what you should say. Say whatever is given to you in that hour, because you will not be the ones speaking; instead it will be the Holy Spirit.</J>",
      "12": "<J>“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father, his child. Children will rise up against their parents and put them to death.</J>",
      "13": "<J>You will be hated by everyone because of my name, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.</J>",
      "14": "<J>When you see the abomination that causes desolation standing where it should not be—let the reader understand—then those who are in Judea should flee to the mountains.</J>",
      "15": "<J>The one who is on the housetop should not go down or enter to take anything out of his house.</J>",
      "16": "<J>The one who is in the field should not return to get his clothes.</J>",
      "17": "<J>How terrible it will be for those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days!</J>",
      "18": "<J>Pray that this will not happen in winter.</J>",
      "19": "<J>For in those days there will be distress of such a kind as has not happened from the beginning of the creation until now, and surely never will be again.</J>",
      "20": "<J>If the Lord had not shortened those days, no one would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened the days.</J>",
      "21": "<J>Then if someone tells you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it.</J>",
      "22": "<J>For false Christs and false prophets will rise up and perform signs and wonders to deceive even the elect, if it were possible.</J>",
      "23": "<J>So be on your guard. I have told you everything in advance.</J>",
      "24": "<J>“But after that distress in those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.</J>",
      "25": "<J>The stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Then you will see the Son of Man coming on clouds with great power and glory.</J>",
      "27": "<J>At that time he will send out his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of the sky.</J>",
      "28": "<J>“Learn from this illustration of the fig tree: Whenever its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.</J>",
      "29": "<J>So also when you see these things happening, you will know that he is near—at the doors!</J>",
      "30": "<J>Amen I tell you: This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things happen.</J>",
      "31": "<J>Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.</J>",
      "32": "<J>“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.</J>",
      "33": "<J>Watch! Be alert and pray, because you do not know when the time will come.</J>",
      "34": "<J>It is like a man going away on a journey. When he left his home, he put his servants in charge and assigned what each one was to do. He also commanded the doorkeeper to keep watch.</J>",
      "35": "<J>Therefore keep watch, because you do not know when the owner of the house is coming: whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or early in the morning.</J>",
      "36": "<J>If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.</J>",
      "37": "<J>What I say to you, I say to everyone: Keep watch!”</J>"
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "It was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the experts in the law were looking for some deceptive way to arrest Jesus and kill him.",
      "2": "“Certainly not during the Festival,” they said, “or there will be a riot among the people.”",
      "3": "While Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made from pure nard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it over his head.",
      "4": "But there were some who were indignant and said to one another, “Why has this perfume been wasted?",
      "5": "Certainly this perfume could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor!” And they began to scold her.",
      "6": "<J>But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me.</J>",
      "7": "<J>In fact, you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you are not always going to have me.</J>",
      "8": "<J>She did what she could. She anointed my body beforehand for burial.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Amen I tell you: Wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman did will also be told in memory of her.”</J>",
      "10": "Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray Jesus to them.",
      "11": "When they heard this, they were glad and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.",
      "12": "On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”",
      "13": "<J>He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and there a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him.</J>",
      "14": "<J>Wherever he enters, tell the owner of the house that the Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’</J>",
      "15": "He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”",
      "16": "His disciples left and went into the city and found things just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover.",
      "17": "When it was evening, he arrived with the Twelve.",
      "18": "<J>While they were reclining and eating, Jesus said, “Amen I tell you: One of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”</J>",
      "19": "They began to be sorrowful and said to him one by one, “Surely not I?”",
      "20": "<J>He said to them, “It is one of the Twelve, one who is dipping bread with me in the dish.</J>",
      "21": "Indeed, the Son of Man is going to go just as it has been written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”",
      "22": "<J>While they were eating, Jesus took bread. When he had blessed it, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “Take it. This is my body.”</J>",
      "23": "Then he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them. They all drank from it.",
      "24": "<J>He said to them, “This is my blood of the new testament, which is poured out for many.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Amen I tell you: I will certainly not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”</J>",
      "26": "After they sang a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.",
      "27": "<J>Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me. For it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’</J>",
      "28": "<J>But after I am raised, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”</J>",
      "29": "But Peter said to him, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”",
      "30": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Amen I tell you: Today—this very night—before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”</J>",
      "31": "But Peter kept saying emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you.” And they all said the same thing.",
      "32": "<J>They went to a place named Gethsemane. Jesus told his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”</J>",
      "33": "Then he took Peter, James, and John along with him and began to be troubled and distressed.",
      "34": "<J>He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, even to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch.”</J>",
      "35": "Going forward a little, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.",
      "36": "<J>He also said, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”</J>",
      "37": "<J>When he returned to the disciples, he found them sleeping. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Were you not strong enough to keep watch for one hour?</J>",
      "38": "<J>Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”</J>",
      "39": "Again he went away and prayed, saying the same thing.",
      "40": "When he returned, he found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. They did not know what they should answer him.",
      "41": "<J>He returned the third time and said to them, “Are you going to continue sleeping and resting? It is enough. The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.</J>",
      "42": "<J>Rise, let us go. Look, my betrayer is near.”</J>",
      "43": "Just then, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. A crowd was with him, armed with swords and clubs. They were from the chief priests, the experts in the law, and the elders.",
      "44": "Now his betrayer had given them a signal, saying, “The one I kiss is the man. Arrest him and lead him away under guard.”",
      "45": "He went right to Jesus and said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him.",
      "46": "They laid hands on him and arrested him.",
      "47": "But one of those who stood nearby drew his sword, struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear.",
      "48": "<J>Jesus responded by saying to them, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to capture me as you would a criminal?</J>",
      "49": "<J>Day after day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But this happened so that the Scriptures may be fulfilled.”</J>",
      "50": "Then the disciples all left him and fled.",
      "51": "A certain young man was following him, wearing just a linen cloth over his naked body. They seized him,",
      "52": "but he left behind the linen cloth and fled from them naked.",
      "53": "They led Jesus away to the high priest. All the chief priests, the elders, and the experts in the law gathered together.",
      "54": "Peter followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. He was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire.",
      "55": "The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for testimony against Jesus in order to put him to death, but they did not find any.",
      "56": "Many testified falsely against him, but their testimonies did not agree.",
      "57": "Some stood up and gave this false testimony against him:",
      "58": "“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’”",
      "59": "Yet even on this point, their testimony did not agree.",
      "60": "The high priest stepped forward and questioned Jesus, “Have you no answer? What is this they are testifying against you?”",
      "61": "But Jesus was silent and did not answer anything.\nAgain the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”",
      "62": "<J>“I am,” Jesus said. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”</J>",
      "63": "The high priest tore his robes and said, “Why do we need any more witnesses?",
      "64": "You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?”\nThey all condemned him as being worthy of death.",
      "65": "Then some began to spit on him. They covered his face and struck him with their fists, saying, “Prophesy!” The guards also took him and beat him.",
      "66": "While Peter was in the courtyard below, one of the servant girls of the high priest came there.",
      "67": "When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked directly at him and said, “You were also with the Nazarene, Jesus!”",
      "68": "But he denied it, saying, “I don’t know or understand what you are saying,” and he went out to the entryway. Then a rooster crowed.",
      "69": "When the servant girl saw him, once more she began to tell those standing there, “This is one of them.”",
      "70": "But again he denied it. After a little while those who were standing there said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, because you are a Galilean.”",
      "71": "But he began to curse and to swear, “I do not know this man you are talking about!”",
      "72": "Just then, the rooster crowed for the second time. Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said to him: “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "As soon as it was morning, the chief priests, along with the elders, the experts in the law, and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.",
      "2": "Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”\nHe answered him, “It is as you say.”",
      "3": "The chief priests accused him of many things.",
      "4": "Pilate questioned him again, “Are you not going to answer anything? See how many charges they are bringing against you!”",
      "5": "But Jesus still did not answer anything, so Pilate was amazed.",
      "6": "At each Festival, Pilate used to release to the people one prisoner whom they requested.",
      "7": "There was one named Barabbas, who was imprisoned with the rebels and had committed murder in the rebellion.",
      "8": "The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do for them what he usually did.",
      "9": "Pilate replied, “Do you want me to release the King of the Jews to you?”",
      "10": "In fact, he knew that it was because of envy that the chief priests had handed him over.",
      "11": "But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas to them instead.",
      "12": "Again, Pilate replied to them, “Then what do you want me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?”",
      "13": "“Crucify him!” they shouted back.",
      "14": "But Pilate said to them, “Why? What has he done wrong?”\nBut they shouted even louder, “Crucify him!”",
      "15": "Since he wanted to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. After he had Jesus flogged, he handed him over to be crucified.",
      "16": "The soldiers led him away inside the palace, which is the Praetorium, and called together the whole cohort of soldiers.",
      "17": "They put a purple robe on him, twisted together a crown of thorns, and put it on him.",
      "18": "The soldiers began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”",
      "19": "They kept hitting him on the head with a reed and spitting on him. They also kneeled down to pay homage to him.",
      "20": "When they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothing on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.",
      "21": "A certain man, Simon of Cyrene (the father of Alexander and Rufus), was passing by on his way in from the country. They forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.",
      "22": "They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means, “The place of a skull.”",
      "23": "They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.",
      "24": "They crucified him. And they divided his garments, casting lots for them to decide what each of them would take.",
      "25": "Now it was the third hour when they crucified him.",
      "26": "The superscription stating the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”",
      "27": "They also crucified two criminals with him, one on his right and one on his left.",
      "28": "",
      "29": "Those who passed by ridiculed him, shaking their heads and saying, “Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,",
      "30": "save yourself! Come down from the cross!”",
      "31": "In the same way, the chief priests along with the experts in the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said. “He cannot save himself.",
      "32": "Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross so that we may see and believe!”\nThose who were crucified with him also insulted him.",
      "33": "When it was the sixth hour, darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.",
      "34": "At the ninth hour Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”",
      "35": "When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah!”",
      "36": "Someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. They said, “Leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down.”",
      "37": "Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last.",
      "38": "The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.",
      "39": "When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he cried out and breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”",
      "40": "There were also women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.",
      "41": "When he was in Galilee, they followed him and served him. Many other women also came up with him to Jerusalem.",
      "42": "It was already evening, and since it was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath),",
      "43": "Joseph from Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, boldly went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.",
      "44": "Pilate was surprised that he was already dead. He summoned the centurion and asked him if Jesus had been dead for a long time.",
      "45": "When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he granted the body to Joseph.",
      "46": "Joseph bought a linen cloth, took him down, and wrapped him in the linen cloth. He laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of rock, and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.",
      "47": "Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where the body was laid."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could go and anoint Jesus.",
      "2": "Very early on the first day of the week, at sunrise, they went to the tomb.",
      "3": "They were saying to each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb for us?”",
      "4": "When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.",
      "5": "As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.",
      "6": "<J>He said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.</J>",
      "7": "<J>But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”</J>",
      "8": "They went out and hurried away from the tomb, trembling and perplexed. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.",
      "9": "After Jesus had risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.",
      "10": "She went and reported to those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept.",
      "11": "When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe it.",
      "12": "After these things, Jesus appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking along on their way to the country.",
      "13": "These two also returned and reported it to the rest. But they did not believe them either.",
      "14": "Later, he appeared to the Eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table. He rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen.",
      "15": "<J>He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.</J>",
      "16": "<J>Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.</J>",
      "17": "<J>“These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons. They will speak in new languages.</J>",
      "18": "<J>They will pick up snakes. And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them. They will lay their hands on the sick, and they will get well.”</J>",
      "19": "Then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.",
      "20": "Those who went out preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it."
    }
  },
  "Luke": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Many have undertaken to compile an account of the events that have been fulfilled among us,",
      "2": "an account like those handed down to us by those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word from the beginning.",
      "3": "For this reason, it seemed good to me also, since I followed everything closely from the beginning, to write an orderly account to you, most excellent Theophilus,",
      "4": "so that you may know the certainty of the things you were taught.",
      "5": "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a certain priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.",
      "6": "They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and righteous decrees of the Lord.",
      "7": "They did not have a child because Elizabeth was unable to bear children, and they were both well along in years.",
      "8": "On one occasion, while Zechariah was serving as priest before God and his division was on duty,",
      "9": "he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.",
      "10": "The whole crowd of people were praying outside the temple during the hour of the incense offering.",
      "11": "An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.",
      "12": "When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and overcome by fear.",
      "13": "But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear a son for you, and you are to name him John.",
      "14": "You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,",
      "15": "because he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to drink wine or beer. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.",
      "16": "He will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.",
      "17": "He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to prepare a people who are ready for the Lord.”",
      "18": "Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this, because I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years?”",
      "19": "The angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and was sent to speak to you in order to tell you this good news.",
      "20": "Now listen, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things happen, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at the proper time.”",
      "21": "Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering what was taking him so long in the temple.",
      "22": "When he did come out, he was unable to speak to them. Then they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. He kept making signs to them and remained unable to speak.",
      "23": "When the days of his priestly service were completed, he went back to his home.",
      "24": "After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived. She kept herself in seclusion for five months, saying,",
      "25": "“The Lord has done this for me in the days when he looked with favor on me and took away my disgrace among the people.”",
      "26": "In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee named Nazareth,",
      "27": "to a virgin pledged in marriage to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.",
      "28": "The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.”",
      "29": "But she was greatly troubled by the statement and was wondering what kind of greeting this could be.",
      "30": "The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, because you have found favor with God.",
      "31": "Listen, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus.",
      "32": "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.",
      "33": "He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.”",
      "34": "Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”",
      "35": "The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.",
      "36": "Listen, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age even though she was called barren, and this is her sixth month.",
      "37": "For nothing will be impossible for God.”",
      "38": "Then Mary said, “See, I am the Lord’s servant. May it happen to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.",
      "39": "In those days Mary got up and hurried to the hill country, to a town of Judah.",
      "40": "She entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.",
      "41": "Just as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.",
      "42": "She called out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!",
      "43": "But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?",
      "44": "In fact, just now, as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy!",
      "45": "Blessed is she who believed, because the promises spoken to her from the Lord will be fulfilled!”",
      "46": "Then Mary said,\nMy soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,",
      "47": "and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,",
      "48": "because he has looked with favor on the humble state of his servant.\nSurely, from now on all generations will call me blessed,",
      "49": "because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is\n    his name.",
      "50": "His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.",
      "51": "He has shown strength with his arm.\nHe has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts.",
      "52": "He has brought down rulers from their thrones.\nHe has lifted up the lowly.",
      "53": "He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent\n    away empty.",
      "54": "He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy,",
      "55": "as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever.",
      "56": "Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then returned to her home.",
      "57": "When the time came for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son.",
      "58": "Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they were rejoicing with her.",
      "59": "On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. They wanted to call him Zechariah after the name of the father.",
      "60": "But his mother answered, “No. He will be called John.”",
      "61": "They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.”",
      "62": "They made signs to his father, to see what he wanted to name him.",
      "63": "He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they were all amazed.",
      "64": "Immediately Zechariah’s mouth was opened, his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God.",
      "65": "Fear came on all who lived around them. In the entire hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.",
      "66": "And everyone who heard this took it to heart, saying, “What then will this child be?” Clearly, the hand of the Lord was with him.",
      "67": "His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:",
      "68": "Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel,\nbecause he has visited us and prepared redemption for his people.",
      "69": "He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,",
      "70": "just as he said long ago through the mouth of his holy prophets.",
      "71": "He raised up salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us,",
      "72": "in order to show mercy to our fathers by remembering his holy covenant,",
      "73": "the oath which he swore to Abraham our father,",
      "74": "to grant deliverance to us from the hand of our enemies,\nso that we are able to serve him without fear,",
      "75": "in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.",
      "76": "And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High,\nbecause you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,",
      "77": "to give his people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins,",
      "78": "because of God’s tender mercies,\nby which the Rising Sun from on high will visit us,",
      "79": "to shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,\nto guide our feet into the way of peace.",
      "80": "The child continued to grow and became strong in spirit. He lived in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.",
      "2": "This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governing Syria.",
      "3": "And everyone went to register, each to his own town.",
      "4": "And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the town of Nazareth, into Judea, to the town of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was from the house and family line of David.",
      "5": "He went to be registered with Mary, his wife, who was pledged to him in marriage and was expecting a child.",
      "6": "And so it was that while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.",
      "7": "And she gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.",
      "8": "There were in the same country shepherds staying out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock at night.",
      "9": "An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified!",
      "10": "But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people:",
      "11": "Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord.",
      "12": "And this will be a sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”",
      "13": "Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude from the heavenly army, praising God and saying,",
      "14": "“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind.”",
      "15": "When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Now let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”",
      "16": "So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.",
      "17": "When they had seen him, they told others the message they had been told about this child.",
      "18": "And all who heard it were amazed by what the shepherds said to them.",
      "19": "But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.",
      "20": "And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.",
      "21": "After eight days passed, when the child was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.",
      "22": "When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.",
      "23": "(As it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male will be called holy to the Lord.”)",
      "24": "And they came to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”",
      "25": "Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, waiting for the comfort of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him.",
      "26": "It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.",
      "27": "Moved by the Spirit he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary according to the law,",
      "28": "Simeon took him into his arms and praised God. He said,",
      "29": "Lord, you now dismiss your servant in peace, according to\n    your word,",
      "30": "because my eyes have seen your salvation,",
      "31": "which you have prepared before the face of all people,",
      "32": "a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your\n    people Israel.",
      "33": "Joseph and the child’s mother were amazed at the things that were spoken about him.",
      "34": "Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Listen carefully, this child is appointed for the falling and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is spoken against,",
      "35": "so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”",
      "36": "Anna, a prophetess, was there. She was a daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old. She had lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage,",
      "37": "and then she was a widow of eighty-four years. She did not leave the temple complex, since she was worshipping with fasting and prayers night and day.",
      "38": "Standing nearby at that very hour, she gave thanks to the Lord. She kept speaking about the child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.",
      "39": "When they had accomplished everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town, Nazareth.",
      "40": "The child grew and became strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was on him.",
      "41": "Every year his parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival.",
      "42": "When he was twelve years old, they went up according to the custom of the Festival.",
      "43": "When the days had ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it.",
      "44": "Since they thought he was in their group, they went a day’s journey. Then they began to look for him among their relatives and friends.",
      "45": "When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him.",
      "46": "After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.",
      "47": "And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.",
      "48": "When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us this way? See, your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.”",
      "49": "He said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be taking care of my Father’s business?”",
      "50": "They did not understand what he was telling them.",
      "51": "He went down with them and came to Nazareth. He was always obedient to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.",
      "52": "Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and with people."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene—",
      "2": "during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.",
      "3": "He went into the whole region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.",
      "4": "Just as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:\nA voice of one calling in the wilderness,\n“Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight.",
      "5": "Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be\n    made low.\nThe crooked will become straight, and the rough ways smooth.",
      "6": "And everyone will see the salvation of God.”",
      "7": "So John kept saying to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?",
      "8": "Therefore produce fruits in keeping with repentance! Do not even think of saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ because I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.",
      "9": "Even now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.”",
      "10": "The crowds began to ask him, “What should we do then?”",
      "11": "He answered them, “Whoever has two shirts should share with the person who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”",
      "12": "Tax collectors also came to be baptized. They said, “Teacher, what should we do?”",
      "13": "To them he said, “Collect no more than what you were authorized to.”",
      "14": "Soldiers were also asking him, “And what should we do?”\nHe told them, “Do not extort money from anyone by force or false accusation. Be satisfied with your wages.”",
      "15": "The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might be the Christ.",
      "16": "John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But someone mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.",
      "17": "His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor. He will gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”",
      "18": "Then with many other words, he appealed to them and was preaching good news to the people.",
      "19": "But after John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things he had done—",
      "20": "Herod added this to them all: He locked John in prison.",
      "21": "When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. While he was praying, heaven was opened,",
      "22": "and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.”",
      "23": "Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry.\nJesus was the son (so it was thought) of Joseph, the son of Heli,",
      "24": "the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,",
      "25": "the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai,",
      "26": "the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda,",
      "27": "the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri,",
      "28": "the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,",
      "29": "the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi,",
      "30": "the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,",
      "31": "the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David,",
      "32": "the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon,",
      "33": "the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,",
      "34": "the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,",
      "35": "the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah,",
      "36": "the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,",
      "37": "the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Malaleel, the son of Cainan,",
      "38": "the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,",
      "2": "where he was tempted by the Devil for forty days. He did not eat anything during those days. When they came to an end, he was hungry.",
      "3": "The Devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”",
      "4": "<J>Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’”</J>",
      "5": "The Devil led him up to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.",
      "6": "The Devil told him, “I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms, because it has been entrusted to me, and I can give it to anyone I want.",
      "7": "So, if you worship me, it will all be yours.”",
      "8": "<J>Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”</J>",
      "9": "The Devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here,",
      "10": "because it is written:\nHe will command his angels concerning you, to protect you.",
      "11": "And,\nthey will lift you up with their hands,\nso that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”",
      "12": "<J>Jesus answered him, “It says: ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’”</J>",
      "13": "When the Devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time.",
      "14": "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through all the surrounding area.",
      "15": "He was teaching in their synagogues and being honored by everyone.",
      "16": "He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As was his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.",
      "17": "The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:",
      "18": "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,\nbecause he anointed me to preach good news to the poor.\nHe has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captives\nand recovery of sight to the blind,\nto set free those who are oppressed,",
      "19": "and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.",
      "20": "He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.",
      "21": "<J>He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”</J>",
      "22": "They all spoke well of him and were impressed by the words of grace that came from his mouth. And they kept saying, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”",
      "23": "<J>He told them, “Certainly you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ Do here in your hometown everything we heard you did in Capernaum.”</J>",
      "24": "<J>And he said, “Amen I tell you: No prophet is accepted in his hometown.</J>",
      "25": "<J>But truly I tell you: There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three years and six months, while a great famine came over all the land.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow of Zarephath, in Sidon.</J>",
      "27": "<J>And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was healed except Naaman the Syrian.”</J>",
      "28": "All those who were in the synagogue were filled with rage when they heard these things.",
      "29": "They got up and drove him out of the town. They led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff.",
      "30": "But he passed through the middle of them and went on his way.",
      "31": "He went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbath.",
      "32": "They were amazed by his teaching, because his message had authority.",
      "33": "In the synagogue there was a man who was possessed by the unclean spirit of a demon. He cried out with a loud voice,",
      "34": "“Leave us alone! What do you have to do with us, Jesus the Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God!”",
      "35": "Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” The demon threw him down in front of them and came out of him without harming him.",
      "36": "They were all filled with awe and began to say to one another, “What is this message? With authority and power he commands unclean spirits, and they come out!”",
      "37": "News about him spread to every place in the surrounding area.",
      "38": "Jesus got up, left the synagogue, and went into Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever. They asked him to help her.",
      "39": "He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.",
      "40": "As the sun was setting, they brought to him all who were sick with various diseases. He laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.",
      "41": "Demons also came out of many people, crying out, “You are the Son of God!” He rebuked them and did not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.",
      "42": "When it was day, he went out to a deserted place. The crowds were looking for him. They went up to him and were trying to prevent him from leaving them.",
      "43": "<J>But he told them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns too, because that is why I was sent.”</J>",
      "44": "And he continued to preach in the synagogues in the land of the Jews."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "One time, while the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.",
      "2": "He saw two boats there along the lakeshore. The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets.",
      "3": "Jesus got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore. He sat down and began teaching the crowds from the boat.",
      "4": "<J>When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.”</J>",
      "5": "<J>Simon answered him, “Master, we worked hard all through the night and caught nothing. But at your word I will let down the nets.”</J>",
      "6": "When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets were about to tear apart.",
      "7": "They signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.",
      "8": "When Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord.”",
      "9": "For Peter and all those with him were amazed at the number of fish they had caught,",
      "10": "<J>and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.\nJesus said to Simon, “Have no fear. From now on you will be catching people.”</J>",
      "11": "After they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.",
      "12": "On another occasion, Jesus was in one of the towns, and there was a man full of leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”",
      "13": "<J>Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be made clean.”\nImmediately the leprosy left him.</J>",
      "14": "<J>Jesus ordered him to tell no one, “But go, show yourself to the priest, and offer what Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony for them.”</J>",
      "15": "The news about him spread even more, and large crowds gathered to listen and be healed of their sicknesses.",
      "16": "But Jesus often withdrew to deserted places and prayed.",
      "17": "On one of the days while Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was with him to heal.",
      "18": "Just then, men who were carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher tried to bring him in and lay him in front of Jesus.",
      "19": "Since they did not find a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him down through the tiles on his stretcher into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.",
      "20": "<J>When he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins have been forgiven.”</J>",
      "21": "The experts in the law and the Pharisees began to think to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins except God alone?”",
      "22": "<J>But Jesus knew their thoughts and answered them, “Why are you thinking this in your hearts?</J>",
      "23": "<J>Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins have been forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?</J>",
      "24": "<J>But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . .” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”</J>",
      "25": "Immediately, he stood up in front of them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.",
      "26": "They were all astonished and glorified God. They were also filled with reverence and said, “We have seen wonderful things today.”",
      "27": "<J>After these things, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at the tax collector’s booth. He said to him, “Follow me.”</J>",
      "28": "Levi left everything, got up, and followed Jesus.",
      "29": "Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house. There was a large crowd of tax collectors and others dining with them.",
      "30": "The Pharisees and experts in the law grumbled against his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”",
      "31": "<J>Jesus answered them, “The healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.</J>",
      "32": "<J>I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”</J>",
      "33": "They said to him, “Why do John’s disciples fast and pray often, and so do the Pharisees’ disciples, but yours go on eating and drinking?”",
      "34": "<J>Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?</J>",
      "35": "But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then, in those days, they will fast.”",
      "36": "<J>He told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new garment, and the patch from the new garment will not match the old one.</J>",
      "37": "<J>And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined.</J>",
      "38": "<J>Instead, new wine must be put into fresh wineskins so both are preserved.</J>",
      "39": "<J>And no one wants new wine while drinking old wine, because he says, ‘The old is fine.’”</J>"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "When Jesus was going through the grain fields on a Sabbath day, his disciples were picking heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them.",
      "2": "But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”",
      "3": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he was hungry (he and his companions)?</J>",
      "4": "<J>He went into the house of God, took and ate the Bread of the Presence, which is lawful only for the priests to eat. He also gave some to his companions.”</J>",
      "5": "<J>Jesus also said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”</J>",
      "6": "On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and taught. A man was there whose right hand was withered.",
      "7": "The experts in the law and the Pharisees were watching him closely, to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. They wanted to find a reason to accuse him.",
      "8": "<J>But he always knew their thoughts. He said to the man with the withered hand, “Stand up and step forward.” He got up and stood there.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Then Jesus said to them, “I will ask you something. Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”</J>",
      "10": "<J>He looked around at all of them and told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did, and his hand was restored.</J>",
      "11": "They were filled with rage and began discussing with one another what they could do to Jesus.",
      "12": "It happened in those days that Jesus went up on the mountain to pray, and he spent all night in prayer to God.",
      "13": "When it was day, he summoned his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also called apostles:",
      "14": "Simon, whom he also named Peter, and his brother Andrew; James and John; Philip and Bartholomew;",
      "15": "Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, also Simon, who was called the Zealot;",
      "16": "Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.",
      "17": "He went down with them and stood on a level place with a large crowd of his disciples and a large number of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, as well as from the coastal area of Tyre and Sidon. These people came to listen to him and to be healed of their diseases.",
      "18": "Those who were troubled by unclean spirits were also cured.",
      "19": "The whole crowd kept trying to touch him, because power was going out from him and healing them all.",
      "20": "<J>He lifted up his eyes to his disciples and said:\nBlessed are you who are poor,\n    because yours is the kingdom of God.</J>",
      "21": "<J>Blessed are you who hunger now,\n    because you will be satisfied.\nBlessed are you who weep now,\n    because you will laugh.</J>",
      "22": "<J>Blessed are you whenever people hate you,\nand whenever they exclude and insult you\nand reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man.</J>",
      "23": "<J>“Rejoice in that day and leap for joy because of this: Your reward is great in heaven! The fact is, their fathers constantly did the same things to the prophets.”</J>",
      "24": "<J>But woe to you who are rich,\n    because you are receiving your comfort now.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Woe to you who are well fed now,\n    because you will be hungry.\nWoe to you who laugh now,\n    because you will be mourning and weeping.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Woe to you when all people speak well of you,\n    because that is how their fathers constantly treated the\n        false prophets.</J>",
      "27": "<J>“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.</J>",
      "28": "<J>Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.</J>",
      "29": "<J>If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other too. If someone takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt.</J>",
      "30": "<J>Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes away your things, do not demand them back.</J>",
      "31": "<J>“Treat others just as you would want them to treat you.</J>",
      "32": "<J>If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? To be sure, even the sinners love those who love them.</J>",
      "33": "<J>And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even the sinners do the same thing.</J>",
      "34": "<J>If you lend to those from whom you expect to be repaid, what credit is that to you? Even the sinners lend to sinners in order to be paid back in full.</J>",
      "35": "<J>Instead, love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the unthankful and the evil.</J>",
      "36": "<J>Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.</J>",
      "37": "<J>“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.</J>",
      "38": "<J>Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. In fact, the measure with which you measure will be measured back to you.”</J>",
      "39": "<J>He also told them a parable: “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Won’t they both fall into a pit?</J>",
      "40": "<J>A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.</J>",
      "41": "<J>Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?</J>",
      "42": "<J>Or how can you tell your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck in your eye,’ when you do not see the beam in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck in your brother’s eye.</J>",
      "43": "<J>“Certainly a good tree does not produce bad fruit, and a bad tree does not produce good fruit.</J>",
      "44": "<J>In fact, each tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not gather figs from thorn bushes, and they do not gather grapes from a bramble bush.</J>",
      "45": "<J>The good person brings what is good out of the good stored in his heart, and the evil person brings what is evil out of the evil within. To be sure, what his mouth speaks flows from the heart.</J>",
      "46": "<J>“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?</J>",
      "47": "<J>Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and does them—I will show you what he is like:</J>",
      "48": "<J>He is like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid a foundation on bedrock. When a flood came, the river beat against that house but could not shake it, because it was founded on bedrock.</J>",
      "49": "<J>But the one who listened to my words and did not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river broke against it, it fell immediately, and that house was completely destroyed.”</J>"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "After Jesus had finished saying all these things to the people who were listening, he went into Capernaum.",
      "2": "A centurion’s servant, who was valuable to him, was sick and about to die.",
      "3": "When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant.",
      "4": "When they came to Jesus, they begged him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him,",
      "5": "because he loves our nation, and he built our synagogue for us.”",
      "6": "Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to tell Jesus, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, because I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.",
      "7": "That is why I did not consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed.",
      "8": "For I am also a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes; and to another one, ‘Come!’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”",
      "9": "<J>When Jesus heard these things, he was amazed at him. He turned to the crowd that was following him and said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel.”</J>",
      "10": "And when the men who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.",
      "11": "Soon afterward Jesus went on his way to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd were traveling with him.",
      "12": "As he was approaching the town gate, there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother. She was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.",
      "13": "<J>When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not cry.”</J>",
      "14": "<J>He went up to the open coffin, touched it, and the pallbearers stopped. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!”</J>",
      "15": "The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.",
      "16": "Fear gripped all of them, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us” and “God has visited his people!”",
      "17": "This was reported about him in all of Judea and in all the surrounding countryside.",
      "18": "John’s disciples told him about all these things.",
      "19": "Calling two of his disciples to him, he sent them to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who was to come or should we look for someone else?”",
      "20": "When the men had arrived, they said to Jesus, “John the Baptist sent us to ask you, ‘Are you the one who was to come or should we look for someone else?’”",
      "21": "At that time Jesus healed many people of their diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits. And he gave many blind people the ability to see.",
      "22": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Go, tell John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.</J>",
      "23": "<J>Blessed is the one who does not fall away on account of me.”</J>",
      "24": "<J>After John’s messengers had left, Jesus began to talk to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?</J>",
      "25": "<J>No. Then what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Yet those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in royal palaces.</J>",
      "26": "<J>But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet.</J>",
      "27": "<J>This is the one about whom it is written: ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’</J>",
      "28": "<J>“Yes, I tell you, among those born of women there is no prophet greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”</J>",
      "29": "When all the people (including the tax collectors) heard this, they declared that God was just, since they were baptized with the baptism of John.",
      "30": "But the Pharisees and the legal experts rejected God’s purpose for themselves by not being baptized by him.",
      "31": "<J>“To what then will I compare the people of this generation? What are they like?</J>",
      "32": "<J>They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’</J>",
      "33": "<J>For John the Baptist has come without eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’</J>",
      "34": "<J>The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a man who is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’</J>",
      "35": "Yet wisdom is declared right by all her children.”",
      "36": "A certain one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him. Jesus entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.",
      "37": "Just then a sinful woman from that town learned that he was reclining in the Pharisee’s house. She brought an alabaster jar of perfume,",
      "38": "stood behind him near his feet weeping, and began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she began to wipe them with her hair while also kissing his feet and anointing them with the perfume.",
      "39": "When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would realize who is touching him and what kind of woman she is, because she is a sinner.”",
      "40": "<J>Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”\nHe said, “Teacher, say it.”</J>",
      "41": "<J>“A certain moneylender had two debtors. The one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.</J>",
      "42": "<J>When they could not pay, he forgave them both. So, which of them will love him more?”</J>",
      "43": "<J>Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the larger debt forgiven.”\nThen he told him, “You have judged correctly.”</J>",
      "44": "<J>Turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, but you did not give me water for my feet. Yet she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.</J>",
      "45": "<J>You did not give me a kiss, but she, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.</J>",
      "46": "<J>You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume.</J>",
      "47": "<J>Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; that is why she loved so much. But the one who is forgiven little loves little.”</J>",
      "48": "<J>Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.”</J>",
      "49": "Those reclining at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”",
      "50": "<J>He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”</J>"
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Soon afterward Jesus was traveling from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him",
      "2": "and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and diseases: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out;",
      "3": "Joanna, the wife of Cuza, Herod’s household manager; Susanna; and many others who provided support for them out of their own possessions.",
      "4": "As a large crowd was gathering and people from one town after another were making their way to him, he spoke using a parable.",
      "5": "“A sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some fell along the path. It was trampled, and the birds of the sky devoured it.",
      "6": "Other seed fell on rocky ground. As soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture.",
      "7": "Other seed fell among thorns. The thorns grew up with it and choked it.",
      "8": "Other seed fell into good soil. It grew and produced fruit—one hundred times as much as was sown.” As he said these things, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!”",
      "9": "His disciples asked him, “What does this parable mean?”",
      "10": "He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest I speak in parables so that ‘even though they see, they may not see, and even though they hear, they may not understand.’",
      "11": "This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.",
      "12": "Those along the path are the ones who hear it, but then the Devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts to keep them from believing and being saved.",
      "13": "Those on the rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, but they have no root. So they believe for a while, but then fall away in a time of testing.",
      "14": "The seeds that fell into the thorns are the ones who hear the word, but as they go on their way they are choked by the worries, riches, and pleasures of life, so they do not mature.",
      "15": "And the seeds in the good ground are the ones who hear the word with an honest and good heart, hold on to it tightly, and produce fruit as they patiently endure.",
      "16": "“No one lights a lamp and then hides it under a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand so that those who enter may see the light.",
      "17": "For nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing is secret that will not be made known and come to light.",
      "18": "So listen carefully, because whoever has will be given more, and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.”",
      "19": "Jesus’ mother and brothers came to him, but they could not get near him because of the crowd.",
      "20": "Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.”",
      "21": "But he answered them, “My mother and brothers are those who are hearing and doing the word of God.”",
      "22": "One day Jesus got into a boat with his disciples and told them, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” So they set out.",
      "23": "As they were sailing, he fell asleep. A powerful windstorm came down on the lake, the boat was filling up with water, and they were in danger.",
      "24": "They went to him and woke him, saying, “Master, master, we’re going to die!”\nHe woke up, rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they stopped. Then it was calm.",
      "25": "<J>He said to them, “Where is your faith?”\nThey were afraid and amazed and said to one another, “Who, then, is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”</J>",
      "26": "They sailed down to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across from Galilee.",
      "27": "When Jesus stepped ashore, a man from the town met him. He was possessed by demons and for a long time had not worn any clothes. He did not live in a house but in the tombs.",
      "28": "When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, “What do I have to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torment me!”",
      "29": "For Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. In fact, the unclean spirit had seized him many times. He was kept under guard, and although he was bound with chains and shackles, he would break the restraints and was driven by the demon into deserted places.",
      "30": "Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”\nHe said, “Legion,” because many demons had gone into him.",
      "31": "They were begging Jesus that he would not order them to go into the abyss.",
      "32": "A herd of many pigs was feeding there on the mountain. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission.",
      "33": "The demons went out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.",
      "34": "When those who were feeding the pigs saw what happened, they ran away and reported it in the town and in the countryside.",
      "35": "People went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet. He was clothed and in his right mind, and the people were afraid.",
      "36": "Those who saw it told them how the demon-possessed man was saved.",
      "37": "The whole crowd of people from the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were gripped with great fear.\nAs Jesus got into the boat and started back,",
      "38": "the man from whom the demons had gone out begged to be with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying,",
      "39": "“Return to your home and tell how much God has done for you.” Then he went through the whole town proclaiming what Jesus had done for him.",
      "40": "When Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, because they were all waiting for him.",
      "41": "Just then a man named Jairus arrived. He was a ruler of the synagogue. He fell down at Jesus’ feet and begged him to come to his house,",
      "42": "because he had an only daughter who was about twelve years old and she was dying.\nAs he went, the crowds pressed tightly against him.",
      "43": "There was a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years, yet although she had paid physicians all she had to live on, she could not be healed by anyone.",
      "44": "She approached Jesus from behind and touched the fringe of his garment. Immediately her flow of blood stopped.",
      "45": "<J>And Jesus said, “Who touched me?”\nAs everyone was denying it, Peter and those with him said, “Master, the crowds are pressing in and crowding you, yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’”</J>",
      "46": "<J>But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, because I know that power has gone out from me.”</J>",
      "47": "When the woman saw that she did not escape his notice, she came trembling and fell down before Jesus. In the presence of all the people she told him why she had touched him and how she was healed immediately.",
      "48": "<J>And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”</J>",
      "49": "While he was still speaking, someone came from the synagogue ruler’s house, saying, “Your daughter has died. Don’t trouble the Teacher anymore.”",
      "50": "<J>But when Jesus heard it, he told Jairus, “Do not be afraid. Only believe, and she will be saved.”</J>",
      "51": "When he came to the house, he did not let anyone enter, except Peter, John, James, and the child’s father and mother.",
      "52": "<J>All the people were weeping and mourning for her, but he said, “Stop weeping, because she is not dead, but sleeping.”</J>",
      "53": "They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.",
      "54": "<J>But he took her by the hand and called out, “Child, get up!”</J>",
      "55": "Her spirit returned, and she immediately got up. He ordered that something be given to her to eat.",
      "56": "Her parents were amazed, but he instructed them not to tell anyone what had happened."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Jesus called the Twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases.",
      "2": "He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.",
      "3": "<J>He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money; and do not take two coats.</J>",
      "4": "Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave.",
      "5": "If they do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.”",
      "6": "They set out and went throughout the villages, proclaiming the good news and healing everywhere.",
      "7": "Herod the tetrarch heard about everything that was happening, and he was quite puzzled because some said that John had risen from the dead.",
      "8": "Others said that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the ancient prophets had risen.",
      "9": "But Herod said, “I beheaded John, but who is this, about whom I hear such great things?” So he wanted to see him.",
      "10": "The apostles returned and told Jesus what they had done. He took them and withdrew privately to a town called Bethsaida.",
      "11": "But when the crowds found out, they followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God. He also healed those who needed healing.",
      "12": "As the day began to draw to a close, the Twelve came and said to him, “Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms to find lodging and food, because we are in a deserted place here.”",
      "13": "<J>But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.”\n“We have no more than five loaves and two fish,” they replied, “unless we go and buy food for all these people.”</J>",
      "14": "<J>(There were about five thousand men.)\nHe said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.”</J>",
      "15": "They did so and got them all to sit down.",
      "16": "Then Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish, and, looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke them. Then he kept giving them to the disciples to set before the crowd.",
      "17": "They all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up twelve basketfuls of the broken pieces that were left over.",
      "18": "<J>One time when Jesus was praying alone and the disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”</J>",
      "19": "They answered, “‘John the Baptist,’ but others say, ‘Elijah,’ and others say, ‘one of the ancient prophets come back to life.’”",
      "20": "<J>He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”\nAnd Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”</J>",
      "21": "<J>He gave them a strict command not to tell this to anyone.</J>",
      "22": "<J>He said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law. He must be killed and be raised on the third day.”</J>",
      "23": "<J>Jesus said to all of them, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.</J>",
      "24": "<J>For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.</J>",
      "25": "<J>After all, what will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world, but destroys himself or is lost?</J>",
      "26": "<J>In fact, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels.</J>",
      "27": "I am telling you the truth: There are some standing here who will certainly not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”",
      "28": "About eight days after he said these words, Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray.",
      "29": "While he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothing became dazzling white.",
      "30": "Just then, two men, Moses and Elijah, were talking with him!",
      "31": "They appeared in glory and were talking about his departure, which he was going to bring to fulfillment in Jerusalem.",
      "32": "Peter and those with him were weighed down with sleep, but when they were completely awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.",
      "33": "As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let’s make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not realize what he was saying.",
      "34": "While he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them. They were afraid as they went into the cloud.",
      "35": "Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”",
      "36": "After the voice had spoken, they found Jesus alone. They kept this secret and told no one in those days any of the things they had seen.",
      "37": "The next day, after they had come down from the mountain, a large crowd met him.",
      "38": "Just then a man from the crowd called out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, because he is my only child.",
      "39": "See, a spirit takes hold of him, and suddenly he screams. Then it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It hardly ever leaves him and constantly tortures him.",
      "40": "I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.”",
      "41": "<J>Jesus answered, “O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long will I be with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.”</J>",
      "42": "As the boy was approaching, the demon threw him down and shook him with convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.",
      "43": "They were all astonished at the majesty of God.\nWhile everyone was amazed at all the things Jesus was doing, he said to his disciples,",
      "44": "<J>“Let these words sink into your ears and remember this: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.”</J>",
      "45": "But they did not understand what he was saying. It was hidden from them so they did not grasp it. And they were afraid to ask him about this statement.",
      "46": "An argument started among them about which of them would be the greatest.",
      "47": "Since Jesus knew the thoughts of their hearts, he took a little child and had him stand next to him.",
      "48": "<J>Then he said to them, “Whoever receives this little child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives him who sent me. In fact, the one who is least among all of you is the one who is great.”</J>",
      "49": "John said in reply, “Master, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he is not following you along with us.”",
      "50": "<J>But Jesus said to him, “Do not try to stop him, because whoever is not against you is for you.”</J>",
      "51": "When the days were approaching for him to be taken up, Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem.",
      "52": "He sent messengers ahead of him. They went and entered a Samaritan village to make preparations for him.",
      "53": "But the people did not welcome him, because he was determined to go to Jerusalem.",
      "54": "When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”",
      "55": "But he turned and rebuked them. “You don’t know what kind of spirit is influencing you.",
      "56": "For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s souls, but to save them.” Then they went to another village.",
      "57": "As they went on the way, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”",
      "58": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”</J>",
      "59": "He said to another man, “Follow me!”\nBut he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”",
      "60": "<J>Jesus told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”</J>",
      "61": "Another man also said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say good-bye to those at my home.”",
      "62": "<J>Jesus told him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”</J>"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.",
      "2": "<J>He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.</J>",
      "3": "<J>Go your way. Look, I am sending you out as lambs among wolves.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Do not carry a money bag or traveler’s bag or sandals. Do not greet anyone along the way.</J>",
      "5": "<J>Whenever you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’</J>",
      "6": "<J>And if a peaceful person is there, your peace will rest on him, but if not, it will return to you.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Remain in that same house, eating and drinking what they give you, because the worker is worthy of his pay. Do not keep moving from house to house.</J>",
      "8": "<J>Whenever you enter a town and they welcome you, eat what is set before you.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Heal the sick who are in the town and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near you.’</J>",
      "10": "<J>“But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say,</J>",
      "11": "<J>‘Even the dust from your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this: The kingdom of God has come near.’</J>",
      "12": "<J>I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom on that day than for that town.</J>",
      "13": "<J>“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.</J>",
      "14": "<J>But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.</J>",
      "15": "<J>And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to heaven? No, you will be brought down to hell.</J>",
      "16": "<J>Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”</J>",
      "17": "The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”",
      "18": "<J>He told them, “I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven.</J>",
      "19": "<J>Look, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing will ever harm you.</J>",
      "20": "<J>Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names have been written in heaven.”</J>",
      "21": "<J>In that same hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and have revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, because this was pleasing in your sight.</J>",
      "22": "<J>“Everything was handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him.”</J>",
      "23": "<J>Turning to the disciples, he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!</J>",
      "24": "<J>Indeed, I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see the things that you are seeing, yet did not see them, and to hear the things that you are hearing, yet did not hear them.”</J>",
      "25": "<J>Just then, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”</J>",
      "26": "<J>“What is written in the law?” he asked him. “What do you read there?”</J>",
      "27": "He replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and, love your neighbor as yourself.”",
      "28": "<J>He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”</J>",
      "29": "But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”",
      "30": "<J>Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell among robbers who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.</J>",
      "31": "<J>It just so happened that a priest was going down that way. But when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.</J>",
      "32": "<J>In the same way, a Levite also happened to go there, but when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.</J>",
      "33": "<J>A Samaritan, as he traveled, came to where the man was. When he saw him, he felt sorry for the man.</J>",
      "34": "<J>He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. He put him on his own animal, took him to an inn, and took care of him.</J>",
      "35": "<J>The next day, when he left, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. Whatever extra you spend, I will repay you when I return.’</J>",
      "36": "<J>Which of these three do you think acted like a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?”</J>",
      "37": "<J>“The one who showed mercy to him,” he replied.\nThen Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”</J>",
      "38": "As they went on their way, Jesus came into a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.",
      "39": "She had a sister named Mary, who was sitting at the Lord’s feet and was listening to his word.",
      "40": "But Martha was distracted with all her serving. She came over and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.”",
      "41": "<J>The Lord answered and told her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things,</J>",
      "42": "<J>but one thing is needed. In fact, Mary has chosen that better part, which will not be taken away from her.”</J>"
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "On another occasion, Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.”",
      "2": "<J>He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.</J>",
      "3": "<J>Give us each day our daily bread.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Forgive us our sins, as we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’”</J>",
      "5": "<J>He said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and tell him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,</J>",
      "6": "<J>because a friend of mine who is on a journey has come to me, and I do not have anything to set before him.’</J>",
      "7": "<J>And the one inside replies, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give it to you.’</J>",
      "8": "<J>I tell you, even if he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his bold persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.</J>",
      "9": "<J>“I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.</J>",
      "10": "<J>For everyone who asks receives. The one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened.</J>",
      "11": "<J>“What father among you, if your son asks for bread, would give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, would give him a snake instead of a fish?</J>",
      "12": "<J>Or if he asks for an egg, would give him a scorpion?</J>",
      "13": "<J>If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”</J>",
      "14": "<J>Jesus drove out a demon, which was mute. After the demon had gone out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed.</J>",
      "15": "<J>But some of them said, “He drives out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.”</J>",
      "16": "<J>Others were testing him by demanding of him a sign from heaven.</J>",
      "17": "<J>But he knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed. And a house divided against itself falls.</J>",
      "18": "<J>If Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? You say that I drive out demons by Beelzebul.</J>",
      "19": "<J>But if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out? So they will be your judges.</J>",
      "20": "<J>Yet if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.</J>",
      "21": "<J>“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.</J>",
      "22": "<J>But when someone stronger attacks him and defeats him, he takes away that man’s full armor, in which he had trusted, and divides up his plunder.</J>",
      "23": "<J>“The one who is not with me is against me. The one who does not gather with me scatters.</J>",
      "24": "<J>When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, but does not find any. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house, the one I left.’</J>",
      "25": "<J>When it returns, it finds the house swept and put in order.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and dwell there. The last condition of that man becomes worse than the first.”</J>",
      "27": "<J>While he was saying these things, a woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you, and the breasts at which you nursed!”</J>",
      "28": "<J>But he said, “Even more blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”</J>",
      "29": "<J>As the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It is seeking a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.</J>",
      "30": "<J>For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation.</J>",
      "31": "<J>The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But look, one greater than Solomon is here.</J>",
      "32": "<J>The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. But look, one greater than Jonah is here.</J>",
      "33": "<J>“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a hidden place or under a basket, but on a stand so that those who come in may see the light.</J>",
      "34": "<J>Your eye is the lamp of the body. When your eye is good, your whole body is full of light. But when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.</J>",
      "35": "<J>Therefore, see to it that the light that is in you is not darkness.</J>",
      "36": "<J>So if your whole body is full of light, without any dark part, it will be completely full of light, as when a lamp shines on you with bright light.”</J>",
      "37": "<J>After Jesus spoke, a Pharisee invited him to have a meal with him. He went in and reclined at the table.</J>",
      "38": "<J>When the Pharisee saw this, he was amazed that he did not first wash before the meal.</J>",
      "39": "<J>But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.</J>",
      "40": "<J>Fools! Didn’t the one who made the outside also make the inside?</J>",
      "41": "<J>But give those things that are inside as a gift to the poor, and see, everything will be clean for you.</J>",
      "42": "<J>But woe to you Pharisees, because you give a tenth of mint and rue and every herb, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have done these things without neglecting the others.</J>",
      "43": "<J>Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the best seat in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces.</J>",
      "44": "<J>Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.”</J>",
      "45": "<J>One of the legal experts answered him, “Teacher, by saying these things you are insulting us too.”</J>",
      "46": "<J>But Jesus said, “Woe to you legal experts too, because you load people down with burdens too difficult to carry, and you yourselves do not touch these burdens with one of your fingers.</J>",
      "47": "<J>Woe to you because you build monuments for the prophets, but your fathers killed them.</J>",
      "48": "<J>So you are witnesses and agree with what your fathers did, because they killed them, and you build their monuments.</J>",
      "49": "<J>For this reason the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles. Some of them they will kill and persecute,</J>",
      "50": "<J>so that this generation may be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed from the foundation of the world,</J>",
      "51": "<J>from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary.’ Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation.</J>",
      "52": "<J>Woe to you legal experts, because you took away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were trying to enter.”</J>",
      "53": "When he went away from there, the experts in the law and the Pharisees began to oppose him fiercely and to question him closely about many things.",
      "54": "They were plotting against him to trap him in something he said."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands gathered together so that they were trampling on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.",
      "2": "There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be made known.",
      "3": "<J>So then, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.</J>",
      "4": "<J>“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that are not able to do any more.</J>",
      "5": "<J>But I will show you the one you should fear. Fear him who, after he has killed the body, has authority to throw it into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!</J>",
      "6": "<J>“Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? And not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Why, even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So stop being afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.</J>",
      "8": "<J>“I tell you, whoever confesses me before other people, the Son of Man will also confess him before the angels of God.</J>",
      "9": "<J>But whoever denies me in the presence of other people will be denied in the presence of the angels of God.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.</J>",
      "11": "<J>When they bring you before synagogues, rulers, and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourself, or what you will say,</J>",
      "12": "<J>for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you should say.”</J>",
      "13": "<J>Someone from the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”</J>",
      "14": "<J>But Jesus said to him, “Man, who appointed me to be a judge or an arbitrator over you?”</J>",
      "15": "<J>Then he said to them, “Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because a man’s life is not measured by how many possessions he has.”</J>",
      "16": "<J>He told them a parable: “The land of a certain rich man produced very well.</J>",
      "17": "<J>He was thinking to himself, ‘What will I do, because I do not have anywhere to store my crops?’</J>",
      "18": "<J>He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and goods.</J>",
      "19": "<J>And I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry.”’</J>",
      "20": "<J>“But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your soul will be demanded from you. Now who will get what you have prepared?’</J>",
      "21": "<J>“That is how it will be for anyone who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”</J>",
      "22": "<J>Jesus said to his disciples, “For that reason I tell you, stop worrying about your life, about what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.</J>",
      "23": "<J>Certainly life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing.</J>",
      "24": "<J>Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap; they have no warehouse or barn; and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than birds!</J>",
      "25": "<J>And who of you by worrying can add a single moment to his lifespan?</J>",
      "26": "<J>Since you are not able to do this little thing, why do you worry about the rest?</J>",
      "27": "<J>Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these.</J>",
      "28": "<J>If this is how God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith?</J>",
      "29": "<J>Do not constantly chase after what you will eat or what you will drink. Do not be worried about it.</J>",
      "30": "<J>To be sure, the nations of the world chase after all of these things, but your Father knows that you need them.</J>",
      "31": "<J>Instead, continue to seek the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.</J>",
      "33": "<J>Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not become old, a treasure in the heavens that will not fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.</J>",
      "34": "<J>For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.</J>",
      "35": "<J>“Be dressed, ready for service, and keep your lamps burning.</J>",
      "36": "<J>Be like people waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.</J>",
      "37": "<J>Blessed are those servants, whom the master will find watching when he comes. Amen I tell you: He will dress himself and have them recline at the table, and he will come and serve them.</J>",
      "38": "<J>Even if he comes in the second or third watch, they will be blessed if he finds them alert.</J>",
      "39": "<J>But know this: If the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.</J>",
      "40": "<J>You also be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you are not expecting him.”</J>",
      "41": "<J>Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us or to everybody?”</J>",
      "42": "<J>The Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master will put in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time?</J>",
      "43": "<J>Blessed is that servant whom his master will find doing so when he comes.</J>",
      "44": "<J>Truly I tell you: He will put him in charge of all his possessions.</J>",
      "45": "<J>But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is staying away for a long time.’ And he begins to beat the male and female servants, to eat and drink and become drunk,</J>",
      "46": "<J>then the master of that servant will arrive on a day when he was not expected and at an hour that his servant does not know. The master will cut him in two and assign him a place with the unbelievers.</J>",
      "47": "<J>That servant who knew his master’s will and did not prepare or act according to what his master wanted, will be punished severely.</J>",
      "48": "<J>But the one who did not know, and did something worthy of punishment, will be punished lightly. From everyone to whom much was given, much will be expected. From the one who was entrusted with much, much more will be asked.</J>",
      "49": "<J>“I came to throw fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already ignited.</J>",
      "50": "<J>But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is finished!</J>",
      "51": "<J>Do you think that I came to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.</J>",
      "52": "<J>Yes, from now on there will be five divided in one household: three against two, and two against three.</J>",
      "53": "<J>They will be divided: father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”</J>",
      "54": "<J>He also said to the crowds, “Whenever you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say that a rainstorm is coming, and so it happens.</J>",
      "55": "<J>And whenever a south wind blows, you say that it is going to be hot, and it happens.</J>",
      "56": "<J>Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how is it that you do not know how to interpret this present time?</J>",
      "57": "<J>Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?</J>",
      "58": "<J>Indeed, as you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, make an effort on the way to reach a settlement with him. Otherwise, he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and the officer may throw you into prison.</J>",
      "59": "<J>I tell you, you will never get out of there until you have paid the last cent.”</J>"
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "At that time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.",
      "2": "<J>He answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things?</J>",
      "3": "<J>I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse sinners than all the people living in Jerusalem?</J>",
      "5": "<J>I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too.”</J>",
      "6": "<J>He told them this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it, but he did not find any.</J>",
      "7": "<J>So he said to the gardener, ‘Look, for three years now I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and I have found none. Cut it down. Why even let it use up the soil?’</J>",
      "8": "<J>But the gardener replied to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it.</J>",
      "9": "<J>If it produces fruit next year, fine. But if not, then cut it down.’”</J>",
      "10": "<J>Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.</J>",
      "11": "<J>And a woman was there who had a spirit that had disabled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not stand up straight.</J>",
      "12": "<J>When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”</J>",
      "13": "<J>He placed his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight and began to glorify God.</J>",
      "14": "<J>But the ruler of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. He said to the crowd in response, “There are six days to do work. So come to be healed on those days and not on the Sabbath day!”</J>",
      "15": "<J>The Lord answered him, “Hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you untie his ox or his donkey from the manger on the Sabbath and lead it to water?</J>",
      "16": "<J>Here is this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years! Shouldn’t she be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”</J>",
      "17": "<J>As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame. But the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things he was doing.</J>",
      "18": "<J>Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what will I compare it?</J>",
      "19": "<J>It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches.”</J>",
      "20": "<J>Again he said, “To what will I compare the kingdom of God?</J>",
      "21": "<J>It is like yeast, which a woman took and mixed into a bushel of flour until it was all leavened.”</J>",
      "22": "<J>He went on his way from one town and village to another, teaching, and making his way to Jerusalem.</J>",
      "23": "<J>Someone said to him, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?”\nHe said to them,</J>",
      "24": "<J>“Strive to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Once the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open for us!’ He will tell you in reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’</J>",
      "26": "<J>Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’</J>",
      "27": "<J>And he will say, ‘I don’t know where you come from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’</J>",
      "28": "<J>There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown outside.</J>",
      "29": "<J>People will come from east and west, from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.</J>",
      "30": "<J>And note this: Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”</J>",
      "31": "<J>In that very hour, some Pharisees came to him and said, “Leave, and go away from here, because Herod wants to kill you.”</J>",
      "32": "<J>He said to them, “Go tell that fox, ‘Look, I am going to drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.</J>",
      "33": "<J>Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, because it cannot be that a prophet would be killed outside Jerusalem!’</J>",
      "34": "<J>“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I have wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!</J>",
      "35": "<J>Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you will say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”</J>"
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "One Sabbath day, when Jesus went into the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat bread, they were watching him closely.",
      "2": "Right in front of him was a man who was suffering from swelling of his body.",
      "3": "<J>Jesus addressed the legal experts and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”</J>",
      "4": "<J>But they were silent. So he took hold of the man, healed him, and let him go.</J>",
      "5": "<J>He said to them, “Which of you, if your son or an ox would fall into a well on a Sabbath day, would not immediately pull him out?”</J>",
      "6": "<J>And they could not reply to these things.</J>",
      "7": "<J>When he noticed how they were selecting the places of honor, he told the invited guests a parable.</J>",
      "8": "<J>“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline in the place of honor, or perhaps someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him.</J>",
      "9": "<J>The one who invited both of you may come and tell you, ‘Give this man your place.’ Then you will begin, with shame, to take the lowest place.</J>",
      "10": "<J>“But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will tell you, ‘Friend, move up to a higher place.’ Then you will have honor in the presence of all who are reclining at the table with you.</J>",
      "11": "<J>“Yes, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”</J>",
      "12": "<J>He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you make a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbors, so that perhaps they may also return the favor and pay you back.</J>",
      "13": "<J>“But when you make a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,</J>",
      "14": "<J>and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. Certainly, you will be repaid in the resurrection of the righteous.”</J>",
      "15": "<J>When one of those at the table with him heard these things, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will feast in the kingdom of God!”</J>",
      "16": "<J>Jesus said to him, “A certain man made a great banquet and invited many people.</J>",
      "17": "<J>When it was time for the banquet, he sent out his servant to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’</J>",
      "18": "<J>But they all alike began to make excuses.\n“The first one told him, ‘I bought a field, and I need to go and see it. I ask you to excuse me.’</J>",
      "19": "<J>“Another one said, ‘I bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out. I ask you to excuse me.’</J>",
      "20": "<J>“Still another said, ‘I just got married, and so I am unable to attend.’</J>",
      "21": "<J>“The servant arrived and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house was angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town, and bring in here the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’</J>",
      "22": "<J>“The servant said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and there is still room.’</J>",
      "23": "<J>“Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and urge them to come in, so that my house may be filled.</J>",
      "24": "<J>Yes, I tell you that none of those men who were invited will taste my banquet.’”</J>",
      "25": "<J>Large crowds were traveling with Jesus. He turned and said to them,</J>",
      "26": "<J>“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.</J>",
      "27": "<J>Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.</J>",
      "28": "<J>For which of you, if he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?</J>",
      "29": "<J>Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, everyone who sees it will begin to ridicule him,</J>",
      "30": "<J>saying, ‘This fellow began to build, but was not able to finish.’</J>",
      "31": "<J>Or what king, as he goes out to confront another king in war, will not first sit down and consider if he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?</J>",
      "32": "<J>And if he is not able, he sends out a delegation and asks for terms of peace while his opponent is still far away.</J>",
      "33": "<J>So then, any one of you who does not say farewell to all his own possessions cannot be my disciple.</J>",
      "34": "<J>Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how will it become salty again?</J>",
      "35": "<J>It is not fit for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. The one who has ears to hear, let him hear.”</J>"
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "All the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus to hear him.",
      "2": "But the Pharisees and the experts in the law were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”",
      "3": "<J>He told them this parable:</J>",
      "4": "<J>“Which one of you, if you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that was lost until he finds it?</J>",
      "5": "<J>And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders</J>",
      "6": "<J>and goes home. Then he calls together his friends and his neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’</J>",
      "7": "<J>I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.</J>",
      "8": "<J>“Or what woman who has ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, would not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?</J>",
      "9": "<J>And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the lost coin.’</J>",
      "10": "<J>In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”</J>",
      "11": "<J>Jesus said, “A certain man had two sons.</J>",
      "12": "<J>The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.</J>",
      "13": "<J>Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all that he had and traveled to a distant country. There he wasted his wealth with reckless living.</J>",
      "14": "<J>After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need.</J>",
      "15": "<J>He went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.</J>",
      "16": "<J>He would have liked to fill his stomach with the carob pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.</J>",
      "17": "<J>“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, and I am dying from hunger!</J>",
      "18": "<J>I will get up, go to my father, and tell him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.</J>",
      "19": "<J>I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’</J>",
      "20": "<J>“He got up and went to his father. While he was still far away, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, hugged his son, and kissed him.</J>",
      "21": "<J>The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’</J>",
      "22": "<J>“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick, bring out the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.</J>",
      "23": "<J>Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us eat and celebrate,</J>",
      "24": "<J>because this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.’ Then they began to celebrate.</J>",
      "25": "<J>“His older son was in the field. As he approached the house, he heard music and dancing.</J>",
      "26": "<J>He called one of the servants and asked what was going on.</J>",
      "27": "<J>The servant told him, ‘Your brother is here! Your father killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’</J>",
      "28": "<J>The older brother was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.</J>",
      "29": "<J>“He answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I’ve been serving you, and I never disobeyed your command, but you never gave me even a young goat so that I could celebrate with my friends.</J>",
      "30": "<J>But when this son of yours arrived after wasting your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’</J>",
      "31": "<J>“The father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.</J>",
      "32": "<J>But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.’”</J>"
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "<J>Jesus also said to his disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager who was accused of wasting his possessions.</J>",
      "2": "<J>The rich man called him in and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you can no longer be manager.’</J>",
      "3": "<J>“The manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, since my master is taking away the management position from me? I am not strong enough to dig. I am ashamed to beg.</J>",
      "4": "<J>I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from my position as manager, people will receive me into their houses.’</J>",
      "5": "<J>“He called each one of his master’s debtors to him. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’</J>",
      "6": "<J>He said, ‘Six hundred gallons of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and write three hundred.’</J>",
      "7": "<J>Then he said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘Six hundred bushels of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and write four hundred and eighty.’</J>",
      "8": "<J>“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of the light are.</J>",
      "9": "<J>I tell you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, so that when it runs out, they will welcome you into the eternal dwellings.</J>",
      "10": "<J>The person who is faithful with very little is also faithful with much. And the person who is unrighteous with very little is also unrighteous with much.</J>",
      "11": "<J>So if you have not been faithful with unrighteous mammon, who will entrust you with what is really valuable?</J>",
      "12": "<J>If you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you something to be your own?</J>",
      "13": "<J>No servant can serve two masters. Indeed, either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.”</J>",
      "14": "<J>The Pharisees, who loved money, also heard all these things and sneered at him.</J>",
      "15": "<J>He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the sight of people, but God knows your hearts. In fact, what is highly regarded among people is an abomination in God’s sight.</J>",
      "16": "<J>The Law and the Prophets were until John. Since that time the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone is trying to force his way into it.</J>",
      "17": "<J>“It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for even one part of a letter in the Law to fail.</J>",
      "18": "<J>Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another is committing adultery, and the man who marries a woman divorced from her husband is committing adultery.</J>",
      "19": "<J>“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.</J>",
      "20": "<J>A beggar named Lazarus had been laid at his gate. Lazarus was covered with sores and</J>",
      "21": "<J>longed to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Besides this, the dogs also came and licked his sores.</J>",
      "22": "<J>Eventually the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.</J>",
      "23": "<J>In hell, where he was in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus at his side.</J>",
      "24": "<J>He called out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me! Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in misery in this flame.’</J>",
      "25": "<J>“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in misery.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Besides all this, a great chasm has been set in place between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’</J>",
      "27": "<J>“He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s home,</J>",
      "28": "<J>because I have five brothers—to warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’</J>",
      "29": "<J>“Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’</J>",
      "30": "<J>“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’</J>",
      "31": "<J>“Abraham replied to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”</J>"
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "<J>Jesus said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!</J>",
      "2": "<J>It would be better for that person if a millstone would be hung around his neck and he would be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.</J>",
      "3": "<J>Watch yourselves.\n“If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”</J>",
      "5": "<J>The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”</J>",
      "6": "<J>The Lord said, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Which one of you who has a servant plowing or taking care of sheep will say to him when he comes in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at the table’?</J>",
      "8": "<J>Won’t the master tell him instead, ‘Prepare my supper, and after you are properly dressed, serve me while I eat and drink. After that you may eat and drink’?</J>",
      "9": "<J>He does not thank the servant because he did what he was commanded to do, does he?</J>",
      "10": "<J>So also you, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We have only done what we were supposed to do.’”</J>",
      "11": "<J>On another occasion, as Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, he was passing along the border between Samaria and Galilee.</J>",
      "12": "<J>When he entered a certain village, ten men with leprosy met him. Standing at a distance,</J>",
      "13": "<J>they called out loudly, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”</J>",
      "14": "<J>When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” As they went away they were cleansed.</J>",
      "15": "<J>One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice.</J>",
      "16": "<J>He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, thanking him. And he was a Samaritan.</J>",
      "17": "<J>Jesus responded, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?</J>",
      "18": "<J>Was no one found to return and give glory to God except this foreigner?”</J>",
      "19": "<J>Then he said to him, “Get up and go your way. Your faith has saved you.”</J>",
      "20": "<J>The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come. Jesus answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in a way you can observe,</J>",
      "21": "<J>nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘Look, there it is!’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”</J>",
      "22": "<J>He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.</J>",
      "23": "<J>They will tell you, ‘Look, there he is!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ Do not go out or chase after them,</J>",
      "24": "<J>for the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning that flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other side.</J>",
      "25": "<J>But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.</J>",
      "26": "<J>Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man.</J>",
      "27": "<J>They were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.</J>",
      "28": "<J>Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: They were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building,</J>",
      "29": "<J>but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.</J>",
      "30": "<J>It will be the same on the day the Son of Man is revealed.</J>",
      "31": "<J>On that day, the person who is on the roof and has belongings in the house should not go down to get them. Likewise, the person in the field should not turn back for anything.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Remember Lot’s wife!</J>",
      "33": "<J>Whoever tries to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.</J>",
      "34": "<J>I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed. One will be taken, and the other will be left.</J>",
      "35": "<J>There will be two women grinding grain at the same place. One will be taken, and the other will be left.”</J>",
      "36": "<J></J>",
      "37": "<J>“Where, Lord?” they asked him.\nHe said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will be gathered.”</J>"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "Jesus told them a parable about the need to always pray and not lose heart:",
      "2": "<J>“There was a judge in a certain town who did not fear God and did not care about people.</J>",
      "3": "<J>There was a widow in that town, and she kept going to him, saying, ‘Give me justice from my adversary!’</J>",
      "4": "<J>For some time he refused, but after a while he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God or care about people,</J>",
      "5": "<J>yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not wear me out with her endless pleading.’”</J>",
      "6": "<J>The Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Will not God give justice to his chosen ones, who are crying out to him day and night? Will he put off helping them?</J>",
      "8": "<J>I tell you that he will give them justice quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”</J>",
      "9": "<J>Jesus told this parable to certain people who trusted in themselves (that they were righteous) and looked down on others:</J>",
      "10": "<J>“Two men went up to the temple courts to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector.</J>",
      "11": "<J>The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.</J>",
      "12": "<J>I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of all my income.’</J>",
      "13": "<J>“However the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even lift his eyes up to heaven, but was beating his chest and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’</J>",
      "14": "<J>“I tell you, this man went home justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”</J>",
      "15": "<J>People were bringing even their babies to Jesus, so that he would touch them. When the disciples saw this, they began to rebuke them.</J>",
      "16": "<J>But Jesus invited them, saying, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.</J>",
      "17": "<J>Amen I tell you: Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”</J>",
      "18": "<J>A certain ruler asked Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”</J>",
      "19": "<J>Jesus asked him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good, except one—God.</J>",
      "20": "<J>You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother.’”</J>",
      "21": "<J>“I have kept all these since I was a child,” he said.</J>",
      "22": "<J>When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”</J>",
      "23": "<J>But when the ruler heard these words, he became very sad, because he was very rich.</J>",
      "24": "<J>When Jesus saw that the man became very sad, he said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!</J>",
      "25": "<J>In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”</J>",
      "26": "<J>Those who heard this said, “Then who can be saved?”</J>",
      "27": "<J>He replied, “What is impossible for people is possible for God.”</J>",
      "28": "<J>And Peter said, “Look, we have left our possessions and followed you.”</J>",
      "29": "<J>He said to them, “Amen I tell you: Anyone who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God</J>",
      "30": "<J>will most certainly receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come, eternal life.”</J>",
      "31": "<J>He took the Twelve aside and said to them, “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Indeed, he will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, mistreat him, spit on him,</J>",
      "33": "<J>flog him, and kill him. On the third day, he will rise again.”</J>",
      "34": "<J>They did not understand any of these things. What he said was hidden from them, and they did not understand what was said.</J>",
      "35": "<J>As he approached Jericho, a blind man sat by the road, begging.</J>",
      "36": "<J>When he heard a crowd going by, he asked what was happening.</J>",
      "37": "<J>They told him that Jesus the Nazarene was passing by.</J>",
      "38": "<J>He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”</J>",
      "39": "<J>Those who were at the front of the crowd rebuked him, telling him to be quiet. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”</J>",
      "40": "<J>Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, he asked him,</J>",
      "41": "<J>“What do you want me to do for you?”\nHe said, “Lord, I want to see again.”</J>",
      "42": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Your faith has saved you.”</J>",
      "43": "<J>Immediately he received his sight and began following Jesus, glorifying God. All the people, when they saw this, gave praise to God.</J>"
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.",
      "2": "A man named Zacchaeus was there. He was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.",
      "3": "He was trying to see who Jesus was, but since he was short, he could not see because of the crowd.",
      "4": "He ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Jesus, because he was about to pass by that way.",
      "5": "<J>When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”</J>",
      "6": "<J>He came down quickly and welcomed Jesus joyfully.</J>",
      "7": "<J>When the people saw it, they were all grumbling because he went to be a guest of a sinful man.</J>",
      "8": "<J>Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I am going to give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”</J>",
      "9": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.</J>",
      "10": "<J>For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”</J>",
      "11": "<J>As they were listening to these things, Jesus went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.</J>",
      "12": "<J>So he said, “A man of noble birth traveled to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then to return.</J>",
      "13": "<J>He called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ‘Conduct business until I return,’ he said to them.</J>",
      "14": "<J>“But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to be king over us.’</J>",
      "15": "<J>“When he returned after receiving the kingdom, he summoned the servants to whom he had given the money. He wanted to find out what they had gained by conducting business.</J>",
      "16": "<J>“The first one came to him and said, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten more minas.’</J>",
      "17": "<J>“He said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you were faithful in a very small matter, you will have authority over ten cities.’</J>",
      "18": "<J>“The second one came and said, ‘Master, your mina has produced five more minas.’</J>",
      "19": "<J>“So he said to him, ‘You will be over five cities.’</J>",
      "20": "<J>“And another one came and said, ‘Master, here is your mina that I laid away in a piece of cloth.</J>",
      "21": "<J>For I was afraid of you, since you are a demanding man. You take what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.’</J>",
      "22": "<J>“He said to him, ‘You wicked servant, I will judge you with your own words! You knew that I am a demanding man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow.</J>",
      "23": "<J>Then why did you not put my money in the bank? Then, when I returned, I could have collected it with interest!’</J>",
      "24": "<J>“He said to those standing there, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’</J>",
      "25": "<J>“But they said to him, ‘Master, he already has ten minas!’</J>",
      "26": "<J>“‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.</J>",
      "27": "<J>Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and kill them in front of me.’”</J>",
      "28": "<J>After Jesus had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.</J>",
      "29": "<J>As he came near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples ahead,</J>",
      "30": "<J>saying, “Go to the village ahead of you. When you enter it, you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here.</J>",
      "31": "<J>And if anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you will say this: ‘The Lord needs it.’”</J>",
      "32": "<J>Those who were sent ahead went and found things just as he had told them.</J>",
      "33": "<J>As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”</J>",
      "34": "<J>They said, “The Lord needs it.”</J>",
      "35": "<J>Then they brought the colt to Jesus. They threw their robes on the colt and set Jesus on it.</J>",
      "36": "<J>As he went along, people spread their robes on the road.</J>",
      "37": "<J>As he was approaching the slope of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began to praise God joyfully, with a loud voice, for all the miracles they had seen,</J>",
      "38": "<J>saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”</J>",
      "39": "<J>Some of the Pharisees from the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”</J>",
      "40": "<J>He replied, “I tell you, if these people would be silent, the stones would cry out.”</J>",
      "41": "<J>As he came near, he saw the city and wept over it.</J>",
      "42": "<J>He said, “If you, yes you, had only known on this day the things that would bring peace to you. But now, it is hidden from your eyes.</J>",
      "43": "<J>In fact, the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you, surround you, and hem you in on every side.</J>",
      "44": "<J>Within your walls, they will dash you and your children to the ground. And within your walls, they will not leave one stone on top of another, because you did not recognize the time when God came to help you.”</J>",
      "45": "<J>Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were selling things there.</J>",
      "46": "<J>He told them, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of robbers’!”</J>",
      "47": "Every day he was teaching in the temple courts, but the chief priests, the experts in the law, and the leaders of the people continued to look for a way to put him to death.",
      "48": "They could not find any way to do it, because all the people were clinging to him and listening."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the good news, the chief priests and experts in the law came to him with the elders.",
      "2": "They asked him, “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things. Or who is the one who gave you this authority?”",
      "3": "<J>He answered them, “I will also ask you one question. Tell me:</J>",
      "4": "<J>the baptism of John—was it from heaven or from men?”</J>",
      "5": "<J>They discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’</J>",
      "6": "<J>But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.”</J>",
      "7": "<J>So they answered that they did not know where it was from.</J>",
      "8": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Neither am I going to tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”</J>",
      "9": "<J>He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, leased it to some tenant farmers, and went away on a journey for a long time.</J>",
      "10": "<J>When it was the right time, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenant farmers beat the servant and sent him away empty-handed.</J>",
      "11": "<J>The man went ahead and sent yet another servant, but they also beat him, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed.</J>",
      "12": "<J>He then sent yet a third. They also wounded him and threw him out.</J>",
      "13": "<J>The owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my son, whom I love. Perhaps they will respect him.’</J>",
      "14": "<J>“But when the tenant farmers saw him, they talked it over with one another. They said, ‘This is the heir. Let’s kill him, so that the inheritance will be ours.’</J>",
      "15": "<J>They threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. So what will the owner of the vineyard do to them?</J>",
      "16": "<J>He will come and destroy those tenant farmers and give the vineyard to others.”\nWhen they heard this, they said, “May it never be!”</J>",
      "17": "<J>But he looked at them and said, “Then what about this that is written:\nThe stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?</J>",
      "18": "<J>“Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush the one on whom it falls.”</J>",
      "19": "<J>That very hour the chief priests and the experts in the law began looking for a way to lay hands on him, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.</J>",
      "20": "<J>They watched him carefully and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, so that they could trap Jesus in something he said, and then deliver him up to the power and authority of the governor.</J>",
      "21": "<J>They questioned him, “Teacher, we know that you say and teach what is right and show no partiality to anyone, but you teach the way of God on the basis of the truth.</J>",
      "22": "<J>Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”</J>",
      "23": "<J>But he was aware of their deceit and said to them,</J>",
      "24": "<J>“Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?”\n“Caesar’s,” they answered.</J>",
      "25": "<J>He said to them, “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”</J>",
      "26": "<J>They were not able to trap him in what he said in the presence of the people. They were amazed at his answer and became silent.</J>",
      "27": "<J>Some of the Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to him.</J>",
      "28": "<J>They asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, his brother should take the wife and raise up children for his brother.</J>",
      "29": "<J>So there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died childless.</J>",
      "30": "<J>The second took her as a wife,</J>",
      "31": "<J>and so did the third, and in the same way the seven died and left no children.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Finally the woman died too.</J>",
      "33": "<J>So in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as a wife.”</J>",
      "34": "<J>Jesus said to them, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage.</J>",
      "35": "<J>But those who are considered worthy to experience that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.</J>",
      "36": "<J>In fact, they cannot die any more, for they are like the angels. They are sons of God, because they are sons of the resurrection.</J>",
      "37": "<J>“Even Moses showed in the account about the burning bush that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord: ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’</J>",
      "38": "<J>He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.”</J>",
      "39": "<J>Some of the experts in the law answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.”</J>",
      "40": "<J>Then they no longer dared to ask him anything.</J>",
      "41": "<J>Jesus said to them, “How is it that they say that the Christ is David’s son?</J>",
      "42": "<J>David himself says in the book of Psalms:\nThe Lord said to my Lord,\n“Sit at my right hand,</J>",
      "43": "<J>until I make your enemies\na footstool under your feet.”</J>",
      "44": "<J>“So David calls him ‘Lord.’ Then how is he his son?”</J>",
      "45": "While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples,",
      "46": "“Beware of the experts in the law, who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the places of honor at banquets.",
      "47": "They devour widows’ houses and offer long prayers to look good. They will receive greater condemnation.”"
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Jesus looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the offering box.",
      "2": "He saw a poor widow there putting in two small coins.",
      "3": "<J>He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow put in more than everyone,</J>",
      "4": "<J>for all these put in some of their leftovers as gifts to God, but she, out of her poverty, put in all that she had to live on.”</J>",
      "5": "<J>As some were talking about the temple, how it was decorated with beautiful stones and offerings, Jesus said,</J>",
      "6": "<J>“These things that you see here—the days will come when there will not be one stone left on another—every one will be thrown down.”</J>",
      "7": "<J>They asked him, “Teacher, when will these things happen? And what is the sign that these things are about to happen?”</J>",
      "8": "<J>He said, “Watch out so that you are not deceived! For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Whenever you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end will not be right then.”</J>",
      "10": "<J>Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.</J>",
      "11": "<J>There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be horrifying sights and great signs from heaven.</J>",
      "12": "<J>But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, handing you over to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake.</J>",
      "13": "<J>It will turn out to be your opportunity to testify.</J>",
      "14": "<J>So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand how to defend yourselves,</J>",
      "15": "<J>for I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.</J>",
      "16": "<J>You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will put some of you to death.</J>",
      "17": "<J>You will be hated by all people for my name’s sake.</J>",
      "18": "<J>But not a hair of your head will perish.</J>",
      "19": "<J>By patient endurance you will gain your lives.</J>",
      "20": "<J>“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near.</J>",
      "21": "<J>Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those who are inside the city get out. Let those who are in the country not enter the city.</J>",
      "22": "<J>For these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that has been written.</J>",
      "23": "<J>How terrible it will be for those who are pregnant and nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people.</J>",
      "24": "<J>They will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken captive to all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.</J>",
      "25": "<J>“There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. And on the earth nations will be in anguish, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the surging waves,</J>",
      "26": "<J>people fainting from fear and expectation of the things coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.</J>",
      "27": "<J>And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.</J>",
      "28": "<J>But when these things begin to happen, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near.”</J>",
      "29": "<J>He told them a parable. “Look at the fig tree and all the trees.</J>",
      "30": "<J>As soon as they are sprouting leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is actually near.</J>",
      "31": "<J>So also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Amen I tell you: This generation will not pass away until all these things happen.</J>",
      "33": "<J>Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.</J>",
      "34": "<J>“Watch yourselves or else your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the worries of this life, and that day may come on you suddenly.</J>",
      "35": "<J>For it will come like a trap on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth.</J>",
      "36": "<J>Stay alert all the time, praying that you may be able to escape all these things that are going to happen and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”</J>",
      "37": "During the days, Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, and each night he would go out and spend the night on the Mount of Olives.",
      "38": "And all the people came early in the morning to listen to him in the temple courts."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "The Festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was approaching.",
      "2": "The chief priests and the experts in the law were trying to find some way to put Jesus to death, because they were afraid of the people.",
      "3": "Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, who was one of the Twelve.",
      "4": "He went away and spoke with the chief priests and officers of the temple guard about how he could betray Jesus to them.",
      "5": "They were glad and agreed to give him money.",
      "6": "He promised to do it and was looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus to them away from the crowd.",
      "7": "The day of Unleavened Bread arrived, when it was necessary to sacrifice the Passover lamb.",
      "8": "<J>Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.”</J>",
      "9": "They said to him, “Where do you want us to prepare it?”",
      "10": "<J>He told them, “Just as you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Tell the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’</J>",
      "12": "<J>He will show you a large, furnished upper room. Make preparations there.”</J>",
      "13": "They went and found things just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.",
      "14": "When the hour had come, Jesus reclined at the table with the twelve apostles.",
      "15": "<J>He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,</J>",
      "16": "<J>for I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”</J>",
      "17": "<J>He took a cup, gave thanks, and said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves,</J>",
      "18": "<J>for I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”</J>",
      "19": "<J>He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”</J>",
      "20": "<J>In the same way, he took the cup after the supper, saying, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is being poured out for you.</J>",
      "21": "<J>“But look, the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.</J>",
      "22": "<J>The Son of Man is going to go as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”</J>",
      "23": "They began to discuss with one another which of them it was who was going to do this.",
      "24": "A dispute arose among the disciples about which of them was considered to be greatest.",
      "25": "<J>But he told them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who have authority over them are called Benefactors.</J>",
      "26": "<J>But it is not to be that way with you. Instead, let the greatest among you become like the youngest, and the one who leads like the one who serves.</J>",
      "27": "<J>For who is greater, one who reclines at the table or one who serves? Isn’t it the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.</J>",
      "28": "<J>You are those who have remained with me in my trials.</J>",
      "29": "<J>I am going to grant a kingdom to you, just as my Father granted to me,</J>",
      "30": "<J>so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom. And you will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”</J>",
      "31": "<J>The Lord said, “Simon, Simon, pay attention: Satan has asked to have you all, so that he may sift you as wheat.</J>",
      "32": "<J>But I prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brothers.”</J>",
      "33": "He said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death!”",
      "34": "<J>But Jesus replied, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you deny three times that you know me.”</J>",
      "35": "<J>He said to them, “When I sent you out without money bag, traveler’s bag, and sandals, did you lack anything?”\n“Nothing,” they said.</J>",
      "36": "<J>Then he told them, “But now, let the one who has a money bag take it, and likewise a traveler’s bag. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.</J>",
      "37": "<J>For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘He was counted with transgressors.’ Indeed, what is written about me is going to have its fulfillment.”</J>",
      "38": "<J>They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.”\nHe said to them, “That is enough.”</J>",
      "39": "Jesus left and went out to the Mount of Olives, as was his custom. His disciples followed him.",
      "40": "<J>When he reached the place, he told them, “Keep praying that you may not enter into temptation.”</J>",
      "41": "He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed,",
      "42": "<J>“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.”</J>",
      "43": "An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.",
      "44": "As he was in agony, he prayed more fervently. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.",
      "45": "When he rose from prayer, he went to the disciples and found them sleeping as a result of sorrow.",
      "46": "<J>He said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and keep praying so that you may not enter into temptation.”</J>",
      "47": "While he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd appeared, and the man called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He came near to Jesus to kiss him.",
      "48": "<J>But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”</J>",
      "49": "When those who were around him saw what was about to happen, they said to him, “Lord, should we strike with a sword?”",
      "50": "Then one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear.",
      "51": "<J>But Jesus responded, “Stop! No more of this!” Then he touched the servant’s ear and healed him.</J>",
      "52": "<J>Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come out against him, “Have you come out as you would against a robber, with swords and clubs?</J>",
      "53": "<J>Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour—when darkness rules.”</J>",
      "54": "Then they seized him, led him away, and brought him into the high priest’s house.\nPeter followed at a distance.",
      "55": "When they had lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them.",
      "56": "A servant girl saw him sitting near the light. She looked closely at him and said, “This man also was with him.”",
      "57": "But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.”",
      "58": "After a little while someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them!”\nBut Peter answered, “Man, I am not!”",
      "59": "After about one hour had passed, someone else was firmly insisting, “Truly this man was with him too, because he is a Galilean!”",
      "60": "But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about!” At that very moment, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.",
      "61": "<J>The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the Lord’s word, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today you will deny me three times.”</J>",
      "62": "He went outside and wept bitterly.",
      "63": "The men who were holding Jesus in custody mocked him while they were beating him.",
      "64": "They blindfolded him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who hit you?”",
      "65": "And they went on saying many other blasphemous things against him.",
      "66": "As soon as it was day, the council of the elders of the people met together, both the chief priests and experts in the law. They brought him into their Sanhedrin and said,",
      "67": "<J>“If you are the Christ, tell us.”\nBut he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe,</J>",
      "68": "<J>and if I ask you, you will not answer me or release me.</J>",
      "69": "<J>But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”</J>",
      "70": "<J>They all said, “Are you then the Son of God?”\nHe said to them, “I am what you are saying.”</J>",
      "71": "Then they said, “Why do we need any more testimony? For we ourselves have heard it from his own mouth!”"
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "The whole group of them got up and brought him before Pilate.",
      "2": "They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this fellow misleading our nation, forbidding the payment of taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”",
      "3": "Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”\n“It is as you say,” Jesus replied.",
      "4": "Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”",
      "5": "But they kept insisting, “He stirs up the people, teaching all through Judea, beginning from Galilee all the way here.”",
      "6": "When Pilate heard this, he asked if the man was a Galilean.",
      "7": "When he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem during those days.",
      "8": "When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad. For a long time, he had wanted to see him, because he had heard many things about him. He hoped to see some miracle performed by him.",
      "9": "He questioned him with many words, but Jesus gave him no answer.",
      "10": "The chief priests and the experts in the law stood there, vehemently accusing him.",
      "11": "Herod, along with his soldiers, treated him with contempt and ridiculed him. Dressing him in bright clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.",
      "12": "Herod and Pilate became friends with each other on that day. Before this they had been enemies of each other.",
      "13": "Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people,",
      "14": "and said to them, “You brought this man to me as one who is misleading the people. Look, I have examined him in your presence. I have found in this man no basis for the charges you are bringing against him.",
      "15": "Herod did not either, for he sent him back to us. See, he has done nothing worthy of death.",
      "16": "So I will have him flogged and release him.”",
      "17": "Pilate needed to release one prisoner to them at the Festival.",
      "18": "But they all shouted together with one voice: “Take him away! Release Barabbas to us!”",
      "19": "Barabbas had been thrown in prison for a rebellion in the city and for murder.",
      "20": "Pilate addressed them again, because he wanted to release Jesus.",
      "21": "But they kept shouting, “Crucify! Crucify him!”",
      "22": "He said to them the third time, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found no grounds for sentencing him to death. So I will whip him and release him.”",
      "23": "But they kept pressuring him with loud voices, demanding that he be crucified. And their voices were overwhelming.",
      "24": "So Pilate decided that what they demanded would be done.",
      "25": "He released the one they had asked for, who had been thrown in prison for rebellion and murder, but he handed Jesus over to their will.",
      "26": "As they led him away, they seized Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country. They placed the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.",
      "27": "A large crowd of people was following him, including women who were mourning and wailing for him.",
      "28": "<J>Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.</J>",
      "29": "<J>Be sure of this: The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never gave birth, and the breasts that never nursed.’</J>",
      "30": "<J>Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’</J>",
      "31": "For if they do these things to the green wood, what will happen to the dry?”",
      "32": "Two other men, who were criminals, were led away with Jesus to be executed.",
      "33": "When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on his right and the other on his left.",
      "34": "<J>Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”\nThey cast lots to divide his garments among them.</J>",
      "35": "The people stood watching. The rulers were ridiculing him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, the Chosen One!”",
      "36": "The soldiers also made fun of him. Coming up to him, they offered him sour wine,",
      "37": "saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”",
      "38": "There was also an inscription written above him: “This is the King of the Jews.”",
      "39": "One of the criminals hanging there was blaspheming him, saying, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”",
      "40": "But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same condemnation?",
      "41": "We are punished justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for what we have done, but this man has done nothing wrong.”",
      "42": "Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.”",
      "43": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Amen I tell you: Today you will be with me in paradise.”</J>",
      "44": "It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour,",
      "45": "while the sun was darkened. Then the curtain of the temple was torn in two.",
      "46": "<J>Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” When he had said this, he breathed his last.</J>",
      "47": "When the centurion saw what had happened, he began to glorify God, saying, “This man really was righteous.”",
      "48": "When all the groups of people who had gathered to see this spectacle saw what had happened, they returned home beating their chests.",
      "49": "All those who knew Jesus, and the women who followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.",
      "50": "Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea, who was a member of the Council, a good and righteous man.",
      "51": "He had not agreed with their plan and action. He was looking forward to the kingdom of God.",
      "52": "This man went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.",
      "53": "He took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and placed it in a tomb that was cut out of rock, where no one had yet been laid.",
      "54": "It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was beginning.",
      "55": "The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed after Joseph, and they observed the tomb and how his body was laid there.",
      "56": "Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women went to the tomb, carrying the spices they had prepared.",
      "2": "They found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb.",
      "3": "When they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.",
      "4": "While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothing.",
      "5": "<J>The women were terrified and bowed down with their faces to the ground.\nThe men said to them, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?</J>",
      "6": "<J>He is not here, but has been raised! Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee</J>",
      "7": "<J>that the Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again?”</J>",
      "8": "Then they remembered his words.",
      "9": "When they returned from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest.",
      "10": "It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles.",
      "11": "Yet these words seemed to them like nonsense, and they did not believe them.",
      "12": "But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over to look in, he saw only the strips of linen cloth. He went home, amazed at what had happened.",
      "13": "Now, on that same day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.",
      "14": "They were talking with each other about all of these things that had happened.",
      "15": "While they were talking and discussing this, Jesus himself approached and began to walk along with them.",
      "16": "But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.",
      "17": "<J>He said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk along?” Saddened, they stopped.</J>",
      "18": "One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”",
      "19": "<J>“What things?” he asked them.\nThey replied, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.</J>",
      "20": "The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be condemned to death. And they crucified him.",
      "21": "But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel. Not only that, but besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.",
      "22": "Also some women of our group amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning.",
      "23": "When they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive.",
      "24": "Some of those who were with us went to the tomb. They found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.”",
      "25": "<J>He said to them, “How foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!</J>",
      "26": "<J>Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter his glory?”</J>",
      "27": "<J>Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.</J>",
      "28": "As they approached the village where they were going, he acted as if he were going to travel farther.",
      "29": "But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, since it is almost evening, and the day is almost over.”\nSo he went in to stay with them.",
      "30": "When he reclined at the table with them, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and began giving it to them.",
      "31": "Suddenly their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. Then he vanished from their sight.",
      "32": "They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us along the road and while he was explaining the Scriptures to us?”",
      "33": "They got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and those who were with them assembled together.",
      "34": "They were saying, “The Lord really has been raised! He has appeared to Simon.”",
      "35": "They themselves described what had happened along the road, and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.",
      "36": "As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”",
      "37": "But they were terrified and frightened and thought they were looking at a ghost.",
      "38": "<J>He said to them, “Why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts?</J>",
      "39": "<J>Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”</J>",
      "40": "When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.",
      "41": "<J>While they still did not believe it (because of their joy), and while they were still wondering, he said to them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”</J>",
      "42": "They gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb.",
      "43": "He took it and ate in front of them.",
      "44": "<J>He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”</J>",
      "45": "<J>Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.</J>",
      "46": "<J>He said to them, “This is what is written and so it must be: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,</J>",
      "47": "<J>and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.</J>",
      "48": "<J>You are witnesses of these things.</J>",
      "49": "<J>Look, I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”</J>",
      "50": "He led them out as far as the vicinity of Bethany. He lifted up his hands and blessed them.",
      "51": "And while he was blessing them, he parted from them and was taken up into heaven.",
      "52": "So they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.",
      "53": "They were continually in the temple courts, praising and blessing God. Amen."
    }
  },
  "John": {
    "1": {
      "1": "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.",
      "2": "He was with God in the beginning.",
      "3": "Through him everything was made, and without him not one thing was made that has been made.",
      "4": "In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.",
      "5": "The light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.",
      "6": "There was a man, sent from God, whose name was John.",
      "7": "He came as an eyewitness to testify about the light so that everyone would believe through him.",
      "8": "He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.",
      "9": "The real light that shines on everyone was coming into the world.",
      "10": "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not recognize him.",
      "11": "He came to what was his own, yet his own people did not accept him.",
      "12": "But to all who did receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.",
      "13": "They were born, not of blood, or of the desire of the flesh, or of a husband’s will, but born of God.",
      "14": "The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. We have seen his glory, the glory he has as the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.",
      "15": "John testified about him. He cried out, “This was the one I spoke about when I said, ‘The one coming after me outranks me because he existed before me.’”",
      "16": "For out of his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.",
      "17": "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.",
      "18": "No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, who is close to the Father’s side, has made him known.",
      "19": "This is the testimony John gave when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?”",
      "20": "He confessed and did not deny. He confessed, “I am not the Christ.”",
      "21": "And they asked him, “Who are you then? Are you Elijah?”\nHe said, “I am not.”\n“Are you the Prophet?”\n“No,” he answered.",
      "22": "Then they asked him, “Who are you? Tell us so we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”",
      "23": "He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ just as Isaiah the prophet said.”",
      "24": "They had been sent from the Pharisees.",
      "25": "So they asked John, “Why then do you baptize, if you are not the Christ, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”",
      "26": "“I baptize with water,” John answered. “Among you stands one you do not know.",
      "27": "He is the one coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”",
      "28": "These things happened in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.",
      "29": "The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!",
      "30": "This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘The one coming after me outranks me because he existed before me.’",
      "31": "I myself did not know who he was, but I came baptizing with water so that he would be revealed to Israel.”",
      "32": "John also testified, “I saw the Spirit descend like a dove from heaven and remain on him.",
      "33": "I myself did not recognize him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’",
      "34": "I saw this myself and have testified that this is the Son of God.”",
      "35": "The next day, John was standing there again with two of his disciples.",
      "36": "When John saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look! The Lamb of God!”",
      "37": "The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.",
      "38": "<J>When Jesus turned around and saw them following him, he asked, “What are you looking for?”\nThey said to him, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”</J>",
      "39": "<J>He told them, “Come, and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying. They stayed with him that day. It was about the tenth hour.</J>",
      "40": "Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.",
      "41": "The first thing Andrew did was to find his own brother Simon and say to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is translated “the Christ”).",
      "42": "<J>He brought him to Jesus.\nLooking at him, Jesus said, “You are Simon, son of Jonah. You will be called Cephas” (which means “Peter”).</J>",
      "43": "<J>The next day, Jesus wanted to leave for Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”</J>",
      "44": "Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter.",
      "45": "Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”",
      "46": "Nathanael said to him, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”\n“Come and see!” Philip told him.",
      "47": "Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Truly, here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”",
      "48": "<J>Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?”\nJesus answered, “Before Philip called you, while you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”</J>",
      "49": "Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”",
      "50": "<J>Jesus replied, “You believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that!”</J>",
      "51": "<J>Then he added, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”</J>"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Three days later, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there.",
      "2": "Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.",
      "3": "When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine.”",
      "4": "<J>Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My time has not come yet.”</J>",
      "5": "His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”",
      "6": "Six stone water jars, which the Jews used for ceremonial cleansing, were standing there, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.",
      "7": "<J>Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim.</J>",
      "8": "<J>Then he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” And they did.</J>",
      "9": "When the master of the banquet tasted the water that had now become wine, he did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew). The master of the banquet called the bridegroom",
      "10": "and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have had plenty to drink, then the cheaper wine. You saved the good wine until now!”",
      "11": "This, the beginning of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.",
      "12": "After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother, brothers, and disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.",
      "13": "The Jewish Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem.",
      "14": "In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and money changers sitting at tables.",
      "15": "He made a whip of cords and drove everyone out of the temple courts, along with the sheep and oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.",
      "16": "<J>To those selling doves he said, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a place of business!”</J>",
      "17": "His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”",
      "18": "So the Jews responded, “What sign are you going to show us to prove you can do these things?”",
      "19": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.”</J>",
      "20": "The Jews said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple! And you are going to raise it in three days?”",
      "21": "But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body.",
      "22": "When Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. Then they believed the Scripture and what Jesus had said.",
      "23": "While he was in Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, many believed in his name as they observed the miraculous signs he was doing.",
      "24": "But Jesus, on his part, was not entrusting himself to them, because he knew them all.",
      "25": "He did not need anyone to testify about man, because he himself knew what was in man."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.",
      "2": "He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these miraculous signs you are doing unless God is with him.”",
      "3": "<J>Jesus replied, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”</J>",
      "4": "Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”",
      "5": "<J>Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God!</J>",
      "6": "Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh. Whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.",
      "7": "<J>Do not be surprised when I tell you that you must be born from above.</J>",
      "8": "<J>The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”</J>",
      "9": "<J>“How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.</J>",
      "10": "<J>“You are the teacher of Israel,” Jesus answered, “and you do not know these things?</J>",
      "11": "<J>Amen, Amen, I tell you: We speak what we know, and we testify about what we have seen. But you people do not accept our testimony.</J>",
      "12": "<J>If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?</J>",
      "13": "<J>No one has ascended into heaven, except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.</J>",
      "14": "<J>“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,</J>",
      "15": "<J>so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.</J>",
      "16": "<J>“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.</J>",
      "17": "<J>For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.</J>",
      "18": "<J>The one who believes in him is not condemned, but the one who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.</J>",
      "19": "<J>This is the basis for the judgment: The light has come into the world, yet people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.</J>",
      "20": "<J>In fact, everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, or else his deeds would be exposed.</J>",
      "21": "<J>But the one who does what is true comes toward the light, in order that his deeds may be seen as having been done in connection with God.”</J>",
      "22": "After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside where he spent some time with them and was baptizing.",
      "23": "John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People kept coming and were being baptized,",
      "24": "for John had not been thrown into prison yet.",
      "25": "Then an argument broke out between John’s disciples and a certain Jew about purification.",
      "26": "His disciples came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, about whom you testified—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him!”",
      "27": "John answered, “A man cannot receive a single thing, unless it has been given to him from heaven.",
      "28": "You yourselves are witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent ahead of him.’",
      "29": "The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and listens for him, is overjoyed when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine is now complete.",
      "30": "He must increase, but I must decrease.”",
      "31": "The one who comes from above is superior to everyone. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in a way that belongs to the earth. The one who comes from heaven is superior to everyone.",
      "32": "He testifies about what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony.",
      "33": "The one who has received his testimony has certified that God is true.",
      "34": "In fact, the one whom God has sent speaks God’s words, for God gives the Spirit without measure.",
      "35": "The Father loves the Son and has put everything in his hands.",
      "36": "The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, God’s wrath remains on him."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Jesus found out that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John,",
      "2": "though it was not Jesus himself who was baptizing but his disciples.",
      "3": "So he left Judea and went back again to Galilee.",
      "4": "He had to go through Samaria.",
      "5": "So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the piece of land Jacob gave to his son Joseph.",
      "6": "Jacob’s well was there. Then Jesus, being tired from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.",
      "7": "<J>A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”</J>",
      "8": "(His disciples had gone into town to buy food.)",
      "9": "<J>The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)</J>",
      "10": "<J>Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”</J>",
      "11": "“Sir,” she said, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this living water?",
      "12": "You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his animals.”",
      "13": "<J>Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,</J>",
      "14": "<J>but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty ever again. Rather, the water I will give him will become in him a spring of water, bubbling up to eternal life.”</J>",
      "15": "“Sir, give me this water,” the woman said to him, “so I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”",
      "16": "<J>Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband, and come back here.”</J>",
      "17": "<J>“I have no husband,” the woman answered.\nJesus said to her, “You are right when you say, ‘I have no husband.’</J>",
      "18": "<J>In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”</J>",
      "19": "“Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet.",
      "20": "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews insist that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”",
      "21": "<J>Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will not worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem.</J>",
      "22": "<J>You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews.</J>",
      "23": "<J>But a time is coming and now is here when the real worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for those are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.</J>",
      "24": "<J>God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”</J>",
      "25": "The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”",
      "26": "<J>Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”</J>",
      "27": "Just then his disciples returned and were surprised that he was talking to a woman. Yet no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking to her?”",
      "28": "Then the woman left her water jar and went back into town. She said to the people,",
      "29": "“Come, see the man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”",
      "30": "They left the town and came to him.",
      "31": "Meanwhile, the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat.”",
      "32": "<J>But Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”</J>",
      "33": "Then the disciples said to each other, “Did anyone bring him something to eat?”",
      "34": "<J>Jesus told them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.</J>",
      "35": "<J>Do you not say, ‘Four more months and the harvest will be here’? Pay attention to what I am telling you. Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are already ripe for harvest.</J>",
      "36": "<J>The reaper is getting paid and is gathering grain for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.</J>",
      "37": "<J>Indeed in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’</J>",
      "38": "<J>I sent you to reap a harvest for which you did no hard work. Others have done the hard work, and you have benefitted from their labor.”</J>",
      "39": "Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony: “He told me everything I ever did.”",
      "40": "So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days.",
      "41": "Many more believed because of his message.",
      "42": "They told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves. And we know that this really is the Savior of the world.”",
      "43": "After two days, Jesus left for Galilee.",
      "44": "Now Jesus himself had testified that a prophet is not honored in his own country.",
      "45": "When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all the things he did at the Festival in Jerusalem, because they also had gone to the Festival.",
      "46": "Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine.\nIn Capernaum, there was a certain royal official whose son was sick.",
      "47": "When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son, because his son was about to die.",
      "48": "<J>Jesus told him, “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you certainly will not believe.”</J>",
      "49": "The royal official said to him, “Lord, come down before my little boy dies.”",
      "50": "<J>“Go,” Jesus told him, “your son is going to live.”\nThe man believed this word that Jesus spoke to him and left.</J>",
      "51": "Already as he was going down, his servants met him with the news that his boy was going to live.",
      "52": "So he asked them what time his son got better. They told him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.”",
      "53": "<J>Then the father realized that was the exact time when Jesus had told him, “Your son is going to live.” And he himself and his whole household believed.</J>",
      "54": "<J>This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did after he came from Judea into Galilee.</J>"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "After this, there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.",
      "2": "Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five colonnades.",
      "3": "Within these lay a large number of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—who were waiting for the movement of the water.",
      "4": "For an angel would go down at certain times into the pool and stir up the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.",
      "5": "One man was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years.",
      "6": "<J>When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been sick a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”</J>",
      "7": "<J>“Sir,” the sick man answered, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I’m going, someone else goes down ahead of me.”</J>",
      "8": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”</J>",
      "9": "<J>Instantly the man was healed. He picked up his mat and walked.\nThat day was the Sabbath.</J>",
      "10": "<J>So the Jews told the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! You are not permitted to carry your mat.”</J>",
      "11": "<J>He answered them, “The one who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”</J>",
      "12": "<J>Then they asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Pick it up and walk’?”</J>",
      "13": "<J>But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.</J>",
      "14": "<J>Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Look, you are well now. Do not sin anymore so that nothing worse happens to you.”</J>",
      "15": "<J>The man went back and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well.</J>",
      "16": "<J>So the Jews began to persecute Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.</J>",
      "17": "<J>But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working right up to the present time, and I am working too.”</J>",
      "18": "<J>This is why the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he was not merely breaking the Sabbath, but was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.</J>",
      "19": "<J>Jesus answered them directly, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. Indeed, the Son does exactly what the Father does.</J>",
      "20": "<J>For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. And he will show him even greater works than these so that you will be amazed.</J>",
      "21": "<J>For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to those he wishes.</J>",
      "22": "<J>“In fact, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,</J>",
      "23": "<J>so that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.</J>",
      "24": "<J>Amen, Amen, I tell you: Anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He is not going to come into judgment but has crossed over from death to life.</J>",
      "25": "<J>“Amen, Amen, I tell you: A time is coming and is here now when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who listen will live.</J>",
      "26": "<J>For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted the Son to have life in himself.</J>",
      "27": "<J>And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.</J>",
      "28": "<J>“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice</J>",
      "29": "<J>and will come out. Those who have done good will rise to live, but those who have practiced evil will rise to be condemned.</J>",
      "30": "<J>I can do nothing at all on my own. I judge only as I hear. And my judgment is just, for I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me.</J>",
      "31": "<J>“If I were to testify about myself, my testimony would not be valid.</J>",
      "32": "<J>There is another who testifies about me, and I know that his testimony about me is valid.</J>",
      "33": "<J>You sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.</J>",
      "34": "<J>The testimony I receive is not from man, but I am saying these things so that you may be saved.</J>",
      "35": "<J>John was a lamp that was shining brightly, and for a while you wanted to enjoy his light.</J>",
      "36": "<J>But I have testimony greater than John’s. For the works that the Father gave me to carry out, the very works that I am doing, these testify about me that the Father has sent me.</J>",
      "37": "<J>The Father who sent me—he is the one who has testified about me. You have never heard his voice or seen his form.</J>",
      "38": "<J>And you do not have his word remaining in you, because you do not believe the one he sent.</J>",
      "39": "<J>You search the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them. They testify about me!</J>",
      "40": "<J>And yet you do not want to come to me in order to have life.</J>",
      "41": "<J>“I do not accept honor from people.</J>",
      "42": "<J>But I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God within you.</J>",
      "43": "<J>I have come in my Father’s name, yet you do not accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.</J>",
      "44": "<J>How can you believe while you continue to accept glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?</J>",
      "45": "<J>“Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, on whom you have set your hope.</J>",
      "46": "<J>For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.</J>",
      "47": "<J>But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe what I say?”</J>"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "After this, Jesus crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias).",
      "2": "A large crowd followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he was performing on those who were sick.",
      "3": "Jesus went up on the hillside and sat down there with his disciples.",
      "4": "The Jewish Passover Festival was near.",
      "5": "When Jesus looked up and saw a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, “Where can we buy bread for these people to eat?”",
      "6": "But Jesus was saying this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.",
      "7": "Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to have just a little.”",
      "8": "One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,",
      "9": "“There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what is that for so many people?”",
      "10": "Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, so they sat down. There were about five thousand men.",
      "11": "Then Jesus took the loaves and, after giving thanks, he distributed pieces to those who were seated. He also did the same with the fish—as much as they wanted.",
      "12": "When the people were full, he told his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over so that nothing is wasted.”",
      "13": "So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with pieces from the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.",
      "14": "When the people saw the miraculous sign Jesus did, they said, “This really is the Prophet who is coming into the world.”",
      "15": "When Jesus realized that they intended to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.",
      "16": "When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea,",
      "17": "got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was already dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.",
      "18": "A strong wind started to blow, and the sea became rough.",
      "19": "After they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea toward their boat, and they were afraid.",
      "20": "But he said to them, “It is I. Do not be afraid!”",
      "21": "Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.",
      "22": "The next day, the crowd that stayed on the other side of the sea noticed that only one boat was there. They also knew that Jesus had not stepped into the boat with his disciples, but they had gone away without him.",
      "23": "Other boats from Tiberias came to shore near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord gave thanks.",
      "24": "When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.",
      "25": "When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”",
      "26": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: You are not looking for me because you saw the miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.</J>",
      "27": "<J>Do not continue to work for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”</J>",
      "28": "<J>So they said to him, “What should we do to carry out the works of God?”</J>",
      "29": "<J>Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the one he sent.”</J>",
      "30": "<J>Then they asked him, “So what miraculous sign are you going to do, that we may see it and believe you? What miraculous sign are you going to perform?</J>",
      "31": "<J>Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”</J>",
      "32": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the real bread from heaven.</J>",
      "33": "<J>For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”</J>",
      "34": "<J>“Sir,” they said to him, “give us this bread all the time!”</J>",
      "35": "<J>“I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus told them. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.</J>",
      "36": "<J>But I said to you that you have also seen me, and you do not believe.</J>",
      "37": "<J>Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.</J>",
      "38": "<J>For I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me.</J>",
      "39": "<J>And this is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me, but raise them up on the Last Day.</J>",
      "40": "<J>For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the Last Day.”</J>",
      "41": "<J>So the Jews started grumbling about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”</J>",
      "42": "<J>They asked, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? So how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”</J>",
      "43": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Stop grumbling among yourselves.</J>",
      "44": "<J>No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the Last Day.</J>",
      "45": "<J>It is written in the Prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.</J>",
      "46": "<J>I am not saying that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He is the one who has seen the Father.</J>",
      "47": "<J>Amen, Amen, I tell you: The one who believes in me has eternal life.</J>",
      "48": "<J>“I am the Bread of Life.</J>",
      "49": "<J>Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died.</J>",
      "50": "<J>This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat it and not die.</J>",
      "51": "<J>I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”</J>",
      "52": "<J>At that, the Jews argued among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”</J>",
      "53": "<J>So Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.</J>",
      "54": "<J>The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day.</J>",
      "55": "<J>For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.</J>",
      "56": "<J>The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.</J>",
      "57": "<J>Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.</J>",
      "58": "<J>This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like your fathers ate and died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”</J>",
      "59": "<J>He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.</J>",
      "60": "<J>When they heard it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching! Who can listen to it?”</J>",
      "61": "<J>But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, asked them, “Does this cause you to stumble in your faith?</J>",
      "62": "<J>What if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?</J>",
      "63": "<J>The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh does not help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.</J>",
      "64": "<J>But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning those who would not believe and the one who would betray him.</J>",
      "65": "<J>He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is given to him by my Father.”</J>",
      "66": "<J>After this, many of his disciples turned back and were not walking with him anymore.</J>",
      "67": "<J>So Jesus asked the Twelve, “You do not want to leave too, do you?”</J>",
      "68": "<J>Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life.</J>",
      "69": "<J>We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”</J>",
      "70": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!”</J>",
      "71": "<J>He meant Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, one of the Twelve, because Judas was going to betray Jesus.</J>"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "After this, Jesus moved around in Galilee. He did not want to travel in Judea because the Jews were trying to find a way to kill him.",
      "2": "Now the Jewish Festival of Shelters was near.",
      "3": "So his brothers said to him, “You should leave here and go to Judea so your disciples there can also see the works you are doing.",
      "4": "Indeed, no one acts in secret who wants to be known in public. If you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”",
      "5": "For even his own brothers did not believe in him.",
      "6": "<J>So Jesus told them, “The right time for me has not arrived yet, but any time is the right time for you.</J>",
      "7": "<J>The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.</J>",
      "8": "<J>You go up to the festival. I am not going up to this festival yet, because the right time for me has not yet arrived.”</J>",
      "9": "After he said this, he stayed in Galilee.",
      "10": "However, after his brothers had gone up to the festival, then he also went up, not openly but in a private way.",
      "11": "At the festival, the Jews kept looking for him. They asked, “Where is he?”",
      "12": "And there was widespread whispering about him in the crowds. Some were saying, “He’s a good man.” Others were saying, “No, he deceives the people.”",
      "13": "Yet no one spoke openly about him for fear of the Jews.",
      "14": "When the festival was already half over, Jesus went up to the temple courts and began to teach.",
      "15": "The Jews were amazed and asked, “How does this man know what is written without being instructed?”",
      "16": "<J>Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but it comes from him who sent me.</J>",
      "17": "<J>If anyone wants to do his will, he will know whether my teaching is from God or if I speak on my own.</J>",
      "18": "<J>The one who speaks on his own is seeking his own glory. But he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him—that is the one who is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.</J>",
      "19": "<J>Didn’t Moses give you the law? Yet none of you does what the law tells you. Why are you trying to kill me?”</J>",
      "20": "<J>“You have a demon!” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”</J>",
      "21": "<J>Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you are all amazed.</J>",
      "22": "<J>Consider this: Because Moses has given you circumcision (not that it comes from Moses, but from the fathers), you circumcise a man even on the Sabbath.</J>",
      "23": "<J>If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry at me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?</J>",
      "24": "<J>Stop judging by outward appearance. Instead make a right judgment.”</J>",
      "25": "Some of the people from Jerusalem were saying, “Isn’t this the man they want to kill?",
      "26": "Yet, look! He’s speaking openly, and they don’t say a thing to him. Certainly the rulers have not concluded that he is the Christ, have they?",
      "27": "But we know where this man is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.”",
      "28": "Then Jesus called out as he was teaching in the temple courts, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come on my own, but the one who sent me is real. You do not know him.",
      "29": "I know him because I am from him, and he sent me.”",
      "30": "So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.",
      "31": "But many in the crowd believed in him and asked, “When the Christ comes, he won’t do more miraculous signs than this man, will he?”",
      "32": "The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about him, so the chief priests and the Pharisees sent guards to arrest him.",
      "33": "<J>Then Jesus said, “I am going to be with you only a little while longer. Then I am going away to the one who sent me.</J>",
      "34": "<J>You will be looking for me and will not find me, and where I am going to be, you cannot come.”</J>",
      "35": "Then the Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? He does not intend to go to the Jews scattered among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, does he?",
      "36": "What does he mean by saying, ‘You will be looking for me and will not find me, and where I am going to be, you cannot come’?”",
      "37": "<J>On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and called out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!</J>",
      "38": "<J>As the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from deep within the person who believes in me.”</J>",
      "39": "By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive. For the Holy Spirit had not yet come, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.",
      "40": "After hearing his words, some of the people said, “This is truly the Prophet.”",
      "41": "Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Surely the Christ does not come from Galilee, does he?",
      "42": "Doesn’t the Scripture say that the Christ comes from David’s descendants and from the little town of Bethlehem where David lived?”",
      "43": "So the people were divided because of him.",
      "44": "Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.",
      "45": "Then the guards came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”",
      "46": "The guards answered, “No one ever spoke the way this man does!”",
      "47": "So the Pharisees answered them, “You have not been deceived too, have you?",
      "48": "Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed in him?",
      "49": "But this crowd, which does not know the law, is cursed!”",
      "50": "One of them, Nicodemus, who had come to Jesus earlier, asked,",
      "51": "“Does our law condemn a man before we hear from him and find out what he’s doing?”",
      "52": "“You are not from Galilee too, are you?” they replied. “Search and you will see that a prophet does not come from Galilee.”",
      "53": "Then each of them went home."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.",
      "2": "Early in the morning, he came back into the temple courts. And all the people kept coming to him. He sat down and taught them.",
      "3": "Then the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery and had her stand in the center.",
      "4": "“Teacher,” they said to him, “this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery.",
      "5": "In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”",
      "6": "They asked this to test him, so that they might have evidence to accuse him.\nJesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger.",
      "7": "<J>But when they kept on asking him for an answer, he stood up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”</J>",
      "8": "Then he stooped down again and wrote on the ground.",
      "9": "When they heard this, they went away one by one, beginning with the older men. Jesus was left alone with the woman in the center.",
      "10": "<J>Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”</J>",
      "11": "<J>“No one, Lord,” she answered.\nThen Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”</J>",
      "12": "<J>When Jesus spoke to them again, he said, “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”</J>",
      "13": "So the Pharisees said to him, “You testify about yourself. Your testimony is not valid.”",
      "14": "<J>“Even if I testify about myself,” Jesus replied, “my testimony is valid, because I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I came from or where I am going.</J>",
      "15": "You judge according to the flesh. I am not judging anyone.",
      "16": "<J>But even if I were to judge, my judgment would be true, because I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me.</J>",
      "17": "Even in your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is valid.",
      "18": "<J>I am one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me.”</J>",
      "19": "<J>Then they asked him, “Where is your Father?”\n“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus answered. “If you knew me, you would also know my Father.”</J>",
      "20": "He spoke these words while teaching in the temple area near the offering box. But no one arrested him, because his time had not arrived yet.",
      "21": "<J>So he told them again, “I am going away. You will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”</J>",
      "22": "So the Jews asked, “He won’t kill himself, will he, because he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”",
      "23": "<J>“You are from below,” he told them. “I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.</J>",
      "24": "<J>That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am the one, you will die in your sins.”</J>",
      "25": "<J>“Who are you?” they asked.\nJesus replied, “What I have been telling you from the beginning.</J>",
      "26": "<J>I have many things to say and to judge concerning you. But the one who sent me is true. And what I heard from him, these are the things I am telling the world.”</J>",
      "27": "They did not understand that he was talking to them about the Father.",
      "28": "<J>So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one, and that I do nothing on my own. But I speak exactly as the Father taught me.</J>",
      "29": "<J>The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him.”</J>",
      "30": "As he was saying these things, many believed in him.",
      "31": "<J>So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples.</J>",
      "32": "<J>You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”</J>",
      "33": "<J>“We are Abraham’s descendants,” they answered, “and we have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be set free’?”</J>",
      "34": "<J>Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin.</J>",
      "35": "<J>But a slave does not remain in the family forever. A son does remain forever.</J>",
      "36": "<J>So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.</J>",
      "37": "<J>I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because there is no place for my word in you.</J>",
      "38": "<J>I am telling you what I have seen at the side of the Father. As for you, you do what you have heard at the side of your father.”</J>",
      "39": "<J>“Our father is Abraham!” they answered.\n“If you were Abraham’s children,” Jesus told them, “you would do the works of Abraham.</J>",
      "40": "<J>But now you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard at the side of God. Abraham did not do this.</J>",
      "41": "You are doing the works of your father.”\n“We were not born of sexual immorality!” they said. “We have one Father: God.”",
      "42": "<J>Jesus replied, “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I came from God and I am here. Indeed, I have not come on my own, but he sent me.</J>",
      "43": "<J>Why do you not understand my message? It is because you are not able to listen to my word.</J>",
      "44": "<J>You belong to your father, the Devil, and you want to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not remain standing in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks from what is his, because he is a liar and the father of lying.</J>",
      "45": "<J>But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.</J>",
      "46": "<J>Who of you can convict me of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?</J>",
      "47": "<J>Whoever belongs to God listens to what God says. The reason you do not listen is that you do not belong to God.”</J>",
      "48": "<J>The Jews responded, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”</J>",
      "49": "<J>Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon. On the contrary, I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.</J>",
      "50": "<J>I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.</J>",
      "51": "<J>Amen, Amen, I tell you: If anyone holds on to my word, he will certainly never see death.”</J>",
      "52": "<J>So the Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets. Yet you say, ‘If anyone holds on to my word, he will certainly never taste death.’</J>",
      "53": "You are not greater than our father, Abraham, are you? He died. And the prophets died. Who do you think you are?”",
      "54": "<J>Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, about whom you say, ‘He is our God.’</J>",
      "55": "<J>Yet you do not really know him, but I do know him. If I said, ‘I do not know him,’ I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I hold on to his word.</J>",
      "56": "<J>Your father Abraham was glad that he would see my day. He saw it and rejoiced.”</J>",
      "57": "<J>The Jews replied, “You aren’t even fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?”</J>",
      "58": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Before Abraham was born, I am.”</J>",
      "59": "Then they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden and left the temple area."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "As Jesus was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth.",
      "2": "His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”",
      "3": "<J>Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that God’s works might be revealed in connection with him.</J>",
      "4": "<J>I must do the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.</J>",
      "5": "<J>As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the World.”</J>",
      "6": "<J>After saying this, Jesus spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and spread the mud on the man’s eyes.</J>",
      "7": "<J>“Go,” Jesus told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.</J>",
      "8": "His neighbors and those who had seen him before this as a beggar asked, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?”",
      "9": "Some said, “He is the one.” Others said, “No, but he looks like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one!”",
      "10": "So they asked him, “How were your eyes opened?”",
      "11": "He answered, “The man who is called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and then I could see.”",
      "12": "“Where is he?” they asked.\n“I don’t know,” he said.",
      "13": "They brought this man who had been blind to the Pharisees.",
      "14": "Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.",
      "15": "So the Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight.\n“He put mud on my eyes,” the man told them. “I washed, and now I see.”",
      "16": "Then some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath.” Others were saying, “How can a sinful man work such miraculous signs?”\nThere was division among them,",
      "17": "so they said to the blind man again, “What do you say about him, because he opened your eyes?”\nThe man replied, “He is a prophet.”",
      "18": "The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and received his sight, until they summoned the parents of the man who had received his sight.",
      "19": "They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? How is it, then, that he can see now?”",
      "20": "“We know that this is our son,” his parents answered, “and that he was born blind.",
      "21": "But we do not know how he can see now, or who opened his eyes. Ask him. He is old enough. He will speak for himself.”",
      "22": "His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.",
      "23": "That is why his parents said, “He is old enough. Ask him.”",
      "24": "So for a second time they summoned the man who had been blind. They told him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”",
      "25": "He answered, “I do not know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I see.”",
      "26": "Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”",
      "27": "He answered, “I already told you, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?”",
      "28": "They ridiculed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.",
      "29": "We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man—we do not know where he comes from.”",
      "30": "“That’s amazing!” the man answered. “You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.",
      "31": "We know that God does not listen to sinners. But he does listen to anyone who worships God and does his will.",
      "32": "From the beginning of time, no one has ever heard of anyone opening the eyes of someone born blind.",
      "33": "If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”",
      "34": "They answered him, “You were entirely born in sinfulness! Yet you presume to teach us?” And they threw him out.",
      "35": "<J>Jesus heard that they had thrown him out. When he found him, he asked, “Do you believe in the Son of God?”</J>",
      "36": "“Who is he, sir,” the man replied, “that I may believe in him?”",
      "37": "<J>Jesus answered, “You have seen him, and he is the very one who is speaking with you.”</J>",
      "38": "Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” and he knelt down and worshipped him.",
      "39": "<J>Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, in order that those who do not see will see, and those who do see will become blind.”</J>",
      "40": "Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and asked, “We are not blind too, are we?”",
      "41": "<J>Jesus told them, “If you were blind, you would not hold on to sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”</J>"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "<J>“Amen, Amen, I tell you: Anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the door, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.</J>",
      "2": "<J>The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.</J>",
      "3": "<J>The doorkeeper opens the door for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.</J>",
      "4": "<J>When he has brought out all his own sheep, he walks ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they know his voice.</J>",
      "5": "<J>They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”</J>",
      "6": "<J>Jesus used this illustration in speaking to the people, but they did not understand what he was telling them.</J>",
      "7": "<J>So Jesus said again, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: I am the door for the sheep.</J>",
      "8": "<J>All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.</J>",
      "9": "<J>I am the door. Whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.</J>",
      "10": "<J>“A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.</J>",
      "11": "<J>“I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.</J>",
      "12": "<J>The hired man, who is not a shepherd, does not own the sheep. He sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them.</J>",
      "13": "<J>Because he works for money, he does not care about the sheep.</J>",
      "14": "<J>“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me</J>",
      "15": "<J>(just as the Father knows me and I know the Father). And I lay down my life for the sheep.</J>",
      "16": "<J>I also have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock and one shepherd.</J>",
      "17": "<J>This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.</J>",
      "18": "<J>No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This is the commission I received from my Father.”</J>",
      "19": "<J>There was a division among the Jews again because of these words.</J>",
      "20": "<J>Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is out of his mind! Why listen to him?”</J>",
      "21": "<J>Others said, “These are not the sayings of someone demon-possessed. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”</J>",
      "22": "<J>Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter,</J>",
      "23": "<J>and Jesus was walking in the temple area in Solomon’s Colonnade.</J>",
      "24": "<J>So the Jews gathered around Jesus, asking, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”</J>",
      "25": "<J>Jesus answered them, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I am doing in my Father’s name testify about me.</J>",
      "26": "<J>But you do not believe, because you are not my sheep, as I said to you.</J>",
      "27": "<J>My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.</J>",
      "28": "<J>I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.</J>",
      "29": "<J>My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.</J>",
      "30": "<J>I and the Father are one.”</J>",
      "31": "<J>Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him.</J>",
      "32": "<J>Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?”</J>",
      "33": "<J>“We are not going to stone you for a good work,” the Jews answered, “but for blasphemy, because although you are a man, you make yourself out to be God.”</J>",
      "34": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said you are gods’?</J>",
      "35": "<J>If he called those people ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken,</J>",
      "36": "<J>what about the one whom the Father set apart and sent into the world? Do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?</J>",
      "37": "<J>If I am not doing the works of my Father, do not believe me.</J>",
      "38": "<J>But if I am doing them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works so that you will know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.”</J>",
      "39": "So they tried to arrest him again, but he eluded their grasp.",
      "40": "He went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he stayed there.",
      "41": "Many came to him and were saying, “John never did a miraculous sign, but everything John said about this man was true.”",
      "42": "And many believed in him there."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Now a certain man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.",
      "2": "This Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was the same Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair.",
      "3": "So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, saying, “Lord, the one you love is sick!”",
      "4": "<J>When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness is not going to result in death, but it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”</J>",
      "5": "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.",
      "6": "Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed in the place where he was two more days.",
      "7": "<J>Then afterwards he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”</J>",
      "8": "The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, recently the Jews were trying to stone you. And you are going back there again?”",
      "9": "<J>Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? If anyone walks around during the day, he does not stumble because he sees this world’s light.</J>",
      "10": "<J>But if anyone walks around at night, he stumbles because there is no light on him.”</J>",
      "11": "<J>He said this and then told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.”</J>",
      "12": "Then the disciples said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.”",
      "13": "Jesus had been speaking about his death, but they thought he was merely talking about ordinary sleep.",
      "14": "<J>So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.</J>",
      "15": "<J>And I am glad for your sake that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”</J>",
      "16": "Then Thomas (called the Twin) said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go too, so that we may die with him.”",
      "17": "When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.",
      "18": "Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away.",
      "19": "Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.",
      "20": "When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, while Mary was sitting in the house.",
      "21": "Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.",
      "22": "But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”",
      "23": "<J>Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”</J>",
      "24": "Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the Last Day.”",
      "25": "<J>Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies.</J>",
      "26": "<J>And whoever lives and believes in me will never perish. Do you believe this?”</J>",
      "27": "“Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”",
      "28": "After she said this, Martha went back to call her sister Mary. She whispered, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”",
      "29": "When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.",
      "30": "Now Jesus had not yet gone into the village, but was still where Martha met him.",
      "31": "The Jews who were with Mary in the house consoling her saw that she got up quickly and left. So they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to weep there.",
      "32": "When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”",
      "33": "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.",
      "34": "<J>He asked, “Where have you laid him?”\nThey told him, “Lord, come and see.”</J>",
      "35": "Jesus wept.",
      "36": "Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”",
      "37": "But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”",
      "38": "Jesus was deeply moved again as he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.",
      "39": "<J>“Take away the stone,” he said.\nMartha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, because it has been four days.”</J>",
      "40": "<J>Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”</J>",
      "41": "<J>So they took away the stone.\nJesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me.</J>",
      "42": "<J>I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”</J>",
      "43": "<J>After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”</J>",
      "44": "<J>The man who had died came out with his feet and his hands bound with strips of linen and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus told them, “Loose him and let him go.”</J>",
      "45": "Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him.",
      "46": "But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.",
      "47": "So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. They asked, “What are we going to do, because this man is doing many miraculous signs?",
      "48": "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”",
      "49": "But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all.",
      "50": "You do not even consider that it is better for us that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”",
      "51": "He did not say this on his own, but, as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,",
      "52": "and not only for that nation, but also in order to gather into one the scattered children of God.",
      "53": "So from that day on they plotted to kill him.",
      "54": "Therefore Jesus no longer walked about openly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew into a region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim. And he stayed there with his disciples.",
      "55": "The Jewish Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover.",
      "56": "They kept looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple area, “What do you think? He certainly won’t come to the Festival, will he?”",
      "57": "The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he should report it so that they could arrest Jesus."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus, who had died, the one Jesus raised from the dead.",
      "2": "They gave a dinner for him there. Martha was serving, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him.",
      "3": "Then Mary took about twelve ounces of very expensive perfume (pure nard) and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.",
      "4": "But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was going to betray him, said,",
      "5": "“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”",
      "6": "He did not say this because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief. He held the money box and used to steal what was put into it.",
      "7": "<J>Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She intended to keep this for the day of my burial.</J>",
      "8": "<J>Indeed, the poor you always have with you, but you are not always going to have me.”</J>",
      "9": "A large crowd of the Jews learned that he was there. They came not only because of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead.",
      "10": "So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus too,",
      "11": "because it was on account of him that many of the Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus.",
      "12": "The next day, the large crowd that had come for the Festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.",
      "13": "Taking palm branches, they went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!”",
      "14": "Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written:",
      "15": "Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion.\nLook! Your King is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.",
      "16": "At first, his disciples did not understand these things. But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and that they did these things for him.",
      "17": "The crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead kept telling what they had seen.",
      "18": "This is another reason a crowd met him: They heard he had done this miraculous sign.",
      "19": "So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see? You are accomplishing nothing. Look! The world has gone after him.”",
      "20": "Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Festival.",
      "21": "They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”",
      "22": "Philip went to tell Andrew. Andrew came with Philip and told Jesus.",
      "23": "<J>Jesus answered them, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.</J>",
      "24": "<J>Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it continues to be one kernel. But if it dies, it produces much grain.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Anyone who loves his life destroys it. And the one who hates his life in this world will hold on to it for eternal life.</J>",
      "26": "<J>If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.</J>",
      "27": "<J>“Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, this is the reason I came to this hour.</J>",
      "28": "<J>Father, glorify your name!”\nA voice came from heaven: “I have glorified my name, and I will glorify it again.”</J>",
      "29": "The crowd standing there heard it and said it thundered. Others said an angel talked to him.",
      "30": "<J>Jesus answered, “This voice was not for my sake but for yours.</J>",
      "31": "“Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be thrown out.",
      "32": "<J>And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”</J>",
      "33": "He said this to indicate what kind of death he was going to die.",
      "34": "<J>The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Scriptures that the Christ will remain forever. So how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”</J>",
      "35": "<J>Then Jesus told them, “The light will be with you just a little while longer. Keep on walking while you have the light, so that darkness does not overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.</J>",
      "36": "<J>While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light.”\nJesus spoke these words, and then went away and was hidden from them.</J>",
      "37": "Even though Jesus had done so many miraculous signs in their presence, they still did not believe in him.",
      "38": "This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, who said:\nLord, who has believed our message?\nAnd to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?",
      "39": "For this reason they could not believe, because Isaiah also said:",
      "40": "He has blinded their eyes\nand hardened their heart,\nso that they would not see with their eyes,\nor understand with their heart,\nor turn—and I would heal them.",
      "41": "Isaiah said these things when he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.",
      "42": "Nevertheless, even many of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing him, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue.",
      "43": "For they loved praise from people more than praise from God.",
      "44": "<J>Then Jesus called out, “The one who believes in me does not believe in me only, but in him who sent me.</J>",
      "45": "<J>And the one who sees me sees him who sent me.</J>",
      "46": "<J>I have come into the world as a light, so that everyone who believes in me would not remain in darkness.</J>",
      "47": "<J>If anyone hears my words but does not hold on to them, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.</J>",
      "48": "<J>The one who rejects me and does not receive my words does have a judge. The word which I spoke is what will judge him on the Last Day,</J>",
      "49": "<J>because I have not spoken on my own, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a command regarding what I am to say and what I am to speak.</J>",
      "50": "<J>And I know that his command is eternal life. So the things I speak are exactly what the Father told me to speak.”</J>"
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "Before the Passover Festival, Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved those who were his own in the world, he loved them to the end.",
      "2": "By the time the supper took place, the Devil had already put the idea into the heart of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus.",
      "3": "Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God.",
      "4": "He got up from the supper and laid aside his outer garment. He took a towel and tied it around his waist.",
      "5": "Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.",
      "6": "He came to Simon Peter, who asked him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”",
      "7": "<J>Jesus answered him, “You do not understand what I am doing now, but later you will understand.”</J>",
      "8": "<J>Peter told him, “You will never, ever, wash my feet!”\nJesus replied, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.”</J>",
      "9": "<J>“Lord, not just my feet,” Simon Peter replied, “but also my hands and my head!”</J>",
      "10": "<J>Jesus told him, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet, but his body is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you.”</J>",
      "11": "<J>Indeed, he knew who was going to betray him. That is why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”</J>",
      "12": "<J>After Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer garment, he reclined at the table again. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them.</J>",
      "13": "<J>“You call me Teacher and Lord. You are right, because I am.</J>",
      "14": "<J>Now if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.</J>",
      "15": "<J>Yes, I have given you an example so that you also would do just as I have done for you.</J>",
      "16": "<J>Amen, Amen, I tell you: A servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.</J>",
      "17": "<J>If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.</J>",
      "18": "<J>“I am not talking about all of you. I know those I have chosen. But this is so that the Scripture may be fulfilled: ‘One who eats bread with me has raised his heel against me.’</J>",
      "19": "<J>I am telling you this right now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you may believe that I am he.</J>",
      "20": "<J>“Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whoever receives anyone I send, receives me. And whoever receives me, receives the one who sent me.”</J>",
      "21": "<J>After saying this, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: One of you will betray me.”</J>",
      "22": "<J>The disciples were looking at each other, uncertain which of them he meant.</J>",
      "23": "<J>One of his disciples, the one Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ side.</J>",
      "24": "<J>So Simon Peter motioned to him to find out which one he was talking about.</J>",
      "25": "<J>So leaning back against Jesus’ side, he asked, “Lord, who is it?”</J>",
      "26": "<J>Jesus replied, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread, after I have dipped it in the dish.” Then he dipped the piece of bread and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.</J>",
      "27": "<J>As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.\nSo Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do more quickly.”</J>",
      "28": "<J>None of those reclining at the table understood why Jesus said this to him.</J>",
      "29": "<J>Because Judas kept the money box, some thought that Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the Festival,” or to give something to the poor.</J>",
      "30": "<J>As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.</J>",
      "31": "<J>After Judas left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him.</J>",
      "32": "<J>If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify the Son in himself and will glorify him at once.”</J>",
      "33": "<J>“Dear children, I am going to be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.</J>",
      "34": "<J>“A new commandment I give you: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also you are to love one another.</J>",
      "35": "<J>By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”</J>",
      "36": "<J>Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?”\nJesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”</J>",
      "37": "<J>Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you!”</J>",
      "38": "<J>Jesus replied, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Amen, Amen, I tell you: The rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times.”</J>"
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "<J>“Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.</J>",
      "2": "<J>In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.</J>",
      "3": "<J>And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am.</J>",
      "4": "<J>You know where I am going, and you know the way.”</J>",
      "5": "<J>“Lord, we don’t know where you are going,” Thomas replied, “so how can we know the way?”</J>",
      "6": "<J>Jesus said to him, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.</J>",
      "7": "<J>If you know me, you would also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”</J>",
      "8": "<J>“Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that is enough for us.”</J>",
      "9": "<J>“Have I been with you so long,” Jesus answered, “and you still do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?</J>",
      "10": "<J>Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I am telling you I am not speaking on my own, but the Father who remains in me is doing his works.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. Or else believe because of the works themselves.</J>",
      "12": "<J>“Amen, Amen, I tell you: The one who believes in me will do the works that I am doing. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.</J>",
      "13": "<J>I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.</J>",
      "14": "<J>If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.</J>",
      "15": "<J>“If you love me, hold on to my commands.</J>",
      "16": "<J>I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.</J>",
      "17": "<J>He is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him. You know him because he stays with you and will be in you.</J>",
      "18": "<J>“I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.</J>",
      "19": "<J>In a little while the world will see me no longer, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.</J>",
      "20": "<J>In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.</J>",
      "21": "<J>The one who has my commands and holds on to them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I too will love him and show myself to him.”</J>",
      "22": "<J>Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, what has happened that you are going to show yourself to us and not to the world?”</J>",
      "23": "<J>Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will hold on to my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.</J>",
      "24": "<J>The one who does not love me does not hold on to my words. The word that you are hearing is not mine, but it is from the Father who sent me.</J>",
      "25": "<J>“I have told you these things while staying with you.</J>",
      "26": "<J>But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I told you.</J>",
      "27": "<J>“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.</J>",
      "28": "<J>You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.</J>",
      "29": "<J>“I have told you now before it happens so that, when it does happen, you may believe.</J>",
      "30": "<J>I will not speak with you much longer, because the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me.</J>",
      "31": "<J>But I want the world to know that I love the Father and that I am doing exactly what the Father has instructed me.\n“Get up. Let’s leave this place.”</J>"
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "<J>“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.</J>",
      "2": "<J>Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he is going to cut off. And he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it will bear more fruit.</J>",
      "3": "<J>“You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Remain in me, and I am going to remain in you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Likewise, you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me.</J>",
      "5": "<J>“I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him is the one who bears much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.</J>",
      "6": "<J>If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. Such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.</J>",
      "7": "<J>If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.</J>",
      "8": "<J>My Father is glorified by this: that you continue to bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples.</J>",
      "9": "<J>“As the Father has loved me, so also I have loved you. Remain in my love.</J>",
      "10": "<J>If you hold on to my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have held on to my Father’s commands and remain in his love.</J>",
      "11": "<J>I have told you these things so that my joy would continue to be in you and that your joy would be complete.</J>",
      "12": "<J>“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.</J>",
      "13": "<J>No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends.</J>",
      "14": "<J>You are my friends if you continue to do the things I instruct you.</J>",
      "15": "<J>I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.</J>",
      "16": "<J>You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will endure, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.</J>",
      "17": "<J>These things I am instructing you, so that you love one another.</J>",
      "18": "<J>“If the world hates you, you know that it hated me first.</J>",
      "19": "<J>If you were of the world, the world would love its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, for that very reason the world hates you.</J>",
      "20": "<J>Remember the saying I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too. If they held on to my word, they will hold on to yours as well.</J>",
      "21": "<J>But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.</J>",
      "22": "<J>If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin.</J>",
      "23": "<J>The one who hates me also hates my Father.</J>",
      "24": "<J>If I had not done the works among them that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.</J>",
      "25": "<J>This was to fulfill the word which is written in their Law: ‘They hated me for no reason.’</J>",
      "26": "<J>“When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me.</J>",
      "27": "<J>And you also are going to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.”</J>"
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "<J>“I have told you these things so that you will not fall away.</J>",
      "2": "<J>They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who murders you will think he is offering a service to God.</J>",
      "3": "<J>They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me.</J>",
      "4": "<J>But I have told you these things so that when their time comes, you may remember that I told them to you. I did not tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you.</J>",
      "5": "<J>“But now I am going away to him who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’</J>",
      "6": "<J>Yet because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth: It is good for you that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.</J>",
      "8": "<J>When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment:</J>",
      "9": "<J>about sin, because they do not believe in me;</J>",
      "10": "<J>about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me;</J>",
      "11": "<J>about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.</J>",
      "12": "<J>“I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now.</J>",
      "13": "<J>But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears he will speak. He will also declare to you what is to come.</J>",
      "14": "<J>He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.</J>",
      "15": "<J>Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I said that he takes from what is mine and will declare it to you.</J>",
      "16": "<J>“In a little while you are not going to see me anymore, and again in a little while you will see me, because I am going away to the Father.”</J>",
      "17": "<J>Therefore some of his disciples asked one another, “What does he mean when he tells us, ‘In a little while you are not going to see me, and again in a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going away to the Father’?”</J>",
      "18": "<J>So they kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he’s saying.”</J>",
      "19": "<J>Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you trying to determine with one another what I meant by saying, ‘In a little while you are not going to see me, and again in a little while you will see me’?</J>",
      "20": "<J>Amen, Amen, I tell you: You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.</J>",
      "21": "<J>A woman giving birth has pain, because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of her joy that a person has been born into the world.</J>",
      "22": "<J>“So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.</J>",
      "23": "<J>In that day you will not ask me anything. Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.</J>",
      "24": "<J>Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete.</J>",
      "25": "<J>“I have told you these things using figurative language. A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you using figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father.</J>",
      "26": "<J>In that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will make requests of the Father on your behalf.</J>",
      "27": "<J>For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.</J>",
      "28": "<J>I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am going to leave the world and go to the Father.”</J>",
      "29": "<J>“Yes!” his disciples said. “Now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative language.</J>",
      "30": "<J>Now we know that you know everything and do not need to have anyone ask you anything. For this reason we believe that you came from God.”</J>",
      "31": "<J>Jesus answered them, “Now do you believe?</J>",
      "32": "<J>Listen, a time is coming, in fact it is here, when you will be scattered, everyone to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not going to be alone, because the Father is with me.</J>",
      "33": "<J>I have told you these things, so that you may have peace in me. In this world you are going to have trouble. But be courageous! I have overcome the world.”</J>"
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "<J>After Jesus had spoken these things, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you.</J>",
      "2": "<J>For you gave him authority over all flesh, so that he may give eternal life to all those you have given him.</J>",
      "3": "<J>This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.</J>",
      "4": "<J>I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.</J>",
      "5": "<J>Now, Father, glorify me at your own side with the glory I had at your side before the world existed.</J>",
      "6": "<J>“I revealed your name to the men you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me, and they have held on to your word.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.</J>",
      "8": "<J>For I gave them the words you gave me, and they received them. They learned the truth that I came from you. They believed that you sent me.</J>",
      "9": "<J>“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, because they are yours.</J>",
      "10": "<J>All that is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine. And I am glorified in them.</J>",
      "11": "<J>I am no longer going to be in the world, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name, which you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.</J>",
      "12": "<J>While I was with them, I kept those you gave me safe in your name. I protected them and not one of them was destroyed, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled.</J>",
      "13": "<J>“But now I am coming to you, and I am saying these things in the world, so that they may be filled with my joy.</J>",
      "14": "<J>I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.</J>",
      "15": "<J>I am not asking that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the Evil One.</J>",
      "16": "<J>They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.</J>",
      "17": "<J>“Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth.</J>",
      "18": "<J>As you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world.</J>",
      "19": "<J>I sanctify myself for them, so they also may be sanctified by the truth.</J>",
      "20": "<J>“I am praying not only for them, but also for those who believe in me through their message.</J>",
      "21": "<J>May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.</J>",
      "22": "<J>I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one:</J>",
      "23": "<J>I in them, and you in me. May they become completely one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.</J>",
      "24": "<J>“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am so that they may see my glory—the glory you gave me because you loved me before the world’s foundation.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Righteous Father, the world did not know you, but I knew you, and these men knew that you sent me.</J>",
      "26": "<J>I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have for me may be in them and that I may be in them.”</J>"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "After saying these things, Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden. He and his disciples went into it.",
      "2": "Now Judas, who was betraying him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples.",
      "3": "So Judas took the company of soldiers and some guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.",
      "4": "<J>Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who are you looking for?”</J>",
      "5": "<J>“Jesus the Nazarene,” they replied.\n“I am he,” Jesus told them.\nJudas, the betrayer, was standing with them.</J>",
      "6": "<J>When Jesus told them, “I am he,” they backed away and fell to the ground.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Then Jesus asked them again, “Who are you looking for?”\n“Jesus the Nazarene,” they said.</J>",
      "8": "<J>“I told you that I am he,” Jesus replied. “So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”</J>",
      "9": "This was to fulfill the statement he had spoken: “I did not lose any of those you have given me.”",
      "10": "Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.",
      "11": "<J>So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup my Father has given me?”</J>",
      "12": "Then the company of soldiers, their commander, and the Jewish guards arrested Jesus and bound him.",
      "13": "First they led him to Annas, because he was father-in-law to Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year.",
      "14": "Now it was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews, “It is better that one man die for the people.”",
      "15": "Simon Peter and another disciple kept following Jesus. That disciple was known to the high priest, so he went into the high priest’s courtyard with Jesus.",
      "16": "But Peter stood outside by the door. So the other disciple, the one known to the high priest, went out and talked to the girl watching the door and brought Peter in.",
      "17": "“You are not one of this man’s disciples too, are you?” the girl at the door asked Peter.\n“I am not!” he said.",
      "18": "The servants and guards were standing around a fire of coals that they had made because it was cold. While they warmed themselves, Peter was standing with them, warming himself too.",
      "19": "The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.",
      "20": "<J>Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in a synagogue or at the temple, where all the Jews gather. I said nothing in secret.</J>",
      "21": "<J>Why are you questioning me? Ask those who heard what I told them. Look, they know what I said.”</J>",
      "22": "<J>When he said this, one of the guards standing there hit Jesus in the face. “Is that how you answer the high priest?” he demanded.</J>",
      "23": "<J>“If I said something wrong,” Jesus answered, “testify about what was wrong. But if I was right, why did you hit me?”</J>",
      "24": "Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.",
      "25": "Simon Peter continued to stand there warming himself. So they said to him, “You are not one of his disciples too, are you?”\nHe denied it, saying, “I am not!”",
      "26": "One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?”",
      "27": "Peter denied it again, and just then a rooster crowed.",
      "28": "Early in the morning, the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium. They did not enter the Praetorium themselves, so that they would not become ceremonially unclean. (They wanted to be able to eat the Passover meal.)",
      "29": "So Pilate went out to them and said, “What charge do you bring against this man?”",
      "30": "They answered him, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.”",
      "31": "Pilate told them, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.”\nThe Jews said, “It’s not legal for us to put anyone to death.”",
      "32": "This happened so that the statement Jesus had spoken indicating what kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.",
      "33": "Pilate went back into the Praetorium and summoned Jesus. He asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”",
      "34": "<J>Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”</J>",
      "35": "Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”",
      "36": "<J>Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here.”</J>",
      "37": "<J>“You are a king then?” Pilate asked.\nJesus answered, “I am, as you say, a king. For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”</J>",
      "38": "“What is truth?” Pilate said to him.\nAfter he said this, he went out again to the Jews and told them, “I find no basis for a charge against him.",
      "39": "But you have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover. So do you want me to release the King of the Jews for you?”",
      "40": "Then they shouted back, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” (Now Barabbas was a rebel.)"
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.",
      "2": "The soldiers also twisted together a crown of thorns and placed it on his head. Then they threw a purple robe around him.",
      "3": "They kept coming to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they kept hitting him in the face.",
      "4": "Pilate went outside again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.”",
      "5": "So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”",
      "6": "When the chief priests and guards saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”\nPilate told them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no basis for a charge against him.”",
      "7": "The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”",
      "8": "When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.",
      "9": "He went back inside the palace again and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?”\nBut Jesus gave him no answer.",
      "10": "So Pilate asked him, “Are you not talking to me? Don’t you know that I have the authority to release you or to crucify you?”",
      "11": "<J>Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over me at all if it had not been given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”</J>",
      "12": "From then on Pilate tried to release Jesus. But the Jews shouted, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar! Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar!”",
      "13": "When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside. He sat down on the judge’s seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, or Gabbatha in Aramaic.",
      "14": "It was about the sixth hour on the Preparation Day for the Passover. Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is your king!”",
      "15": "They shouted, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!”\nPilate said to them, “Should I crucify your king?”\n“We have no king but Caesar!” the chief priests answered.",
      "16": "So then Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be crucified.\nSo they took Jesus away.",
      "17": "Carrying his own cross, he went out to what is called the Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.",
      "18": "There they crucified him with two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the middle.",
      "19": "Pilate also had a notice written and fastened on the cross. It read, “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.”",
      "20": "Many of the Jews read this notice, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek.",
      "21": "So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that ‘this man said, “I am the King of the Jews.”’”",
      "22": "Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”",
      "23": "When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier. They also took his tunic, which was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.",
      "24": "So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it. Instead, let’s cast lots to see who gets it.” This was so that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says:\nThey divided my garments among them\nand cast lots for my clothing.\nSo the soldiers did these things.",
      "25": "Jesus’ mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene were standing near the cross.",
      "26": "<J>When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son!”</J>",
      "27": "<J>Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother!” And from that time this disciple took her into his own home.</J>",
      "28": "<J>After this, knowing that everything had now been finished, and to fulfill the Scripture, Jesus said, “I thirst.”</J>",
      "29": "A jar full of sour wine was sitting there. So they put a sponge soaked in sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.",
      "30": "<J>When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished!” Then, bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.</J>",
      "31": "Since it was the Preparation Day, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses over the Sabbath (because that Sabbath was a particularly important day). They asked Pilate to have the men’s legs broken and the bodies taken away.",
      "32": "So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who was crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other man.",
      "33": "But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.",
      "34": "Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear. Immediately blood and water came out.",
      "35": "The one who saw it has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.",
      "36": "Indeed, these things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, “Not one of his bones will be broken.”",
      "37": "Again another Scripture says, “They will look at the one they pierced.”",
      "38": "After this, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him remove Jesus’ body. When Pilate gave him permission, he came and took Jesus’ body away.",
      "39": "Nicodemus, who earlier had come to Jesus at night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-two pounds.",
      "40": "They took Jesus’ body and bound it with linen strips along with the spices, in accord with Jewish burial customs.",
      "41": "There was a garden at the place where Jesus was crucified. And in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.",
      "42": "So they laid Jesus there, because it was the Jewish Preparation Day, and the tomb was near."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.",
      "2": "So she left and ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,” she told them, “and we don’t know where they put him!”",
      "3": "So Peter and the other disciple went out, heading for the tomb.",
      "4": "The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and got to the tomb first.",
      "5": "Bending over, he saw the linen cloths lying there, yet he did not go in.",
      "6": "Then Simon Peter, who was following him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there.",
      "7": "The cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was not lying with the linen cloths, but was folded up in a separate place by itself.",
      "8": "Then the other disciple, who arrived at the tomb first, also entered. He saw and believed.",
      "9": "(They still did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead.)",
      "10": "Then the disciples went back to their homes.",
      "11": "But Mary stood outside facing the tomb, weeping. As she wept, she bent over, looking into the tomb.",
      "12": "She saw two angels in white clothes sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and one at the feet.",
      "13": "They asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”\nShe told them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”",
      "14": "After she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus.",
      "15": "<J>Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”\nSupposing he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you carried him off, tell me where you laid him, and I will get him.”</J>",
      "16": "<J>Jesus said to her, “Mary.”\nShe turned and replied in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means, “Teacher”).</J>",
      "17": "<J>Jesus told her, “Do not continue to cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father—to my God and your God.’”</J>",
      "18": "Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” She also told them the things he said to her.",
      "19": "<J>On the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were together behind locked doors because of their fear of the Jews. Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be with you!”</J>",
      "20": "After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.",
      "21": "<J>Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you! Just as the Father has sent me, I am also sending you.”</J>",
      "22": "<J>After saying this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.</J>",
      "23": "<J>Whenever you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven. Whenever you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”</J>",
      "24": "But Thomas, one of the Twelve, the one called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.",
      "25": "So the other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen the Lord!”\nBut he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.”",
      "26": "<J>After eight days, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you,” he said.</J>",
      "27": "<J>Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at my hands. Take your hand and put it into my side. Do not continue to doubt, but believe.”</J>",
      "28": "Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”",
      "29": "<J>Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”</J>",
      "30": "Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, did many other miraculous signs that are not written in this book.",
      "31": "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "After this, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. This is how he showed himself:",
      "2": "Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.",
      "3": "Simon Peter said to them, “I’m going fishing.”\nThey replied, “We’ll go with you.”\nThey went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.",
      "4": "Early in the morning, Jesus was standing on the shore, but the disciples did not know it was Jesus.",
      "5": "<J>Jesus called to them, “Boys, don’t you have any fish?”\n“No!” they answered.</J>",
      "6": "<J>He told them, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” So they cast the net out. Then they were not able to haul it in because of the large number of fish.</J>",
      "7": "The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard, “It is the Lord!” he tied his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the sea.",
      "8": "But the other disciples came in the little boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about one hundred yards.",
      "9": "When they stepped out on land, they saw some bread and a charcoal fire with fish on it.",
      "10": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.”</J>",
      "11": "So Simon Peter climbed aboard and hauled the net to land, full of large fish, 153 of them. Yet even with so many, the net was not torn.",
      "12": "<J>Jesus said to them, “Come, eat breakfast.”\nNone of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.</J>",
      "13": "Jesus came, took the bread, and gave it to them, and also the fish.",
      "14": "This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.",
      "15": "<J>When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”\n“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I care about you.”\nJesus told him, “Feed my lambs.”</J>",
      "16": "<J>A second time Jesus asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”\nHe said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I care about you.”\nJesus told him, “Be a shepherd for my sheep.”</J>",
      "17": "<J>He asked him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you care about me?”\nPeter was grieved because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you care about me?” He answered, “Lord, you know all things. You know that I care about you.”\n“Feed my sheep,” Jesus said.</J>",
      "18": "<J>“Amen, Amen, I tell you: When you were young, you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will tie you and carry you where you do not want to go.”</J>",
      "19": "<J>Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. After saying this, he told him, “Follow me.”</J>",
      "20": "Peter turned and saw the disciple Jesus loved following them. This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and asked, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”",
      "21": "When Peter saw him, he asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”",
      "22": "<J>“If I want him to remain until I come,” Jesus answered, “what is that to you? You follow me.”</J>",
      "23": "<J>And so it was said among the brothers that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say that he would not die, but, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?”</J>",
      "24": "This is the disciple who is testifying about these things and who wrote these things. We know that his testimony is true.",
      "25": "Jesus also did many other things. If every one of them were written down, I suppose the world itself would not have room for the books that would be written."
    }
  },
  "Acts": {
    "1": {
      "1": "I wrote my first book, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began doing and teaching",
      "2": "until the day he was taken up, after he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.",
      "3": "After he had suffered, he presented himself alive to the apostles with many convincing proofs. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and told them things about the kingdom of God.",
      "4": "<J>Once, when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for what the Father promised, which you heard from me.</J>",
      "5": "<J>For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”</J>",
      "6": "So when they were together with him, they asked, “Lord, is this the time when you are going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”",
      "7": "<J>He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority.</J>",
      "8": "<J>But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”</J>",
      "9": "After he said these things, he was taken up while they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight.",
      "10": "They were looking intently into the sky as he went away. Suddenly, two men in white clothes stood beside them.",
      "11": "They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”",
      "12": "Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain called the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.",
      "13": "When they entered the city, they went to the upstairs room where they were staying. Peter and John were there, also James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.",
      "14": "All of them kept praying together with one mind, along with the women, with Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.",
      "15": "In those days, when the group there numbered about 120 people, Peter stood up among the brothers and said,",
      "16": "“Gentlemen, brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David about Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus.",
      "17": "Judas was counted as one of us and was given a share in this ministry.",
      "18": "“Now this man acquired a field with what he was paid for his wicked act. When he fell headfirst, his middle burst open, and all his intestines spilled out.",
      "19": "This became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, and so in their own language that field was called Akeldema, which means Field of Blood.",
      "20": "Indeed, it is written in the book of Psalms:\nMay his residence be deserted.\nLet there be no one dwelling in it.\nAnd,\nlet someone else take his position.",
      "21": "“Therefore it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us during the entire time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,",
      "22": "beginning from his baptism by John until the day Jesus was taken up from us, become a witness with us of his resurrection.”",
      "23": "They proposed two: Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus) and Matthias.",
      "24": "Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen",
      "25": "to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place.”",
      "26": "Then they assigned lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias. So he was counted with the eleven apostles."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.",
      "2": "Suddenly a sound like the rushing of a violent wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.",
      "3": "They saw divided tongues that were like fire resting on each one of them.",
      "4": "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, since the Spirit was giving them the ability to speak fluently.",
      "5": "Now there were godly Jewish men from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.",
      "6": "When this sound was heard, a crowd came together and was confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.",
      "7": "They were completely baffled and said to each other, “Look, are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?",
      "8": "Then how is it that each of us hears them speaking in his own native language?",
      "9": "Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, and of Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,",
      "10": "Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya around Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes;",
      "11": "Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring in our own languages the wonderful works of God.”",
      "12": "They were all amazed and perplexed. They kept saying to one another, “What does this mean?”",
      "13": "But others mocked them and said, “They are full of new wine.”",
      "14": "Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice, and spoke loudly and clearly to them: “Men of Judea, and all you residents of Jerusalem, understand this, and listen closely to my words.",
      "15": "These men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day.",
      "16": "On the contrary, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:",
      "17": "This is what God says will happen in the last days:\nI will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.\nYour sons and your daughters will prophesy.\nYour young men will see visions.\nYour old men will dream dreams.",
      "18": "Even on my servants, both men and women,\nI will pour out my Spirit in those days,\nand they will prophesy.",
      "19": "I will show wonders in the sky above,\nand signs on the earth below,\nblood and fire and a rising cloud of smoke.",
      "20": "The sun will be turned to darkness\nand the moon to blood\nbefore the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.",
      "21": "And this will happen: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord\n    will be saved.",
      "22": "“Men of Israel, hear these words! Jesus the Nazarene was a man recommended to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know.",
      "23": "This man, who was handed over by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, you killed by having lawless men nail him to a cross.",
      "24": "He is the one God raised up by freeing him from the agony of death, because death was not able to hold him in its grip.",
      "25": "“Indeed, David says concerning him:\nI saw the Lord always before me.\nBecause he is at my right hand,\nI will not be shaken.",
      "26": "Therefore my heart was glad,\nand my tongue rejoiced.\nMy flesh also will rest in hope,",
      "27": "because you will not abandon my life to the grave,\nnor will you let your Holy One see decay.",
      "28": "You have made known to me the paths of life.\nYou will fill me with joy in your presence.",
      "29": "“Gentlemen, brothers, I can speak confidently to you about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.",
      "30": "Since he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath that he would seat one of his descendants on his throne,",
      "31": "he saw what was coming and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, saying that he was neither abandoned to the grave nor did his flesh see decay.",
      "32": "“This Jesus is the one God has raised up. We are all witnesses of that.",
      "33": "So, after he was exalted to the right hand of God and after he received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, he poured out what you are now seeing and hearing.",
      "34": "“For David did not ascend into heaven, and yet he says:\nThe Lord said to my Lord,\n‘Sit at my right hand,",
      "35": "until I make your enemies\na footstool under your feet.’",
      "36": "“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”",
      "37": "Now when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Gentlemen, brothers, what should we do?”",
      "38": "Peter answered them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.",
      "39": "For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call.”",
      "40": "He testified solemnly with many other words and was appealing to them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”",
      "41": "Those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added.",
      "42": "They continued to hold firmly to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and to the prayers.",
      "43": "Awe came over every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.",
      "44": "All the believers were together and had everything in common.",
      "45": "They were selling their possessions and property and were distributing the proceeds according to what anyone needed.",
      "46": "Day after day, with one mind, they were devoted to meeting in the temple area, as they continued to break bread in their homes. They shared their food with glad and sincere hearts,",
      "47": "as they continued praising God and being viewed favorably by all the people. Day after day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, an hour of prayer.",
      "2": "A certain man who was lame from birth was carried there every day and placed at the temple gate, which is called Beautiful, so that he could beg for donations from those entering the temple.",
      "3": "When he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple, he asked them for a donation.",
      "4": "Peter looked directly at him, as did John. Peter said, “Look at us.”",
      "5": "So the man paid close attention to them, expecting to receive something from them.",
      "6": "But Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I will give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”",
      "7": "Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately the man’s feet and ankles were made strong.",
      "8": "Jumping up, he stood and began to walk. He entered the temple courts with them, walking, jumping, and praising God.",
      "9": "All the people saw him walking and praising God.",
      "10": "They recognized him as the one who used to sit begging for money at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.",
      "11": "While the man held on to Peter and John, all the people came running toward them in utter amazement in the area called Solomon’s Colonnade.",
      "12": "When Peter saw this, he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this? Why are you staring at us, as if by our own power or godliness we have made this man walk?",
      "13": "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him.",
      "14": "You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you.",
      "15": "You killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses of this.",
      "16": "And on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus that has strengthened this man, whom you see and know. This faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.",
      "17": "“Now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just like your leaders.",
      "18": "But in this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through the mouth of all the prophets: that his Christ would suffer.",
      "19": "Therefore repent and return to have your sins wiped out,",
      "20": "so that refreshing times may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you.",
      "21": "He must receive heaven until the times when everything will be restored, as God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.",
      "22": "“Moses said to the fathers:\nThe Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet from your brothers who is like me. Listen to everything he tells you.",
      "23": "And this is what will happen: Every person who does not listen to that Prophet will be completely cut off from the people.",
      "24": "“Also, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have talked about these days.",
      "25": "You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with our fathers when he said to Abraham:\nIn your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed.",
      "26": "“God raised up his Servant and sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you away from your wicked ways.”"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "As Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the commander of the temple guard, and the Sadducees approached them.",
      "2": "They were very upset because Peter and John were teaching the people and proclaiming the resurrection from the dead in connection with Jesus.",
      "3": "They arrested them and put them in jail until the next day because it was already evening.",
      "4": "But many of those who had heard the message believed, and the number of the men increased to about five thousand.",
      "5": "The next day, the rulers, the elders, and the experts in the law assembled in Jerusalem",
      "6": "with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all the rest of the high priest’s family.",
      "7": "After they made Peter and John stand in front of them, they began to question them: “By what power or by what name did you do this?”",
      "8": "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel,",
      "9": "if we are being questioned today for a kind act that was done for the lame man, as to how this man has been healed,",
      "10": "let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that it was by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead! By him this man stands before you healed.",
      "11": "This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone.",
      "12": "“There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”",
      "13": "When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and found out that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were astonished and took note of the fact that these men had been with Jesus.",
      "14": "But since they saw the man who had been healed standing there with them, they could not say anything in reply.",
      "15": "After they had ordered them to leave the Sanhedrin, they discussed the matter among themselves.",
      "16": "They asked, “What should we do with these men? To be sure, it is evident to all who live in Jerusalem that a miraculous sign has been done through them, and we cannot deny it.",
      "17": "However, in order that this may spread no further among the people, let us give them a strict warning not to speak any longer to anyone in this name.”",
      "18": "Then they summoned them and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.",
      "19": "But Peter and John answered them, “Decide whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God.",
      "20": "For we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”",
      "21": "After they had threatened them further, they let them go. They found no way to punish them because all of the people were praising God for what had happened.",
      "22": "For the man on whom this miraculous sign of healing was performed was over forty years old.",
      "23": "After Peter and John were released, they went to their own friends and reported everything the high priests and the elders had said.",
      "24": "When they heard this, with one mind they raised their voices to God and said, “Master, you are the God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them.",
      "25": "By the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David, your servant, you said:\nWhy do the nations rage\nand the peoples plot in vain?",
      "26": "The kings of the earth take their stand,\nand the rulers are gathered together\nagainst the Lord\nand against his Anointed One.",
      "27": "“For certainly, in this city both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and people of Israel, were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.",
      "28": "They did whatever your hand and your plan had decided beforehand should happen.",
      "29": "“Now Lord, look at their threats and give to your servants the ability to keep on speaking your word with all boldness",
      "30": "as you stretch out your hand to heal and as signs and wonders take place through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”",
      "31": "After they prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken. Also, everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit, and they continued to speak the word of God with boldness.",
      "32": "The whole group of believers was one in heart and soul. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they held everything in common.",
      "33": "The apostles continued to testify about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ with great power, and abundant grace was on all of them.",
      "34": "There was not a needy person among them. For from time to time those who were owners of lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds received from what was sold,",
      "35": "and laid it at the apostles’ feet. It was distributed to each one according to what anyone needed.",
      "36": "Joseph, who was called Barnabas by the apostles (which is translated “son of encouragement”), a Levite, a native of Cyprus,",
      "37": "sold a field that belonged to him. He brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property.",
      "2": "With his wife’s knowledge, he kept back part of the proceeds for himself. Then he brought a portion of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.",
      "3": "But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land?",
      "4": "Was it not yours before it was sold? And after it was sold, was not the money at your disposal? How could you plan such a thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”",
      "5": "When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. Great fear gripped everyone who heard about it.",
      "6": "The young men got up and wrapped up his body. Then they carried him out and buried him.",
      "7": "About three hours later, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.",
      "8": "Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this how much you got for the land?”\n“Yes,” she said, “that was the price.”",
      "9": "Then Peter said to her, “How could you two agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of those who buried your husband are standing at the door, and they will carry you out too!”",
      "10": "Instantly she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in, they found her dead. Then they carried her outside and buried her beside her husband.",
      "11": "Great fear gripped the whole church and all who heard about these things.",
      "12": "Many signs and wonders were done among the people through the hands of the apostles. With one mind, they all continued meeting in Solomon’s Colonnade.",
      "13": "No one else dared to join them, but the people held them in high regard.",
      "14": "More and more believers in the Lord were added to their group, large numbers of both men and women.",
      "15": "As a result, people were even carrying the sick into the streets and laying them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them.",
      "16": "Crowds also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and all of them were healed.",
      "17": "The high priest rose up, along with his associates (that is, the party of the Sadducees), because they were filled with envy.",
      "18": "They arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.",
      "19": "But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, brought them out, and said,",
      "20": "“Go, stand in the temple and keep on telling the people the whole message about this life.”",
      "21": "After they heard this, they entered the temple courts at daybreak and began to teach.\nWhen the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin (that is, the whole council of elders of the people of Israel). Then they sent orders to the jail to have the apostles brought in.",
      "22": "But when the officers arrived, they did not find them in the prison. They returned and reported,",
      "23": "“We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside!”",
      "24": "When the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests heard these words, they were puzzled about them, wondering what could have happened.",
      "25": "Then someone came and reported to them, “Look! The men you put in prison are standing in the temple courts and teaching the people.”",
      "26": "Then the captain went with the officers and brought the apostles in without force, because they were afraid that the people might stone them.",
      "27": "After they brought them in, they had them stand before the Sanhedrin. The high priest asked them,",
      "28": "“Did we not give you strict orders not to teach in this name? Look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you are determined to bring this man’s blood down on us!”",
      "29": "But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men.",
      "30": "The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you arrested and killed by hanging him on a cross.",
      "31": "God exalted him to his right hand as Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins.",
      "32": "We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”",
      "33": "When they heard this, they were furious and began making a plan to put them to death.",
      "34": "But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law who was highly respected by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while.",
      "35": "Then he said to them, “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you are about to do with these men.",
      "36": "Some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, all his followers were scattered, and it all came to nothing.",
      "37": "“After him, Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and led many people in a revolt. He also was killed, and all his followers were scattered.",
      "38": "“So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and leave them alone! For if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail.",
      "39": "But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them. Perhaps you might even be found to be fighting against God!”",
      "40": "They were convinced by him. They summoned the apostles, beat them, ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.",
      "41": "The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they were considered worthy to suffer shame for the Name.",
      "42": "Every day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "In those days, as the number of disciples was increasing, a complaint arose from the Greek-speaking Jews against the Hebrew-speaking Jews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.",
      "2": "So the Twelve called together the whole group of disciples and said, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables.",
      "3": "Brothers, carefully select from among you seven men with good reputations, who are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. We will put them in charge of this service.",
      "4": "But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.”",
      "5": "This proposal pleased the entire group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch.",
      "6": "They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.",
      "7": "The word of God kept on spreading, and the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly. Also a large group of priests became obedient to the faith.",
      "8": "Now Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.",
      "9": "Some men who were from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia) rose up and disputed with Stephen.",
      "10": "But they were unable to stand up against the wisdom and the Spirit by whom he was speaking.",
      "11": "Then they secretly induced some men to say, “We heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.”",
      "12": "They stirred up the people, the elders, and the experts in the law. They came, dragged Stephen away, and brought him before the Sanhedrin.",
      "13": "They presented false witnesses who said, “This man never stops making threats against this holy place and the law.",
      "14": "In fact, we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs Moses handed down to us.”",
      "15": "All those who were sitting in the Sanhedrin were looking intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "Then the high priest asked, “Are these things true?”",
      "2": "Stephen said, “Gentlemen, brothers and fathers, listen! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.",
      "3": "God said to him, ‘Leave your land and your relatives and come to the land that I will show you.’",
      "4": "“Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God had him move from there to this land where you are now living.",
      "5": "“He gave him no inheritance in this land, not even enough to set his foot on. But God promised to give it as a possession to him and to his descendants after him, even though Abraham still had no child.",
      "6": "God revealed that his descendants would live as strangers in a foreign country, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.",
      "7": "God added, ‘I will judge the nation that they will serve as slaves, and after that they will leave there and serve me in this place.’",
      "8": "“Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.",
      "9": "“The patriarchs, filled with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him.",
      "10": "God rescued him from all his troubles and granted him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Pharaoh made him governor over Egypt and over his whole palace.",
      "11": "“A famine came over all of Egypt and Canaan, causing great suffering, and our fathers found no food.",
      "12": "But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit.",
      "13": "On their second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.",
      "14": "Then Joseph sent word and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five people in all.",
      "15": "Jacob went down to Egypt, and there he died, he and our fathers.",
      "16": "Their bodies were brought 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": "“As the time approached that God spoke about in the promise he had made to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt.",
      "18": "This continued until another king who knew nothing about Joseph became ruler of Egypt.",
      "19": "He took advantage of our people in a cunning way, and he mistreated our fathers by forcing them to get rid of their babies so that they would not survive.",
      "20": "“At that time, Moses was born, and he was favored by God. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house.",
      "21": "After he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him in and brought him up as her own son.",
      "22": "Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in his words and actions.",
      "23": "“But when he was forty years old, it entered his mind to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.",
      "24": "When he saw one of them being mistreated, he defended him and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.",
      "25": "He thought that his brothers would understand that God was giving them deliverance by his hand, but they did not understand.",
      "26": "The next day, he came across two of them while they were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them. He said, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you harming each other?’",
      "27": "But the one who was harming his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?",
      "28": "Do you want to kill me the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’",
      "29": "At this remark, Moses fled and lived as an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.",
      "30": "“After forty years had passed, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flames of a burning bush.",
      "31": "When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he went closer to look, the voice of the Lord said,",
      "32": "‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses trembled and did not dare to look.",
      "33": "Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take your sandals off your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.",
      "34": "I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning. I have come down to rescue them. Now come, I will send you to Egypt.’",
      "35": "“This is the same Moses they had rejected by saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’ This is the one whom God sent to be a ruler and deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.",
      "36": "This is the one who led the people out, as he performed wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.",
      "37": "This is the Moses who said to the people of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’",
      "38": "This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living messages to give to us,",
      "39": "but our fathers refused to obey him. Instead they pushed him away and turned back, in their hearts, to Egypt.",
      "40": "They told Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.’",
      "41": "That was the time when they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were taking delight in the works of their hands.",
      "42": "“But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies, as it is written in the book of the prophets:\nDid you bring me slaughtered animals and sacrifices\nforty years in the wilderness, house of Israel?",
      "43": "No, you even took up the tent of Moloch\nand the star of your god Rephan,\nthe statues you made to worship.\nTherefore I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.",
      "44": "“Our fathers had the Tent of the Testimony in the wilderness. It was just like the model Moses had seen, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it.",
      "45": "After our fathers received it from him, they brought it in with Joshua when they took possession of the land from the nations God drove out before our fathers. It was here until the days of David.",
      "46": "He found favor in the presence of God and asked that he might obtain a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.",
      "47": "But it was Solomon who built a house for him.",
      "48": "“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands, just as the prophet says:",
      "49": "Heaven is my throne,\nand earth is my footstool.\nWhat sort of house will you build for me? says the Lord,\nor what is my resting place?",
      "50": "Did not my hand make all these things?",
      "51": "“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit! You are doing just what your fathers did.",
      "52": "Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who prophesied the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers—",
      "53": "you who received the law as transmitted by angels, but did not keep it.”",
      "54": "When they heard these things, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.",
      "55": "But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed up into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.",
      "56": "He said, “Look, I see heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”",
      "57": "But they screamed at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and rushed at him with one purpose in mind.",
      "58": "They threw him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.",
      "59": "While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”",
      "60": "Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” After he said this, he fell asleep."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Saul agreed with putting Stephen to death.\nOn that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.",
      "2": "Godly men buried Stephen, and they mourned deeply for him.",
      "3": "But Saul was trying to destroy the church by going into one house after another, dragging off both men and women, and putting them in prison.",
      "4": "So those believers who were scattered went around proclaiming the gospel message.",
      "5": "Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began preaching the Christ to them.",
      "6": "With one mind, the crowds paid close attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the miraculous signs he was doing.",
      "7": "Unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed.",
      "8": "So there was great joy in that city.",
      "9": "Now there was a man by the name of Simon, who had been practicing magic arts in the city. He amazed the people of Samaria while claiming that he was someone great.",
      "10": "They all paid attention to him, from the least of them to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called ‘Great.’”",
      "11": "They paid attention to him, because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic arts.",
      "12": "But when they believed Philip, as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.",
      "13": "Then even Simon himself believed. After he was baptized, he stayed close to Philip. As he observed the signs and great miracles that were taking place, he was amazed.",
      "14": "When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.",
      "15": "When Peter and John arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit,",
      "16": "for he had not yet come upon any of them. They had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.",
      "17": "Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.",
      "18": "When Simon saw that the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money",
      "19": "and said, “Give me this power too, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”",
      "20": "But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!",
      "21": "You have no part or share in this matter, because your heart is not right in God’s sight.",
      "22": "So repent of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord. Perhaps the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.",
      "23": "For I see that you are filled with bitter poison and chained by wickedness.”",
      "24": "Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”",
      "25": "After Peter and John had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.",
      "26": "Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is an isolated area.)",
      "27": "So he got up and went. And there was a man, an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship.",
      "28": "He was on his way home, sitting in his chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah.",
      "29": "The Spirit told Philip, “Go over there and stay close to that chariot.”",
      "30": "Philip ran up to it and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet.\nPhilip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”",
      "31": "The man replied, “How can I unless someone explains it to me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.",
      "32": "Now the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading was this:\nHe was led like a sheep to the slaughter,\nand as a lamb before its shearer is silent,\nso he does not open his mouth.",
      "33": "In his humiliation justice was denied him.\nWho will talk about his generation?\nFor his life is taken from the earth.",
      "34": "The eunuch said to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet talking about—himself or someone else?”",
      "35": "Then Philip began to speak. Starting with that very passage of Scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.",
      "36": "As they were traveling along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What is there to prevent me from being baptized?”",
      "37": "",
      "38": "He ordered the chariot to stop. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.",
      "39": "When they stepped up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. The eunuch did not see him anymore, but went on his way rejoicing.",
      "40": "Philip, however, found himself at Azotus. And as he went from place to place, he preached the gospel in all the towns until he came to Caesarea."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest",
      "2": "and asked him for letters to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any men or women belonging to the Way, he might bring them to Jerusalem as prisoners.",
      "3": "As he went on his way and was approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.",
      "4": "<J>He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”</J>",
      "5": "<J>He asked, “Who are you, Lord?”\nHe replied, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.</J>",
      "6": "<J>But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you need to do.”</J>",
      "7": "The men traveling with him stood there speechless. They heard the voice but did not see anyone.",
      "8": "They raised Saul up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could not see anything. They took him by the hand and led him into Damascus.",
      "9": "For three days he could not see, and he did not eat or drink.",
      "10": "<J>There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias!”\nHe answered, “Here I am, Lord.”</J>",
      "11": "<J>The Lord told him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. In fact, at this very moment he is praying.</J>",
      "12": "<J>In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he can regain his sight.”</J>",
      "13": "Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many people about this man and how much harm he did to your saints in Jerusalem.",
      "14": "And he has authority here from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”",
      "15": "<J>The Lord said to him, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel.</J>",
      "16": "<J>Indeed, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”</J>",
      "17": "Ananias left and entered the house. Laying his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, whom you saw on your way here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”",
      "18": "Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized.",
      "19": "And after taking some food, he regained his strength.\nSaul stayed with the disciples in Damascus for several days.",
      "20": "Immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”",
      "21": "All who heard him were amazed and said, “Isn’t this the one who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? Didn’t he come here for this very purpose: to bring them as prisoners to the chief priests?”",
      "22": "But Saul continued to get stronger and kept confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.",
      "23": "After many days had passed, the Jews conspired to kill him,",
      "24": "but Saul was informed of their plot. They were watching the gates both day and night in order to kill him.",
      "25": "But his disciples took him at night and let him down through an opening in the wall by lowering him in a basket.",
      "26": "When Saul came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him because they did not believe that he was a disciple.",
      "27": "But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He described to them how Saul had seen the Lord on the road and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.",
      "28": "Saul stayed with them, coming and going freely in Jerusalem and speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.",
      "29": "He kept on talking and debating with the Greek-speaking Jews, but they were looking for a way to kill him.",
      "30": "When the brothers learned about this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.",
      "31": "Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed peace as it was strengthened. It grew in numbers as it lived in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.",
      "32": "As Peter went around from place to place, he also went down to the saints who lived in Lydda.",
      "33": "There he found a paralyzed man named Aeneas, who had been lying on a mat for eight years.",
      "34": "Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and take care of your mat!” Immediately, he got up.",
      "35": "All those who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.",
      "36": "In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was always doing good deeds and acts of charity.",
      "37": "At that time she became sick and died. After they had washed her, they laid her in an upstairs room.",
      "38": "Since Lydda is near Joppa, when the disciples heard that Peter was there, they sent two men to him, who urged him, “Come to us without delay!”",
      "39": "Peter got up and went with them. When he arrived, they led him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing him the robes and clothing that Dorcas made while she was still with them.",
      "40": "After Peter sent them all outside, he got down on his knees and prayed. Then he turned toward the body and said, “Tabitha, get up!” She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.",
      "41": "He gave her his hand and helped her stand up. After he called the saints and the widows, he presented her to them alive.",
      "42": "This became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.",
      "43": "Peter stayed in Joppa for many days with a man named Simon the tanner."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, who was a centurion in what was called the Italian Regiment.",
      "2": "He was devout and God-fearing, as was his entire family. He gave generous gifts to the poor and always prayed to God.",
      "3": "One day at about the ninth hour, he clearly saw a vision in which an angel of God came to him and said, “Cornelius!”",
      "4": "Cornelius stared at him in terror and replied, “What is it, Lord?”\nThe angel told him, “Your prayers and your gifts to the poor have gone up as a memorial offering before God.",
      "5": "Now send men to Joppa to get a man named Simon, who is called Peter.",
      "6": "He is staying as a guest with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”",
      "7": "When the angel who spoke to him had left, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier who was one of his personal attendants.",
      "8": "After explaining everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.",
      "9": "The next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray at about the sixth hour.",
      "10": "He became hungry and wanted to eat, but while they were preparing the meal, he fell into a trance.",
      "11": "He saw heaven opened and an object coming down. It was like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners.",
      "12": "In it were all kinds of four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth and birds of the sky.",
      "13": "<J>Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!”</J>",
      "14": "<J>But Peter said, “Certainly not, Lord, for I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”</J>",
      "15": "<J>Yet the voice came to him a second time: “What God has made clean, you must not continue to call unclean.”</J>",
      "16": "This happened three times, and then the object was immediately taken up to heaven.",
      "17": "While Peter was inwardly perplexed about what the vision he had seen might mean, just then the men who were sent by Cornelius arrived. They had asked for directions to Simon’s house and were standing at the gate.",
      "18": "They called out, asking if Simon, who was also called Peter, was staying there as a guest.",
      "19": "<J>While Peter was still deep in thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “See, three men are looking for you!</J>",
      "20": "<J>Now get up, go downstairs, and don’t hesitate to go with them, because I have sent them.”</J>",
      "21": "Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. Why have you come?”",
      "22": "They replied, “Cornelius the centurion is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is highly respected by the whole Jewish nation. He was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to listen to what you have to say.”",
      "23": "So Peter invited them in and received them as guests.\nThe next day, Peter got ready and left with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went along with him.",
      "24": "The following day, he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends.",
      "25": "As Peter was about to enter the house, Cornelius met him, fell at his feet, and worshipped him.",
      "26": "But Peter helped him up and said, “Stand up! I too am just a man.”",
      "27": "While he talked with him, Peter went inside and found many people gathered there.",
      "28": "He said to them, “You understand how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to associate with or visit anyone who is not a Jew. But God showed me that I should no longer continue to call anyone impure or unclean.",
      "29": "That is why I came without objection when you sent for me. May I ask why you sent for me?”",
      "30": "Cornelius replied, “From four days ago to this hour, I have been fasting. At the ninth hour, I was praying in my house when a man in shining clothes suddenly stood in front of me.",
      "31": "He said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your gifts to the poor have been remembered in God’s sight.",
      "32": "Therefore send to Joppa and call for Simon, who is called Peter. He is staying as a guest in the house of Simon the tanner, by the sea. When he comes, he will speak to you.’",
      "33": "So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now then, we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything that the Lord has instructed you to say.”",
      "34": "Then Peter began to speak: “Now I really am beginning to understand that God does not show favoritism,",
      "35": "but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.",
      "36": "He sent his word to the people of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.",
      "37": "“You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached.",
      "38": "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, because God was with him.",
      "39": "“Indeed, we are witnesses of all the things he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem, yet they killed him by hanging him on a cross.",
      "40": "But God raised him on the third day and caused him to be seen,",
      "41": "not by all the people, but by the witnesses God had already chosen—by us, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.",
      "42": "He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify solemnly that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.",
      "43": "All the prophets testify about him that, through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins.”",
      "44": "While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who were listening to the message.",
      "45": "All the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out, even on the Gentiles.",
      "46": "For they heard them speaking in other languages and praising God.\nThen Peter responded,",
      "47": "“Certainly no one can refuse water for baptizing these people! They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.”",
      "48": "He gave directions that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay for a few days."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "The apostles and brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.",
      "2": "When Peter went up to Jerusalem, those who insisted on circumcision criticized him,",
      "3": "saying, “You went to visit men who were uncircumcised and ate with them!”",
      "4": "So Peter began to explain everything to them, point by point. He said,",
      "5": "“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision in which an object like a large sheet was let down from heaven by its four corners. It came right to me.",
      "6": "When I inspected it very carefully, I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air.",
      "7": "I also heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!’",
      "8": "“But I replied, ‘Certainly not, Lord, for nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’",
      "9": "“A voice spoke from heaven a second time: ‘What God has made clean, you must not continue to call unclean.’",
      "10": "This happened three times, and then everything was pulled up into heaven again.",
      "11": "“At that very moment, three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were.",
      "12": "The Spirit told me to go with them without any hesitation. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house.",
      "13": "He told us how he saw an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and call for Simon, the one called Peter.",
      "14": "He will speak words to you by which you and all your household will be saved.’",
      "15": "“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them, just as he came down on us at the beginning.",
      "16": "Then I remembered how the Lord had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’",
      "17": "So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to try to stand in God’s way?”",
      "18": "When they heard these things, they had no further objections, and they praised God, saying, “So then, God has granted repentance that results in life also to the Gentiles!”",
      "19": "Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that took place at the time of Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.",
      "20": "But there were some men from Cyprus and Cyrene who came to Antioch and also began to speak to the Greeks, preaching the good news about the Lord Jesus.",
      "21": "The Lord’s hand was with them, and a large number of people believed and turned to the Lord.",
      "22": "A report about this reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to go on to Antioch.",
      "23": "When he arrived and saw God’s grace, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with devoted hearts.",
      "24": "He was a good man who was full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a large number of people were added to the Lord.",
      "25": "Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul.",
      "26": "When he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year they met with the church and taught a large number of people. It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.",
      "27": "In those days some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.",
      "28": "One of them, named Agabus, stood up and indicated by the Spirit that there was going to be a severe famine all over the known world. This took place during the time of Claudius.",
      "29": "Each of the disciples, according to his ability, decided to send relief to the brothers who lived in Judea.",
      "30": "They did this, sending it to the elders by means of Barnabas and Saul."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "At about that time, King Herod laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church, in order to mistreat them.",
      "2": "He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.",
      "3": "When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter during the days of Unleavened Bread.",
      "4": "After arresting Peter, Herod put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of four soldiers each to guard him. Herod intended to bring him before the people for trial after the Passover.",
      "5": "So Peter was kept in prison, but the church earnestly offered up prayer to God for him.",
      "6": "The very night before Herod was going to bring him out for trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers. He was bound with two chains, while sentries were in front of the door, guarding the prison.",
      "7": "Suddenly an angel of the Lord stood near him, and a light shone in the cell. The angel woke Peter up by striking him on the side, saying, “Quick, get up!” The chains fell from his wrists.",
      "8": "Then the angel said to him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” So he did so. Then the angel told him, “Put on your cloak and follow me.”",
      "9": "Peter went out, following the angel, but he did not realize that what the angel was doing was really happening. He thought he was seeing a vision.",
      "10": "When they had passed through the first and second guard posts, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city. It opened all by itself for them. They went outside, walked down one street, and immediately the angel left him.",
      "11": "When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I know for sure that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from everything the Jewish people were expecting.”",
      "12": "When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, who is also called Mark. Many had gathered there and were praying.",
      "13": "When Peter knocked at the entrance gate, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer.",
      "14": "She recognized Peter’s voice and was so overjoyed, she did not open the gate. Instead she ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate.",
      "15": "They told her, “You are out of your mind!” But she kept on insisting it was so, and they started saying, “It’s his angel.”",
      "16": "Meanwhile, Peter kept on knocking. When they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.",
      "17": "Peter motioned to them with his hand to be silent and described to them how the Lord had brought him out of prison. He said, “Tell these things to James and to the brothers.” Then he left and went on to another place.",
      "18": "At daybreak, there was no small commotion among the soldiers about what had become of Peter.",
      "19": "After Herod searched for him and did not find him, he questioned the guards and ordered that they be executed.\nThen Herod went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.",
      "20": "Herod was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. They joined together and approached him after they had won over Blastus, the king’s personal assistant. They asked for peace because their country depended on the king’s country for food.",
      "21": "On the appointed day Herod, dressed in his royal robes and seated on his throne, delivered a public address to them.",
      "22": "The crowd shouted, “It’s the voice of a god and not of a man!”",
      "23": "Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give the glory to God. He was eaten by worms and died.",
      "24": "But the word of God continued to grow and increase.",
      "25": "After Barnabas and Saul had completed their relief mission in Jerusalem, they returned and brought along John, who is called Mark."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "Now in the church at Antioch there were some prophets and teachers: Barnabas; Simeon, who was called Niger; Lucius of Cyrene; Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch; and Saul.",
      "2": "While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”",
      "3": "Then, after they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them off.",
      "4": "So they were sent out by the Holy Spirit and went down to Seleucia. From there they sailed to Cyprus.",
      "5": "When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. They also had John as their assistant.",
      "6": "When they had traveled through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came across a sorcerer, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus.",
      "7": "He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. The proconsul summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God.",
      "8": "Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith.",
      "9": "But Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit and looking straight at him,",
      "10": "said, “You are full of every kind of deceit and fraud, you son of the Devil, you enemy of all righteousness! Will you never stop twisting the straight paths of the Lord?",
      "11": "Now look! The hand of the Lord is against you. You will be blind, and for a time you will be unable to see the sun.”\nImmediately mist and darkness came over him, and he went around looking for someone to lead him by the hand.",
      "12": "When the proconsul saw what happened, he believed. He was amazed at the teaching of the Lord.",
      "13": "Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. John, however, left them and returned to Jerusalem.",
      "14": "But they went on from Perga and arrived at Antioch in Pisidia. They went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.",
      "15": "After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Gentlemen, brothers, if you have a word of encouragement for the people, say it.”",
      "16": "Then Paul stood up, motioned with his hand, and said, “Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen.",
      "17": "The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers and made them a great people during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with his uplifted arm, he led them out of it.",
      "18": "He put up with them for about forty years in the wilderness.",
      "19": "Then he destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, and he gave their land to his people as an inheritance.",
      "20": "All this took about 450 years. After that, he gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet.",
      "21": "“Then the people asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.",
      "22": "After removing him, he raised up David as their king. God testified about him: ‘I have found David the son of Jesse to be a man after my own heart. He will do all that I want him to do.’",
      "23": "“From this man’s descendants God brought the Savior Jesus to Israel, in keeping with his promise.",
      "24": "Before he appeared publicly, John had preached a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.",
      "25": "As John was finishing his course, he said, ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not that One. But look! That One is coming after me, and I am not worthy to untie the sandals on his feet.’",
      "26": "“Gentlemen, brothers, sons of Abraham’s family, and those among you who fear God, this message of salvation has been sent to you.",
      "27": "The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize him, and by condemning him they fulfilled the statements of the prophets that are read every Sabbath.",
      "28": "Though they found no grounds for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed.",
      "29": "When they carried out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb.",
      "30": "But God raised him from the dead,",
      "31": "and for many days he was seen by those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. These same individuals are now his witnesses to the people.",
      "32": "“We are preaching to you the good news about the promise that was made to our fathers.",
      "33": "God has fulfilled this promise for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm:\nYou are my Son.\nToday I have begotten you.",
      "34": "“That God would raise him from the dead never again to be subject to decay, God said in this way:\nI will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.",
      "35": "“Therefore he also says in another place:\nYou will not let your Holy One see decay.",
      "36": "“For David, after he had served God’s purpose in his own generation, fell asleep, was laid to rest with his fathers, and saw decay.",
      "37": "But the One God raised did not see decay.",
      "38": "“So, gentlemen, brothers, let it be known to you that through this Jesus forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you, also forgiveness from everything from which you could not be justified through the law of Moses.",
      "39": "In this Jesus, everyone who believes is justified.",
      "40": "So watch out that what is said in the prophets does not happen to you:",
      "41": "Look, you scoffers,\nbe amazed and perish!\nFor I am going to do something in your days,\nsomething you would never believe,\neven if someone were to explain it to you.”",
      "42": "As Paul and Barnabas were leaving, the people kept begging them to speak again on this same subject on the next Sabbath.",
      "43": "When the meeting of the synagogue had been dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.",
      "44": "On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of God.",
      "45": "But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with envy and began to contradict what Paul was saying by slandering him.",
      "46": "Then Paul and Barnabas responded fearlessly, “It was necessary that God’s word be spoken to you first. But since you reject it and consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life, look: We are now turning to the Gentiles!",
      "47": "For this is what the Lord has instructed us:\nI have made you a light for the Gentiles,\nthat you may bring salvation to the end of the earth.”",
      "48": "When the Gentiles heard this, they were rejoicing and praising the word of the Lord. All who had been appointed for eternal life believed.",
      "49": "And the word of the Lord was being carried through the whole region.",
      "50": "But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their district.",
      "51": "So they shook the dust off their feet against them and went to Iconium.",
      "52": "The disciples continued to be filled with joy and the Holy Spirit."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "The same thing happened in Iconium. Paul and Barnabas entered the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.",
      "2": "But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.",
      "3": "Paul and Barnabas stayed there a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by granting them the ability to perform miraculous signs and wonders.",
      "4": "But the people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles.",
      "5": "When there was a plot by both Gentiles and Jews, together with their rulers, to mistreat and stone them,",
      "6": "they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding countryside.",
      "7": "There they kept on preaching the good news.",
      "8": "In Lystra there was a man who was sitting down because he had no strength in his feet. He had never walked because he was lame from birth.",
      "9": "When he was listening to Paul as he was speaking, Paul looked at him closely and saw that he had faith to be healed.",
      "10": "Paul said in a loud voice, “Stand up on your feet!” And the man jumped up and began to walk.",
      "11": "When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form.”",
      "12": "Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the main speaker.",
      "13": "The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and garlands to the city gates, because he wanted to offer sacrifices along with the crowds.",
      "14": "But when the apostles Paul and Barnabas heard about this, they tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd, shouting,",
      "15": "“Men, why are you doing these things? We too are men with the same nature as you. We are preaching the good news to you so that you turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them.",
      "16": "In past generations he allowed all the nations to go their own ways.",
      "17": "Yet he did not leave himself without testimony of the good he does. He gives you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons. He fills you with food and fills your hearts with gladness.”",
      "18": "Even though they said these things, they had a hard time stopping the crowds from sacrificing to them.",
      "19": "Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and persuaded the crowds to stone Paul. When they thought he was dead, they dragged him out of the city.",
      "20": "But after the disciples had gathered around him, he stood up and went into the city. The next day, he left with Barnabas for Derbe.",
      "21": "After they preached the good news in that city and had gathered many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch,",
      "22": "strengthening the souls of the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith. They told them, “We must go through many troubles on our way to the kingdom of God.”",
      "23": "They had elders elected for them in every church, and with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord, in whom they believed.",
      "24": "When they had passed through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia.",
      "25": "When they had spoken the Word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.",
      "26": "From there they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been entrusted to the grace of God for the work they had just completed.",
      "27": "When they arrived and called the church together, they reported everything God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith for the Gentiles.",
      "28": "Then they stayed there a long time with the disciples."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised according to the law handed down by Moses, you cannot be saved.”",
      "2": "Because this brought about a serious argument and debate between Paul and Barnabas and these men, they appointed Paul and Barnabas and some other men from the church to go up to Jerusalem, to see the apostles and the elders concerning this controversy.",
      "3": "After they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they described in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers.",
      "4": "When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they reported everything God had done through them.",
      "5": "But some of the believers from the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise the Gentiles and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.”",
      "6": "The apostles and the elders gathered together to look into this matter.",
      "7": "After there had been much discussion, Peter stood up and said to them, “Gentlemen, brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you, that through my mouth the Gentiles would hear the message of the gospel and believe.",
      "8": "God, who knows the heart, testified on their behalf by giving them the Holy Spirit, exactly as he gave him to us.",
      "9": "He also showed that there is no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.",
      "10": "Now then, why are you testing God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?",
      "11": "On the contrary! We believe that we are saved in the same way they are—through the grace of our Lord Jesus.”",
      "12": "The whole assembly fell silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul, who reported all the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.",
      "13": "After they finished speaking, James responded, “Gentlemen, brothers, listen to me.",
      "14": "Simon has reported how God for the first time has visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name.",
      "15": "The words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written:",
      "16": "After these things I will return\nand rebuild David’s fallen tent.\nI will rebuild its ruins,\nand I will restore it,",
      "17": "so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord—\neven all the Gentiles who are called by my name,\nsays the Lord who does these things.",
      "18": "“Long ago he made these things known.",
      "19": "So it is my judgment that we should not cause extra difficulty for those among the Gentiles who are turning to God.",
      "20": "Instead we should write a letter telling them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from what is strangled, and from blood.",
      "21": "For from ancient times Moses has had those who proclaim him in every city, since he is being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”",
      "22": "Then the apostles and the elders, together with the whole church, thought it would be best to choose men from their group to send to Antioch along with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas, called Barsabbas, and Silas, who were leading men among the brothers.",
      "23": "They wrote this letter for them to deliver:\nFrom the apostles and the elders, your brothers,\nTo the Gentile brothers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia:\nGreetings.",
      "24": "We heard that there were some who came from us without our authorization and caused you distress by unsettling your minds with what they said.",
      "25": "So it seemed best to us, since we are of one mind, to choose some men to send to you, along with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul,",
      "26": "men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "27": "Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, who will report these same things by word of mouth.",
      "28": "For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us to put no greater burden on you than these essentials:",
      "29": "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you carefully avoid these things, you will do well.\nFarewell.",
      "30": "After they were sent on their way, they went down to Antioch. They gathered the congregation together and delivered the letter.",
      "31": "The people read it and rejoiced over its encouraging message.",
      "32": "Judas and Silas, who were prophets themselves, also said much that encouraged and strengthened the brothers.",
      "33": "After they had spent some time there, they were sent off by the brothers with the greeting of peace to those who had sent them.",
      "34": "",
      "35": "But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they, along with many others, kept on teaching and preaching the word of the Lord.",
      "36": "After a time Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s return and visit the brothers in every town where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”",
      "37": "Barnabas wanted to take John, who is called Mark, along with them.",
      "38": "But Paul did not think it was a good idea to take him along, since he had deserted them in Pamphylia and did not continue to travel with them in the work.",
      "39": "They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus,",
      "40": "but Paul chose Silas and set out, after being entrusted to the grace of the Lord by the brothers.",
      "41": "He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "Paul arrived in Derbe and in Lystra, where there was a disciple named Timothy, who was the son of a believing Jewish woman, but his father was a Greek.",
      "2": "The brothers in Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him.",
      "3": "Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, so he took him and circumcised him on account of the Jews who lived in those places, because they all knew that his father was a Greek.",
      "4": "As they traveled through the towns, they delivered the resolutions decided by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to keep.",
      "5": "So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number day by day.",
      "6": "They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, because they were prevented by the Holy Spirit from speaking the word in the province of Asia.",
      "7": "When they went as far as Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.",
      "8": "So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas.",
      "9": "A vision appeared to Paul during the night. A Macedonian man was standing there, urging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!”",
      "10": "As soon as he had seen the vision, we immediately made plans to proceed to Macedonia, because we concluded that God had called us to preach the good news to them.",
      "11": "After we put out to sea from Troas, we sailed straight to Samothrace, and the next day to Neapolis.",
      "12": "From there we went to Philippi, which is a leading city in that part of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We stayed in this city for a number of days.",
      "13": "On the Sabbath day we went outside the city gate alongside the river, where we thought there was a place of prayer. We sat down and began to talk to the women who had gathered there.",
      "14": "A woman named Lydia, who worshipped God, was listening. She was a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira. The Lord opened her heart to pay close attention to what Paul was saying.",
      "15": "When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.",
      "16": "Once when we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl met us. She had a spirit that foretold the future, and she made a large profit for her owners by fortune-telling.",
      "17": "As she followed Paul and us, she kept crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way to be saved.”",
      "18": "When she kept doing this for many days, Paul became so annoyed that he turned to the spirit and said, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” And it came out at that very moment.",
      "19": "When her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.",
      "20": "They had brought them to the magistrates and said, “These men are throwing our city into a state of confusion. They are Jews,",
      "21": "and they are teaching customs that are not lawful for us to accept or practice, since we are Romans.”",
      "22": "When the crowd also joined in the attack against them, the magistrates tore off their clothes and ordered them to be beaten with rods.",
      "23": "After they had beaten them severely, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to guard them securely.",
      "24": "Because he received such a command, the jailer threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.",
      "25": "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.",
      "26": "Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. Instantly all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains came loose.",
      "27": "When the jailer woke up and saw that the prison doors were opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, because he thought that the prisoners had escaped.",
      "28": "But Paul shouted with a loud voice, “Don’t harm yourself, because we are all here!”",
      "29": "The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell down trembling in front of Paul and Silas.",
      "30": "Then he brought them outside and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”",
      "31": "They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.”",
      "32": "They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his home.",
      "33": "At the same hour of the night, he took them and washed their wounds. Without delay, he and all his family were baptized.",
      "34": "Then he brought Paul and Silas into his house and set food before them. He rejoiced, because he and his whole household had come to believe in God.",
      "35": "At daybreak the magistrates sent officers, saying, “Release those men!”",
      "36": "The jailer reported these words to Paul: “The magistrates have sent orders that you should be released. So come out now and go in peace.”",
      "37": "But Paul said to them, “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now they are releasing us secretly? Absolutely not! Let them come themselves and escort us out!”",
      "38": "The officers reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens.",
      "39": "So they came and apologized to them. As they escorted them out, they requested that they leave the city.",
      "40": "After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house. They saw the brothers, encouraged them, and then left."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "When Paul and Silas had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.",
      "2": "As was his custom, Paul went to the Jews, and on three Sabbath days he led them in a discussion from the Scriptures,",
      "3": "explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. He also said, “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”",
      "4": "Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great number of God-fearing Greeks and more than a few of the prominent women.",
      "5": "But the Jews became jealous and gathered from the marketplace some wicked men, who formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house and searched for Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the mob.",
      "6": "When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men, who have stirred up trouble all over the world, have come here too,",
      "7": "and Jason has welcomed them as guests! They are all acting contrary to Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, Jesus!”",
      "8": "The crowd and the city officials were stirred up when they heard these things.",
      "9": "They took a security bond from Jason and the others and then let them go.",
      "10": "That same night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.",
      "11": "Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians. They received the word very eagerly and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so.",
      "12": "Many of them believed, along with more than a few prominent Greek women and men.",
      "13": "But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that the word of God was being proclaimed by Paul in Berea, they also went there to agitate and stir up the crowds.",
      "14": "Then the brothers immediately sent Paul away to the seacoast, but Silas and Timothy stayed there.",
      "15": "Those who escorted Paul brought him all the way to Athens. When they left, they received instructions for Silas and Timothy to join Paul as soon as possible.",
      "16": "While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was very distressed to see that the city was full of idols.",
      "17": "So he led a discussion in the synagogue with the Jews and those who feared God, as well as with those who happened to be in the marketplace every day.",
      "18": "Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him. Some said, “What is this seed picker trying to say?” Others said, “He seems to be someone who is proclaiming foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.",
      "19": "They took him and brought him to the council of the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are talking about?",
      "20": "You seem to be bringing in some ideas that are strange to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean.”",
      "21": "(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there enjoyed doing nothing more than telling or listening to something new.)",
      "22": "Then Paul stood up in front of the council of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way.",
      "23": "For as I was walking around and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which had been inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’ Now what you worship as unknown—this is what I am going to proclaim to you.",
      "24": "“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made with hands.",
      "25": "Neither is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, since he himself gives all people life and breath and everything they have.",
      "26": "From one man, he made every nation of mankind to live over the entire face of the earth. He determined the appointed times and the boundaries where they would live.",
      "27": "He did this so they would seek God and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.",
      "28": "‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘Indeed, we are also his offspring.’",
      "29": "“Therefore, since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and planning.",
      "30": "Although God overlooked the times of ignorance, he is now commanding all people everywhere to repent,",
      "31": "because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he appointed. He provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”",
      "32": "When they heard about the resurrection from the dead, some of them started to scoff. But others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”",
      "33": "So Paul left the council.",
      "34": "However, some men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them were Dionysius (a member of the council of the Areopagus) and a woman named Damaris, as well as others with them."
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.",
      "2": "There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them.",
      "3": "Because he had the same occupation, he stayed and worked with them, for they were tentmakers by trade.",
      "4": "Every Sabbath he led a discussion in the synagogue, trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks.",
      "5": "When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was entirely devoted to preaching the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.",
      "6": "But when they opposed Paul and slandered him, he shook out his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles!”",
      "7": "He left that place and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.",
      "8": "Crispus, the synagogue leader, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized.",
      "9": "<J>One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid, but keep on speaking, and do not be silent.</J>",
      "10": "<J>For I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, because I have many people in this city.”</J>",
      "11": "He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.",
      "12": "But while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the judicial bench.",
      "13": "They said, “This man is persuading the people to worship God in a way that is against the law.”",
      "14": "But just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If this were some kind of misdemeanor or vicious crime, I would formally accept the complaint of you Jews.",
      "15": "But since these are disputes about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I do not intend to be a judge of these things.”",
      "16": "So he drove them away from the judicial bench.",
      "17": "Then all the Greeks seized Sosthenes, the synagogue leader, and beat him in front of the judicial bench. But none of these things concerned Gallio.",
      "18": "After Paul stayed many more days, he said good-bye to the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchrea Paul had his head shaved, because he was keeping a vow.",
      "19": "Next they arrived at Ephesus, where he left Priscilla and Aquila. Paul himself went into the synagogue and led a discussion with the Jews.",
      "20": "When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he declined.",
      "21": "But as he said good-bye, he told them, “I will come back to you again if it is God’s will.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.",
      "22": "When he landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church. Then he went down to Antioch.",
      "23": "After spending some time there, he set out, traveling through one place after another in the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.",
      "24": "A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man and well versed in the Scriptures.",
      "25": "He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. He spoke with burning zeal and taught the facts about Jesus accurately, although he knew only the baptism of John.",
      "26": "He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him home and explained to him the way of God more accurately.",
      "27": "When he wanted to cross over to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he provided much help to those who had become believers by grace,",
      "28": "because he vigorously refuted the Jews in public, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior districts and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples",
      "2": "and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?”\n“No,” they answered, “we have not even heard that the Holy Spirit was given.”",
      "3": "Paul asked, “What were you baptized into then?”\nThey replied, “Into John’s baptism.”",
      "4": "Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.",
      "5": "When they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.”",
      "6": "When Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began to speak in other languages and to prophesy.",
      "7": "There were about twelve men in all.",
      "8": "Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, leading discussions and trying to persuade them about the kingdom of God.",
      "9": "But when some became hardened and refused to believe, even slandering the Way in front of the crowd, he left them. He took the disciples with him and led discussions every day in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.",
      "10": "This went on for two years, with the result that all who lived in the province of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.",
      "11": "God was doing extraordinary miracles through Paul,",
      "12": "so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick; their illnesses left them and the evil spirits went out of them.",
      "13": "Then some Jewish exorcists who went from place to place tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits. They said, “I command you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches to come out!”",
      "14": "It was the seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who were doing this.",
      "15": "But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I am acquainted with Paul, but who are you?”",
      "16": "Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them, and exercised such complete domination over all of them that they fled from that house naked and wounded.",
      "17": "This became known to everyone who lived in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. They were all overcome with fear, and they held the name of the Lord Jesus in high honor.",
      "18": "Also many of those who had become believers came forward, confessing and admitting their actions.",
      "19": "And a large number of those who had practiced magic arts collected their books and burned them in front of everyone. They added up the cost of the books and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver.",
      "20": "In this way the word of the Lord was growing and gaining strength.",
      "21": "After all this had happened, Paul resolved in his spirit to go to Jerusalem by traveling through Macedonia and Achaia. “After I have been there,” he said, “I must also see Rome.”",
      "22": "After sending two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, he stayed in the province of Asia for a while.",
      "23": "During that time there was more than a minor disturbance about the Way.",
      "24": "A certain silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in no little income for the craftsmen.",
      "25": "He called them together, along with the workers in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity comes from this income.",
      "26": "You also see and hear that not merely in Ephesus but throughout almost the entire province of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a large number of people. He says that gods made by hands are not gods at all!",
      "27": "Not only is there danger that our trade may be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be considered worthless. Then she will suffer the loss of her magnificence, although she is worshipped by the whole province of Asia and the world.”",
      "28": "When they heard this, they were filled with rage and began to shout, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”",
      "29": "The city was filled with confusion, and with one goal in mind they rushed to the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s traveling companions.",
      "30": "Paul wanted to enter the public assembly, but the disciples would not let him.",
      "31": "Even some of the provincial officials of Asia, who were his friends, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater.",
      "32": "Some were shouting one thing, others another, because the assembly was in confusion. Most of them did not even know why they had come together.",
      "33": "They made Alexander come out of the crowd. It was the Jews who pushed him forward. Alexander motioned with his hand and wanted to make his defense to the assembly.",
      "34": "But when they recognized that he was a Jew, a single cry rose from all of them. For about two hours, they kept shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”",
      "35": "After the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the keeper of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image that fell from heaven?",
      "36": "Therefore, since these things cannot be denied, you need to be quiet and not do anything rash.",
      "37": "For you have brought these men here who are neither temple robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess.",
      "38": "If Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls. Let them press charges against one another.",
      "39": "If you want to pursue something about other matters, it should be settled in the legal assembly.",
      "40": "For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today, because we will not be able to give any reason for this disorderly mob.”",
      "41": "After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "After the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples and encouraged them. After saying good-bye, he left to go to Macedonia.",
      "2": "After he had gone through those areas and had spoken many words of encouragement to the people, he came to Greece",
      "3": "and stayed there three months.\nBecause a plot was made against him by the Jews just as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to go back through Macedonia.",
      "4": "He was accompanied by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy, along with Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia.",
      "5": "These men went on ahead and waited for us at Troas.",
      "6": "We sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and within five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed seven days.",
      "7": "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul spoke to the people. Since he intended to leave the next day, he continued talking until midnight.",
      "8": "There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were gathered.",
      "9": "Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus. He was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul kept on talking for a long time. When he was sound asleep, he fell down from the third story and was picked up dead.",
      "10": "Paul went down, bent over him, threw his arms around him, and said, “Do not be alarmed, because he is alive!”",
      "11": "Then he went upstairs, broke bread, and ate. After talking for a considerable time until dawn, he left.",
      "12": "They brought the boy home alive and were greatly comforted.",
      "13": "We went on ahead to the ship and sailed for Assos, where we were going to take Paul aboard. He had arranged it this way, since he was intending to travel there by land.",
      "14": "When he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene.",
      "15": "From there we set sail. We arrived off Chios the next day. The day after that we crossed over to Samos, and on the following day we came to Miletus.",
      "16": "Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he would not have to spend time in the province of Asia. He was in a hurry to be in Jerusalem, if possible, by the day of Pentecost.",
      "17": "From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church.",
      "18": "When they came to him, he said to them, “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I set foot in the province of Asia.",
      "19": "I served the Lord with all humility, with tears, and with the trials that came to me due to the plots of the Jews.",
      "20": "You know how I did not hesitate to proclaim to you anything that would be beneficial for you or to teach you publicly and from house to house.",
      "21": "I have solemnly testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "22": "“And you see, now I am going to Jerusalem, compelled by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there,",
      "23": "except that the Holy Spirit keeps warning me in town after town that chains and afflictions are waiting for me.",
      "24": "However, I consider my life as of no great value to me, so that I may finish my race and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus—to testify to the gospel of God’s grace.",
      "25": "“Now take note of this too. I know that none of you among whom I went around preaching the kingdom of God will ever see my face again.",
      "26": "Therefore I solemnly declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all of you,",
      "27": "for I did not hesitate to proclaim to you the whole counsel of God.",
      "28": "“Always keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.",
      "29": "I know that after my departure savage wolves, who will not spare the flock, will come in among you.",
      "30": "Even from your own group men will rise up, twisting the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.",
      "31": "Therefore be always on the alert! Remember that for three years, night and day, I never stopped warning each one of you with tears.",
      "32": "“And now I entrust you to God and to the word of his grace, which has power to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.",
      "33": "I did not covet anyone’s silver or gold or clothing.",
      "34": "You yourselves know that these hands have provided for my needs and for those who were with me.",
      "35": "In every way I gave you an example that, by working hard like this, we need to help the weak and to remember the words that the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”",
      "36": "After Paul said these things, he knelt down with all of them and prayed.",
      "37": "They all wept very much, as they threw their arms around Paul’s neck and kissed him.",
      "38": "They were most distressed over the statement he made, that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "After we tore ourselves away from them and set sail, we headed straight to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara.",
      "2": "When we found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, we went on board and set sail.",
      "3": "After sighting Cyprus and passing by on its south side, we sailed to Syria and put in to port at Tyre, because there the ship was to unload its cargo.",
      "4": "We located the disciples and stayed there seven days. Through the Spirit, they kept telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem.",
      "5": "When our time there came to an end, we left and went on our way. All of them, with their wives and children, accompanied us out of the city. We knelt down on the beach and prayed.",
      "6": "After saying good-bye to each other, we went on board the ship, and they returned home.",
      "7": "When we completed our voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais. There we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for one day.",
      "8": "The next day, we left and came to Caesarea. We entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the Seven, and stayed with him.",
      "9": "He had four virgin daughters, who prophesied.",
      "10": "After we had stayed there for a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.",
      "11": "When he came to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own feet and hands with it, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: ‘This is the way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’”",
      "12": "When we heard this, both we and the local residents urged Paul not to go up to Jerusalem.",
      "13": "Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”",
      "14": "Since he could not be persuaded, we said nothing more except, “May the Lord’s will be done.”",
      "15": "After those days we got ready and went up to Jerusalem.",
      "16": "Some of the disciples from Caesarea also went with us and brought us to Mnason, with whom we were to stay. He was from Cyprus and was one of the first disciples.",
      "17": "When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers gave us a warm welcome.",
      "18": "The next day, Paul went with us to see James, and all the elders were present.",
      "19": "After greeting them, he reported in detail each of the things God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.",
      "20": "When they heard this, they praised God.\nThen they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed, and all of them are zealous observers of the law.",
      "21": "They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, since you are telling them not to circumcise their children or follow our customs.",
      "22": "So what is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.",
      "23": "So do what we are going to tell you.\n“We have four men who have taken a vow.",
      "24": "Take them with you, go through the ceremony of purification with them, and pay their expenses so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know that there is nothing to the reports that have been made about you, but that you yourself are carefully following the law.",
      "25": "As for the Gentiles who believe, we have sent them a letter about the resolution that they should avoid food sacrificed to idols, blood, the meat of strangled animals, and sexual immorality.”",
      "26": "The next day, Paul took the men and went through the ceremony of purification with them. He entered the temple to announce the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them.",
      "27": "When the seven days were almost over, Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him,",
      "28": "shouting, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law, and against this place. And now he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”",
      "29": "(They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple.)",
      "30": "The whole city was stirred up, and the people rushed together as a mob. They seized Paul, dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the gates were shut.",
      "31": "While they were looking for a way to kill him, a report went up to the commander of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.",
      "32": "He immediately took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. When they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.",
      "33": "Then the commander approached Paul, arrested him, and gave an order that he should be bound with two chains. He asked who Paul was and what he had done.",
      "34": "Some in the crowd were shouting one thing and some another. Since the commander could not find out the truth because of the uproar, he ordered his men to take Paul away to the barracks.",
      "35": "When he came to the steps, Paul had to be carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob.",
      "36": "The large number of people that was following kept shouting, “Away with him!”",
      "37": "As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he asked the commander, “May I say something to you?”\nHe replied, “Do you know Greek?",
      "38": "Are you not the Egyptian who started a revolt some time ago and led four thousand men of the Assassins into the wilderness?”",
      "39": "Paul said, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city. I beg you, allow me to speak to the people.”",
      "40": "When the commander had given him permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned with his hand to the people. When they were all silent, Paul addressed them in the Hebrew dialect."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "“Gentlemen, brothers, and fathers, listen to my defense, which I am now going to make to you.”",
      "2": "When they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet.\nThen he said,",
      "3": "“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city and trained at the feet of Gamaliel, according to the strict ways of the law of our fathers. I am just as zealous for God as all of you are today.",
      "4": "I persecuted this Way to the death, tying up and throwing both men and women into prisons,",
      "5": "as also the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. I even received letters from them to the brothers, and I was going to Damascus to bring back those who were there as prisoners to Jerusalem so that they could be punished.",
      "6": "“While I was on the way and approaching Damascus, about noon a very bright light from heaven suddenly flashed around me.",
      "7": "<J>I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’</J>",
      "8": "<J>“I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’\n“He said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’</J>",
      "9": "“Those who were with me saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.",
      "10": "<J>“I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’\n“The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus. There you will be told about everything you have been assigned to do.’</J>",
      "11": "Since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, those who were with me took me by the hand and led me into Damascus.",
      "12": "“A man named Ananias lived there. He was a devout observer of the law and highly recommended by all the Jews living there.",
      "13": "He came to me, and as he stood beside me, he said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ At that very moment I was able to see him.",
      "14": "“Then he said, ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear the sound of his voice.",
      "15": "For you will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard.",
      "16": "Now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’",
      "17": "“When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance.",
      "18": "<J>I saw the Lord telling me: ‘Hurry, get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’</J>",
      "19": "<J>“I said, ‘Lord, these people know that I went from one synagogue to another imprisoning and beating those who believed in you.</J>",
      "20": "<J>And when the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I stood by, giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were putting him to death.’</J>",
      "21": "<J>“Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go, because I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”</J>",
      "22": "They were listening to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices, shouting, “Rid the earth of this fellow, for he is not fit to live!”",
      "23": "When they started shouting and throwing off their cloaks and throwing dust into the air,",
      "24": "the commander ordered that Paul be brought into the barracks. He directed that Paul be interrogated by whipping, in order to learn why the people were shouting at him like this.",
      "25": "As they stretched him for the whipping, Paul asked the centurion standing by, “Is it legal for you to whip a man who is a Roman citizen and who has not been found guilty by a proper trial?”",
      "26": "When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and said, “What are you about to do? This man is a Roman citizen!”",
      "27": "The commander came and asked him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”\nHe answered, “Yes.”",
      "28": "Then the commander answered, “I acquired this citizenship for a large sum of money.”\nPaul said, “But I was born a citizen.”",
      "29": "Immediately, those who were about to interrogate him moved away from him. The commander was also alarmed when he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen, because he had tied him up.",
      "30": "The next day, since the commander wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews, he untied him and ordered the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin to meet. Then he brought Paul down and had him stand before them."
    },
    "23": {
      "1": "Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, “Gentlemen, brothers, I have lived my life before God with a completely clear conscience to this very day.”",
      "2": "But the high priest Ananias ordered those who were standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth.",
      "3": "Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there judging me according to the law, and then you order them to strike me contrary to the law!”",
      "4": "Those who were standing nearby said, “Do you dare to insult God’s high priest?”",
      "5": "Paul replied, “I did not know, brothers, that he is the high priest. Indeed, it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil about a ruler of your people.’”",
      "6": "When Paul realized that some of them were Sadducees and the others were Pharisees, he shouted out in the Sanhedrin, “Gentlemen, brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial concerning the hope for the resurrection of the dead!”",
      "7": "When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.",
      "8": "(For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection or angel or spirit, but the Pharisees believe in them all.)",
      "9": "Then there was a great uproar, and some of the experts in the law who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and protested strongly: “We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?”",
      "10": "The uproar became so great that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He commanded the soldiers to go down, take him away from them by force, and bring him into the barracks.",
      "11": "<J>The following night the Lord stood next to Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have solemnly testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”</J>",
      "12": "When day came, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath, saying that they would not eat or drink until they had killed Paul.",
      "13": "There were more than forty who took part in this plot.",
      "14": "They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have bound ourselves under a solemn oath not to taste anything until we have killed Paul.",
      "15": "Now then, you and the Sanhedrin file charges with the commander so that he will bring him down to you as if you were going to make a more thorough examination of his case. We are ready to kill him before he gets close to this place.”",
      "16": "But when the son of Paul’s sister heard about the ambush, he went into the barracks and told Paul.",
      "17": "Then Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the commander, because he has something to report to him.”",
      "18": "So he brought him to the commander and said, “The prisoner Paul called for me and asked me to bring this young man to you, because he has something to tell you.”",
      "19": "The commander took him by the hand, led him aside, and asked him privately, “What is it that you have to tell me?”",
      "20": "He said, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the Sanhedrin tomorrow, as if they want to gain more accurate information about him.",
      "21": "Don’t let them persuade you, because more than forty of their men are waiting in ambush for him. They have bound themselves under a solemn oath not to eat or drink until they have killed him. They are ready right now, waiting for your consent.”",
      "22": "So the commander dismissed the young man with this order: “Don’t tell anyone that you have reported these things to me.”",
      "23": "Then he called two of the centurions and said, “Get two hundred soldiers ready, along with seventy cavalry and two hundred spearmen, to go as far as Caesarea at the third hour of the night.",
      "24": "Also provide mounts so that they can put Paul on one and bring him safely to Felix the governor.”",
      "25": "He wrote a letter as follows:",
      "26": "Claudius Lysias,\nTo his Excellency, Governor Felix:\nGreetings.",
      "27": "This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them when I came with the soldiers and rescued him, because I learned that he is a Roman citizen.",
      "28": "Since I wanted to know the charge they were bringing against him, I brought him down to their Sanhedrin.",
      "29": "I found he was being accused concerning questions of their law, but there was no charge that deserved death or imprisonment.",
      "30": "When I was informed that there would be a plot against this man, I sent him to you at once. I also ordered his accusers to state what they have against him before you.\nFarewell.",
      "31": "So the soldiers, according to their orders, took Paul and brought him to Antipatris during the night.",
      "32": "The next day they let the cavalry go on with him, while they returned to the barracks.",
      "33": "When the cavalry came to Caesarea, they delivered the letter to the governor, and they handed Paul over to him.",
      "34": "After the governor had read the letter, he asked what province he was from. When he learned that he was from Cilicia,",
      "35": "he said, “I will give you a hearing when your accusers arrive.” Then he ordered that Paul should be kept under guard in Herod’s palace."
    },
    "24": {
      "1": "Five days later the high priest Ananias came down with some elders and a lawyer named Tertullus. They brought formal charges against Paul to the governor.",
      "2": "When Paul was called in, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, “We are enjoying a long period of peace because of you, most excellent Felix, and reforms are coming to this nation because of your foresight.",
      "3": "In every way and in every place, we acknowledge this with all gratitude.",
      "4": "But in order not to detain you any longer, I beg you in your kindness to give us a brief hearing.",
      "5": "For we have found this man to be a public menace, one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the Nazarene sect.",
      "6": "He even tried to desecrate the temple, so we arrested him.",
      "7": "",
      "8": "By examining him yourself, you will be able to learn from him about all these accusations we are bringing against him.”",
      "9": "The Jews also joined in the attack, asserting that these things were so.",
      "10": "When the governor motioned to him to speak, Paul replied, “Because I know that you have been a judge over this nation for many years, I gladly make my defense.",
      "11": "You can verify for yourself that it was no more than twelve days ago when I went up to worship at Jerusalem.",
      "12": "They did not find me arguing with anyone in the temple or stirring up a crowd in the synagogues or anywhere else in the city.",
      "13": "And they cannot prove to you the accusations they are now making against me.",
      "14": "“But I do confess to you that I worship the God of our fathers according to the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything written throughout the Law and in the Prophets;",
      "15": "and I have the same hope in God that these men have, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.",
      "16": "This is the reason I continue to do my best to have a clear conscience toward both God and people.",
      "17": "“After several years, I came to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings.",
      "18": "While I was doing these things, they found me ceremonially purified in the temple, without a crowd or disturbance.",
      "19": "But there are some Jews from the province of Asia who ought to be here before you and bring charges, if they have anything against me.",
      "20": "Or let these men here state what crime they found in me when I stood before the Sanhedrin,",
      "21": "unless this is about the one thing I shouted while standing in their presence: ‘It is concerning the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today.’”",
      "22": "Then Felix, because he was rather well informed about the Way, adjourned the proceedings. He said, “When Lysias the commander comes down, I will decide your case.”",
      "23": "He ordered the centurion to guard Paul, but to let him have some freedom and not to prevent any of his friends from taking care of his needs.",
      "24": "Several days later, Felix appeared in public with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him speak about faith in Christ Jesus.",
      "25": "While Paul instructed him about righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment, Felix became frightened and replied, “Leave me for now, but when it is convenient, I will send for you.”",
      "26": "At the same time, he was also hoping that Paul would give him money, and for this reason he sent for him as often as possible and talked with him.",
      "27": "After two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Portius Festus. But because he wanted to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison."
    },
    "25": {
      "1": "Three days after Festus arrived in the province, he went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea.",
      "2": "Then the high priests and the leaders of the Jews brought formal charges against Paul",
      "3": "and asked Festus for the favor of transferring Paul’s case to Jerusalem. Their plan was to ambush and kill Paul along the way.",
      "4": "However, Festus replied that Paul was being held in custody at Caesarea and that he himself intended to go there soon.",
      "5": "“Therefore,” he said, “let some of your leaders go down with me and press charges against him, if there is anything evil about the man.”",
      "6": "After spending no more than eight or ten days among them, he went down to Caesarea. The next day, he sat on the judicial bench and ordered Paul to be brought in.",
      "7": "When he arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him and brought many serious charges that they could not prove.",
      "8": "Paul said in his defense, “I have not committed any offense against the Jewish law, against the temple, or against Caesar.”",
      "9": "But since Festus wanted to do the Jews a favor, he said to Paul, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial before me there on these charges?”",
      "10": "But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s judicial bench, where I ought to be tried. I have done nothing wrong to the Jews, as also you yourself know very well.",
      "11": "If I am guilty and have done something worthy of death, I am not trying to escape death. But if there is nothing to the charges they are making against me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!”",
      "12": "After Festus conferred with his council, he answered, “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!”",
      "13": "Some days later, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus.",
      "14": "Since they were going to stay there a number of days, Festus laid Paul’s case before the king. He said, “There is a man who was left as a prisoner by Felix.",
      "15": "When I was in Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews brought charges against him and asked for a sentence of condemnation against him.",
      "16": "“I answered them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over any man before the accused has met the accusers face to face and has had an opportunity to make a defense against the accusation.",
      "17": "“Therefore, after they came back here with me, I did not delay. On the next day I took my place on the judicial bench and ordered the man to be brought in.",
      "18": "When the accusers stood up, they charged him with none of the crimes I was expecting.",
      "19": "Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who was dead, but who Paul claimed is alive.",
      "20": "Since I was at a loss how to investigate these issues, I asked if he was willing to go to Jerusalem to be tried there concerning these charges.",
      "21": "But when Paul appealed to be kept in custody until his majesty the emperor would decide his case, I ordered him to be held until I could send him to Caesar.”",
      "22": "Agrippa said to Festus, “I would like to hear the man myself.”\n“Tomorrow,” he said, “you will hear him.”",
      "23": "So the next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and entered the courtroom together with the commanders and the most prominent men of the city. When Festus gave the order, Paul was brought in.",
      "24": "Festus said, “King Agrippa and all the men who are present with us, you see this man about whom the whole Jewish crowd petitioned me, both in Jerusalem and here, shouting that he ought not to live any longer.",
      "25": "But I found that he has done nothing that deserves death. Yet, since he appealed to his majesty the emperor, I decided to send him.",
      "26": "But I have nothing definite to write to my lord about him. Therefore, I have brought him before all of you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after this preliminary hearing I may have something to write.",
      "27": "Indeed, it seems unreasonable to me to send a prisoner without clearly indicating what the charges are against him.”"
    },
    "26": {
      "1": "Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.”\nThen Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense.",
      "2": "“King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate that I am going to make my defense before you today concerning all the things about which I am being accused by the Jews,",
      "3": "especially because you are an expert in all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.",
      "4": "“All the Jews know the way I have lived from the earliest days of my youth, among my own people and in Jerusalem.",
      "5": "They have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest party of our religion.",
      "6": "“And now I stand on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers,",
      "7": "the promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain as they earnestly serve God night and day. I am being accused by the Jews concerning this hope, O King.",
      "8": "Why does it seem unbelievable to any of you that God raises the dead?",
      "9": "“I too was convinced that it was necessary to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus the Nazarene.",
      "10": "And that is what I did in Jerusalem. After receiving authority from the chief priests, I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.",
      "11": "I often tried to make them blaspheme by punishing them throughout all the synagogues. Because I was so insanely angry with them, I even pursued them to foreign cities.",
      "12": "“That is how I came to be traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests.",
      "13": "At noon along the road, O King, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those traveling with me.",
      "14": "<J>We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’</J>",
      "15": "<J>“Then I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’\n“The Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.</J>",
      "16": "<J>Now get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things you have seen and to the things I will reveal to you.</J>",
      "17": "<J>I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you.</J>",
      "18": "<J>You are to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive the forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’</J>",
      "19": "“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.",
      "20": "Rather, I first told those in Damascus and Jerusalem about it, and then throughout the entire country of Judea and also the Gentiles. I told them that they should repent and turn to God, while also doing works that are consistent with repentance.",
      "21": "These are the reasons the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.",
      "22": "“But I have had help from God right up to this day, and so I stand testifying to both small and great. I am saying nothing other than what the prophets and Moses said would happen,",
      "23": "that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light to our people and to the Gentiles.”",
      "24": "While Paul was saying these things in his defense, Festus shouted, “Paul, you are out of your mind! Your great learning is driving you insane.”",
      "25": "But Paul replied, “I am not insane, most excellent Festus, but I am clearly speaking words that are true and sensible.",
      "26": "Certainly the king to whom I am freely speaking knows about these things. Indeed, I cannot believe that any of these things has escaped his notice, because this has not been done in a corner.",
      "27": "King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”",
      "28": "Then Agrippa said to Paul, “In such a short time are you going to persuade me to become a Christian?”",
      "29": "Paul replied, “I pray God, that whether in a short time or a long time, not only you, but also all those who are listening to me today would become what I am, except for these chains.”",
      "30": "After he had said these things, the king stood up, along with the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them.",
      "31": "After they had left, they said to one another in private, “This man is doing nothing worthy of death or chains.”",
      "32": "Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”"
    },
    "27": {
      "1": "When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to a centurion named Julius, of the Imperial Regiment.",
      "2": "After boarding a ship from Adramyttium, which was going to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia, we put out to sea. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us.",
      "3": "The next day, we put in at Sidon, and Julius treated Paul kindly and allowed him to go to his friends to receive their care.",
      "4": "From there we put out to sea and sailed on the sheltered side of Cyprus, because the winds were against us.",
      "5": "We crossed the open sea along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia and landed at Myra in Lycia.",
      "6": "There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy, and he put us on board.",
      "7": "We sailed slowly for a number of days and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus. Since the wind did not permit us to go further, we sailed on the sheltered side of Crete, off Salmone.",
      "8": "With difficulty we sailed along its coast and came to a place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.",
      "9": "Since so much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous because the Fast was already over, Paul advised them,",
      "10": "“Men, it looks to me as if the voyage is going to end with disaster and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship but also of our lives.”",
      "11": "But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and the owner of the ship than to what Paul was saying.",
      "12": "Since that harbor was unsuitable to winter in, the majority decided to put out to sea from there, hoping somehow to reach Phoenix and winter there. (Phoenix is a harbor on Crete, facing both southwest and northwest.)",
      "13": "When a gentle south wind began to blow, they thought they could carry out their plan. They raised the anchor and sailed close to the shore of Crete.",
      "14": "But before long, a hurricane-like wind, called the “northeaster,” rushed down from the island.",
      "15": "Since the ship was caught in it and could not head into the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along.",
      "16": "As we sailed on the sheltered side of a small island called Cauda, we were barely able to secure the skiff.",
      "17": "After hoisting it on board, the men tied ropes around the ship to reinforce it. Then, fearing that they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor and in this way were driven along.",
      "18": "Because we were tossed around so violently by the storm, the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard.",
      "19": "On the third day, they threw the ship’s gear overboard with their own hands.",
      "20": "When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the violent storm kept pressing down on us, finally all hope that we would be saved was disappearing.",
      "21": "After they had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have followed my advice and not set sail from Crete and avoided this damage and loss.",
      "22": "But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because there will be no loss of life among you. Only the ship will be lost.",
      "23": "In fact, last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me",
      "24": "and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar. And surely God has graciously given you all those who are sailing with you.’",
      "25": "So keep up your courage, men, because I believe God that it will be exactly the way I have been told.",
      "26": "However, we must run aground on some island.”",
      "27": "When the fourteenth night came, while we were being driven back and forth in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors suspected that they were approaching some land.",
      "28": "They took soundings and found it to be one hundred twenty feet deep. After sailing a little farther, they took soundings again and found it was ninety feet deep.",
      "29": "Fearing that we would run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daybreak.",
      "30": "The sailors tried to escape from the ship and had let down the skiff into the sea, pretending they were going to put out anchors from the bow.",
      "31": "Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “If these men do not stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.”",
      "32": "Then the soldiers cut the ropes holding the skiff and let it fall away.",
      "33": "Just before daybreak, Paul urged them all to eat some food. He said, “This is the fourteenth day you have waited in suspense and have gone without food. You have eaten nothing.",
      "34": "Therefore I urge you to take some food because this is important for your rescue. In fact, not a hair from any of your heads will be lost.”",
      "35": "After he said these things and had taken some bread, he gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat.",
      "36": "They were all encouraged and took some food themselves.",
      "37": "In all there were 276 of us on the ship.",
      "38": "When they had eaten all they wanted, they lightened the ship by throwing the grain overboard into the sea.",
      "39": "At daybreak, they did not recognize the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach, where they planned to run the ship aground if they could.",
      "40": "They cut off the anchors, leaving them in the sea, and at the same time untied the ropes that held the rudders. Then, after hoisting the foresail to the wind, they headed for the beach.",
      "41": "But they struck a sandbar and ran the ship aground. The bow stuck fast and would not move, while the stern began to break up from the pounding of the waves.",
      "42": "The soldiers’ plan was to kill the prisoners so that no one would swim away and escape.",
      "43": "But the centurion wanted to save Paul and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make their way to land.",
      "44": "The rest were to follow, some on planks, and some on other pieces from the ship. In this way, all of them were brought safely onto land."
    },
    "28": {
      "1": "Once we were safely on shore, we learned that the island was called Malta.",
      "2": "The natives showed us extraordinary kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all, because it had started to rain and was cold.",
      "3": "As Paul gathered a bundle of sticks and laid it on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand.",
      "4": "When the natives saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”",
      "5": "However, Paul shook the snake off into the fire and was not harmed.",
      "6": "The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited for a long time and saw nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.",
      "7": "In the nearby vicinity was an estate that belonged to a man named Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us and entertained us hospitably as his guests for three days.",
      "8": "The father of Publius happened to be sick in bed, suffering from a fever and dysentery. Paul went to him, prayed, laid his hands on him, and healed him.",
      "9": "After that happened, others on the island who were sick also came and were healed.",
      "10": "They honored us in many ways, and when we were going to sail, they put on board whatever we needed.",
      "11": "After three months, we set sail in an Alexandrian ship that had wintered at the island. Its figurehead was the Twin Brothers.",
      "12": "We put in at Syracuse and stayed there three days.",
      "13": "From there we sailed up the coast and arrived at Rhegium. After one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli.",
      "14": "There we found some brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome.",
      "15": "The brothers there heard the news about us and came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and was encouraged.",
      "16": "When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier who guarded him.",
      "17": "Three days later, Paul called together the leaders of the Jews. When they had assembled, he said to them, “Gentlemen, brothers, although I had done nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was handed over as a prisoner from Jerusalem to the Romans.",
      "18": "After they interrogated me, they wanted to release me, because there were no grounds for the death penalty in my case.",
      "19": "But when the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar—not that I had any charge to bring against my own people.",
      "20": "That is why I asked to see you and speak to you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.”",
      "21": "They said to him, “We have not received any letters about you from Judea, and none of the brothers who came here has reported or said anything evil about you.",
      "22": "But we would like to hear from you what you think, because we know that people everywhere are speaking against this sect.”",
      "23": "They set a day to meet with Paul, and even more of them came to the place where he was staying. From morning till evening he explained and testified about the kingdom of God. He also tried to convince them about Jesus, both from the Law of Moses and the Prophets.",
      "24": "Some were convinced by what he said, but others continued in their unbelief.",
      "25": "They were arguing with one another and began to leave after Paul made this one statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet:",
      "26": "Go to this people and say,\nYou will keep hearing and yet never understand;\nyou will keep seeing and yet never perceive.",
      "27": "For the heart of this people has grown dull,\ntheir ears are hard of hearing,\nand they have closed their eyes.\nOtherwise they might see with their eyes,\nhear with their ears,\nunderstand with their heart,\nand turn, and I would heal them.",
      "28": "“Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation from God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”",
      "29": "",
      "30": "For two whole years Paul stayed in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to visit him.",
      "31": "He was preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without anyone stopping him."
    }
  },
  "Romans": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,",
      "2": "which he promised in advance through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.",
      "3": "This gospel is about his Son—who in the flesh was born a descendant of David,",
      "4": "who in the spirit of holiness was declared to be God’s powerful Son by his resurrection from the dead—Jesus Christ, our Lord.",
      "5": "Through him we received grace and the call to be an apostle on behalf of his name, to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles,",
      "6": "including you, who were called by Jesus Christ.",
      "7": "To all those loved by God who are in Rome, called to be saints:\nGrace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "8": "First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ concerning all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.",
      "9": "To be sure, God, whom I serve with my spirit by proclaiming the gospel of his Son, is my witness to how constantly I make mention of you. In all my prayers,",
      "10": "I always ask if perhaps at last a way might be opened, if God wills, for me to come to you.",
      "11": "I certainly long to see you, in order that I may deliver some spiritual gift to you, so that you are strengthened—",
      "12": "that is, when I am with you, that we will be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, yours and also mine.",
      "13": "I do not want you to be unaware of the fact, brothers, that I have often planned to come to you but have been prevented from doing so until now. I wanted to have some fruit among you in the same way as I did among the rest of the Gentiles.",
      "14": "I have an obligation both to Greeks and non-Greeks, to the wise and to the foolish.",
      "15": "That is why I am eager to proclaim the gospel also to you who are in Rome.",
      "16": "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes—to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.",
      "17": "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed by faith, for faith, just as it is written, “The righteous will live by faith.”",
      "18": "Indeed, God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who try to suppress the truth by unrighteousness.",
      "19": "This happens because what can be known about God is evident among them, because God made it evident among them.",
      "20": "In fact, his invisible characteristics—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, because they are understood from the things he made. As a result, people are without excuse,",
      "21": "because, even though they knew God, they did not honor him or give him thanks as God. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless heart was darkened.",
      "22": "Although they claim to be wise, they have become fools",
      "23": "and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human, or like birds, four-footed animals, and crawling things.",
      "24": "So, as they followed the sinful desires of their hearts, God handed them over to the impurity of degrading their own bodies among themselves.",
      "25": "Such people have traded the truth about God for the lie, worshipping and serving the creation rather than the Creator, who is worthy of praise forever. Amen.",
      "26": "For this reason God handed them over to disgraceful passions. Even their females exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.",
      "27": "And, in the same way, their males, after abandoning natural sexual relations with females, were consumed by their lust for one another. Males perform indecent acts with males and receive in themselves the penalty that is fitting for their perversion.",
      "28": "And since they did not consider it worthwhile to hold on to the true knowledge of God, God handed them over to a corrupted mind to do things that should never be done.",
      "29": "They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and malice. They are gossipers,",
      "30": "slanderers, God-haters, insolent mockers, arrogant boasters, and loudmouths. They dream up evil things. They disobey their parents.",
      "31": "They are senseless, faithless, heartless, and merciless.",
      "32": "Even though they know God’s righteous decree that those who do these things are worthy of death, such people not only continue to do them, but also approve of others who continue to commit such sins."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Therefore, you are without excuse, every one of you who judges someone else, because by judging the other person you also condemn yourself, since you, who are judging, are doing the very same things.",
      "2": "And we know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth.",
      "3": "Are you thinking that you will escape God’s judgment, you who judge those who do such things and then do the same things yourself?",
      "4": "Or do you have so little regard for his rich kindness, his restraint, and his patience, that you ignore the fact that the purpose of God’s kindness is to lead you to repentance?",
      "5": "As a result of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God will reveal his righteous judgment.",
      "6": "God “will repay each person according to what he has done”—",
      "7": "eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality by persisting in doing what is good,",
      "8": "but furious anger to those who out of selfish ambition are disobeying what is true and obeying what is wrong.",
      "9": "There will be trouble and distress for the soul of every person who does what is evil—for the Jew first and for the Greek—",
      "10": "but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does what is good—for the Jew first and for the Greek.",
      "11": "For God does not show favoritism.",
      "12": "Indeed, all people who have sinned without law will also perish without law, and all the people who have sinned in connection with law will be judged by law.",
      "13": "For it is not those who hear the law who will be righteous in God’s sight, but those who do the law who will be declared righteous.",
      "14": "In fact, whenever Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires—even though they do not have the law—they are a law for themselves.",
      "15": "They demonstrate the work of the law that is written in their hearts, since their conscience also bears witness as their thoughts go back and forth, at times accusing or at times even defending them.",
      "16": "This will happen on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people’s secrets through Jesus Christ.",
      "17": "Now if you call yourself a Jew, and you find your comfort in the law, and you boast in God;",
      "18": "and if you know his will, and you approve the things that really matter, since you are instructed by the law;",
      "19": "and if you are convinced that you yourself are a guide for the blind, a light for those in darkness,",
      "20": "an instructor of the ignorant, and a teacher of infants (since you have the essence of knowledge and truth in the law)—",
      "21": "now then, you, the one who is teaching someone else, do you fail to teach yourself? You who preach, “Do not steal,” do you steal?",
      "22": "You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who detest idols, do you rob temples?",
      "23": "You who boast in the law bring shame on God by breaking the law.",
      "24": "Yes, as it is written, “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”",
      "25": "Indeed, circumcision has value if you observe the law. On the other hand, if you are a lawbreaker, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.",
      "26": "So, if an uncircumcised person keeps the righteous requirements of the law, won’t his uncircumcision be credited to him as circumcision?",
      "27": "The one who is not circumcised physically, but who fulfills the law, will judge you who are a lawbreaker, even though you have the written law and circumcision.",
      "28": "In fact, a Jew who is merely one outwardly is not really a Jew, and circumcision that is only outward in the flesh is not really circumcision.",
      "29": "Rather, a real Jew is one on the inside, and his circumcision is of the heart—a spiritual circumcision, not one based on carrying out the letter of the law. That person’s praise does not come from people but from God."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew? Or what benefit is there to circumcision?",
      "2": "Much in every way! Indeed, above all else, they were entrusted with the messages of God.",
      "3": "Now what if some did not believe? Their unbelief will not nullify God’s faithfulness, will it?",
      "4": "Absolutely not! God must be true, even though everyone is found to be a liar, just as it is written:\nSo that you would be justified whenever you speak,\nand win the case when you judge.",
      "5": "Now if our unrighteousness demonstrates God’s righteousness, what shall we say? God is not unjust in bringing his wrath on us, is he? (I am speaking from a human point of view.)",
      "6": "Absolutely not! If that were so, how could God judge the world?",
      "7": "For example, someone might say, “If by my lie the truth of God increases all the more to his glory, why am I still being judged as a sinner?”",
      "8": "And why not say (as some slanderously claim we say), “Let us do evil so that good may result.” Their condemnation is deserved.",
      "9": "What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all! In fact, we have already made the charge that all (both Jews and Greeks) are under sin.",
      "10": "Just as it is written:\nThere is no one who is righteous, not even one.",
      "11": "There is no one who understands. There is no one who searches for God.",
      "12": "They all turned away; together they became useless.\nThere is no one who does what is good; there is not even one.",
      "13": "Their throat is an open grave.\nThey kept deceiving with their tongues.\nThe poison of asps is on their lips.",
      "14": "Their mouth is filled with cursing and bitterness.",
      "15": "Their feet are quick to shed blood.",
      "16": "They leave a trail of destruction and suffering wherever they go.",
      "17": "The way of peace they did not know.",
      "18": "There is no fear of God in front of their eyes.",
      "19": "Now we know that whatever the law says is addressed to those who are under the law, so that every mouth will be silenced and the whole world will be subject to God’s judgment.",
      "20": "For this reason, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by works of the law, for through the law we become aware of sin.",
      "21": "But now, completely apart from the law, a righteousness from God has been made known. The Law and the Prophets testify to it.",
      "22": "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all and over all who believe.\nIn fact, there is no difference,",
      "23": "because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God",
      "24": "and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,",
      "25": "whom God publicly displayed as the atonement seat through faith in his blood. God did this to demonstrate his justice, since, in his divine restraint, he had left the sins that were committed earlier unpunished.",
      "26": "He did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so that he would be both just and the one who justifies the person who has faith in Jesus.",
      "27": "What happens to boasting then? It has been eliminated. By what principle—by the principle of works? No, but by the principle of faith.",
      "28": "For we conclude that a person is justified by faith without the works of the law.",
      "29": "Or is he only the God of the Jews? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, also of the Gentiles,",
      "30": "since there is one God who will justify the circumcised person by faith and the uncircumcised person through the very same faith.",
      "31": "So are we doing away with the law by this faith? Absolutely not! Instead, we are upholding the law."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered according to the flesh?",
      "2": "If indeed Abraham had been justified by works, he would have had a reason to boast—but not before God.",
      "3": "For what does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”",
      "4": "Now to a person who works, his pay is not counted as a gift but as something owed.",
      "5": "But to the person who does not work but believes in the God who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness.",
      "6": "This is exactly what David says about the blessed state of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:",
      "7": "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven\nand whose sins are covered.",
      "8": "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.",
      "9": "Now then, does this blessing apply only to the circumcised or also to the uncircumcised? To be sure, we maintain that faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.",
      "10": "So then, under what circumstances was it credited to him? Was he circumcised or uncircumcised at that time? He was not circumcised but uncircumcised,",
      "11": "and he received the mark of circumcision as the seal of the righteousness by faith that was already his while he was uncircumcised. So Abraham is the father of all the uncircumcised people who believe, so that righteousness would also be credited to them.",
      "12": "He is also the father of the circumcised people who are not merely circumcised but also walk in the footsteps of the faith our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.",
      "13": "Indeed, the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not given to Abraham or his descendants through the law, but through the righteousness that is by faith.",
      "14": "To be sure, if people are heirs by the law, faith is empty and the promise is nullified.",
      "15": "For law brings wrath. (Where there is no law, there is no transgression.)",
      "16": "For this reason, the promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace and may be guaranteed to all of Abraham’s descendants—not only to the one who is a descendant by law, but also to the one who has the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.",
      "17": "As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”\nIn the presence of God, Abraham believed him who makes the dead alive and calls non-existing things so that they exist.",
      "18": "Hoping beyond what he could expect, he believed that he would become the father of many nations, just as he was told: “This is how many your descendants will be.”",
      "19": "He did not weaken in faith, even though he considered his own body as good as dead (because he was about one hundred years old), and even though he considered Sarah’s womb to be dead.",
      "20": "He did not waver in unbelief with respect to God’s promise, but he grew strong in faith, giving glory to God",
      "21": "and being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.",
      "22": "This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”",
      "23": "Now the statement “it was credited to him” was not written for him alone,",
      "24": "but also for us to whom it would be credited, namely, to us who believe in the one who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead.",
      "25": "He was handed over to death because of our trespasses and was raised to life because of our justification."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "2": "Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God.",
      "3": "Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance,",
      "4": "and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope.",
      "5": "And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.",
      "6": "For at the appointed time, while we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly.",
      "7": "It is rare indeed that someone will die for a righteous person. Perhaps someone might actually go so far as to die for a person who has been good to him.",
      "8": "But God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.",
      "9": "Therefore, since we have now been justified by his blood, it is even more certain that we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.",
      "10": "For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, it is even more certain that, since we have been reconciled, we will be saved by his life.",
      "11": "And not only is this so, but we also go on rejoicing confidently in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received this reconciliation.",
      "12": "So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned.",
      "13": "For even before the law was given, sin was in the world. Now, sin is not charged to one’s account if there is no law,",
      "14": "and yet death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those whose sin was not like the transgression of Adam, who is a pattern of the one who was to come.",
      "15": "But the gracious gift is not like Adam’s trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of this one man, it is even more certain that God’s grace, and the gift given by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, overflowed to the many!",
      "16": "And the gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin, for the judgment that followed the one trespass resulted in a verdict of condemnation, but the gracious gift that followed many trespasses resulted in a verdict of justification.",
      "17": "Indeed, if by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through the one man, it is even more certain that those who receive the overflowing grace of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ!",
      "18": "So then, just as one trespass led to a verdict of condemnation for all people, so also one righteous verdict led to life-giving justification for all people.",
      "19": "For just as through the disobedience of one man the many became sinners, so also through the obedience of one man the many will become righteous.",
      "20": "The law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace overflowed much more,",
      "21": "so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace would reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "What shall we say then? Shall we keep on sinning so that grace may increase?",
      "2": "Absolutely not! We died to sin. How can we go on living in it any longer?",
      "3": "Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?",
      "4": "We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life.",
      "5": "For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.",
      "6": "We know that our old self was crucified with him, to make our sinful body powerless, so that we would not continue to serve sin.",
      "7": "For the person who has died has been declared free from sin.",
      "8": "And since we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.",
      "9": "We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he will never die again. Death no longer has control over him.",
      "10": "For the death he died, he died to sin once and for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.",
      "11": "In the same way also consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.",
      "12": "Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires.",
      "13": "Do not offer the members of your body to sin as tools of unrighteousness. Instead, offer yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and offer the members of your body to God as tools of righteousness.",
      "14": "Indeed, sin will not continue to control you, because you are not under law but under grace.",
      "15": "What then? Should we continue to sin, because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not!",
      "16": "Do you not know that when you offer yourselves to obey someone as slaves, you are slaves of the one you are obeying—whether slaves of sin, resulting in death, or slaves of obedience, resulting in righteousness?",
      "17": "Thanks be to God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to the pattern of the teaching into which you were placed.",
      "18": "After you were set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.",
      "19": "(I am speaking in a human way because of the weakness of your flesh.) Indeed, just as you offered your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, so now offer your members in the same way as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.",
      "20": "For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.",
      "21": "So what kind of fruit did you have then? They were things of which you are now ashamed. Yes, the final result of those things is death.",
      "22": "But now, since you were set free from sin and have become slaves to God, you have your fruit resulting in sanctification—and the final result is eternal life.",
      "23": "For the wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "Or don’t you know, brothers (since I am speaking to those who know the law), that a law has jurisdiction over a person only as long as he lives?",
      "2": "For example, a married woman is bound to her husband by law as long as he is alive, but if he dies, she is released from this law regarding her husband.",
      "3": "So then, she will be labeled an adulteress if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from this law, and she is not an adulteress if she marries another man.",
      "4": "In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death in regard to the law by the body of Christ, so that you may be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, in order that we might produce fruit for God.",
      "5": "For when we were in the flesh, strong sinful desires stirred up by the law were at work in our members, with the result that we produced fruit that results in death.",
      "6": "But now we have been released from the law by dying to what held us in its grip, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the letter of the law.",
      "7": "What will we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have recognized sin except through the law. For example, I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”",
      "8": "But sin, seizing the opportunity provided by this commandment, produced every kind of sinful desire in me.\nFor apart from the law, sin is dead.",
      "9": "Once I was alive without the law. But when this commandment came, sin came to life,",
      "10": "and I died. This commandment that was intended to result in life actually resulted in death for me.",
      "11": "You see, sin, seizing the opportunity provided by this commandment, deceived me and put me to death through it.",
      "12": "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.",
      "13": "Then did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it might be recognized as sin, brings about my death by this good thing, so that through this commandment sin might prove itself to be totally sinful.",
      "14": "Certainly we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.",
      "15": "For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate.",
      "16": "And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.",
      "17": "But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.",
      "18": "Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out.",
      "19": "So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing.",
      "20": "Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.",
      "21": "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me.",
      "22": "I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self,",
      "23": "but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members.",
      "24": "What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?",
      "25": "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!\nSo then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my sinful flesh I serve the law of sin."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.",
      "2": "For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.",
      "3": "Indeed, what the law was unable to do, because it was weakened by the flesh, God did, when he sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to deal with sin. God condemned sin in his flesh,",
      "4": "so that the righteous decree of the law would be fully satisfied in us who are not walking according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.",
      "5": "To be sure, those who are in harmony with the sinful flesh think about things the way the sinful flesh does, and those in harmony with the spirit think about things the way the spirit does.",
      "6": "Now, the way the sinful flesh thinks results in death, but the way the spirit thinks results in life and peace.",
      "7": "For the mind-set of the sinful flesh is hostile to God, since it does not submit to God’s law, and in fact, it cannot.",
      "8": "Those who are in the sinful flesh cannot please God.",
      "9": "But you are not in the sinful flesh but in the spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit lives in you. And if someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person does not belong to Christ.",
      "10": "But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but your spirit is alive because of righteousness.",
      "11": "And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit, who is dwelling in you.",
      "12": "So then, brothers, we do not owe it to the sinful flesh to live in harmony with it.",
      "13": "For if you live in harmony with the sinful flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the actions of the body, you will live.",
      "14": "Indeed, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.",
      "15": "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery so that you are afraid again, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we call out, “Abba, Father!”",
      "16": "The Spirit himself joins our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children.",
      "17": "Now if we are children, we are also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, since we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.",
      "18": "For I conclude that our sufferings at the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.",
      "19": "In fact, creation is waiting with eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed.",
      "20": "For creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope",
      "21": "that even creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption, in order to share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.",
      "22": "For we know that all of creation is groaning with birth pains right up to the present time.",
      "23": "And not only creation, but also we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we eagerly await our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.",
      "24": "Indeed, it was for this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he already sees?",
      "25": "But if we hope for something we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patient endurance.",
      "26": "In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we should pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that are not expressed in words.",
      "27": "And he who searches our hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints, according to God’s will.",
      "28": "We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose,",
      "29": "because those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers.",
      "30": "And those he predestined, he also called. Those he called, he also justified. And those he justified, he also glorified.",
      "31": "What then will we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?",
      "32": "Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?",
      "33": "Who will bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies!",
      "34": "Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that, was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also interceding for us!",
      "35": "What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?",
      "36": "Just as it is written:\nFor your sake we are being put to death all day long.\nWe are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.",
      "37": "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.",
      "38": "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces,",
      "39": "neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying—my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit",
      "2": "that I have great sorrow and continuous pain in my heart.",
      "3": "For I almost wish that I myself could be cursed and separated from Christ in place of my brothers, my relatives according to the flesh,",
      "4": "those who are Israelites. Theirs are the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.",
      "5": "Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, came the Christ, who is God over all, eternally blessed. Amen.",
      "6": "This does not mean that God’s word has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are really Israel,",
      "7": "and not all who are descended from Abraham are really his children. On the contrary, “Your line of descent will be traced through Isaac.”",
      "8": "This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are counted as his descendants.",
      "9": "For this is what the promise said: “I will arrive at this set time, and Sarah will have a son.”",
      "10": "Not only that, but Rebekah also had children by one man, our forefather, Isaac.",
      "11": "Even before the twins were born or did anything good or bad, in order that God’s purpose in election might continue—",
      "12": "not by works but because of him who calls us—it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.”",
      "13": "Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”",
      "14": "What will we say then? Does this mean that God is unjust? Absolutely not!",
      "15": "For God says to Moses:\nI will show mercy to whom I show mercy,\nand I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.",
      "16": "So then, it does not depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.",
      "17": "Indeed, the Scripture says in regard to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I caused you to stand, that I may demonstrate my power in how I deal with you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”",
      "18": "So then, God shows mercy to whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.",
      "19": "Then you will say to me, “Why does God still find fault? For who has ever succeeded in resisting his will?”",
      "20": "But who are you, a mere human being, to talk back to God? Shall the thing that is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” No.",
      "21": "Doesn’t the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay one pot for special use and another for ordinary use?",
      "22": "What if God, although he wanted to demonstrate his wrath and make his power known, endured with great patience the objects of wrath—ripe for destruction?",
      "23": "And what if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of mercy whom he prepared in advance for glory,",
      "24": "including us, whom he called—not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.",
      "25": "This is also what God says in Hosea:\nThose who were not my people, I will call my people,\nand she who was not loved, I will call my loved one.",
      "26": "And, it will be that in the place where they were told,\n“You are not my people,”\nthere they will be called “sons of the living God.”",
      "27": "And Isaiah cries out about Israel:\nAlthough the number of the sons of Israel is as great as the sand\n    of the sea,\nonly the remnant will be saved.",
      "28": "For the Lord, who carries out what he says without delay,\nwill do what he said completely and decisively on the earth.",
      "29": "Just as Isaiah said earlier:\nIf the Lord of Armies had not left us some descendants,\nwe would have become like Sodom, and we would have been\n    like Gomorrah.",
      "30": "What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who were not pursuing righteousness, have obtained righteousness, a righteousness that is by faith.",
      "31": "But Israel, while pursuing the law as a way of righteousness, did not reach it.",
      "32": "Why? Because they kept pursuing it not by faith, but as if it comes by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.",
      "33": "Just as it is written:\nLook, I am putting a stone in Zion over which they will stumble\nand a rock over which they will fall.\nThe one who believes in him will not be put to shame."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God on behalf of the Israelites is that they may be saved.",
      "2": "Indeed, I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but it is not consistent with knowledge.",
      "3": "Since they were ignorant of the righteousness from God and sought to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness from God.",
      "4": "For to everyone who believes, Christ is the end of the law, resulting in righteousness.",
      "5": "Indeed, Moses writes this about the righteousness that comes by the law: “The one who does these things will live by them.”",
      "6": "But the righteousness that comes by faith speaks like this: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down)",
      "7": "“or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).",
      "8": "But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith that we are proclaiming.",
      "9": "Certainly, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.",
      "10": "For it is with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and it is with the mouth that a person confesses, resulting in salvation.",
      "11": "For Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”",
      "12": "So there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord is Lord of all, who gives generously to all who call on him.",
      "13": "Yes, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”",
      "14": "So then, how can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one about whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without a preacher?",
      "15": "And how can they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news of peace, who preach the gospel of good things!”",
      "16": "But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who believed our message?”",
      "17": "So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through the word of Christ.",
      "18": "But I ask, did they not hear? Of course, they certainly did.\nThe sound of their voice went out to all the earth,\nand their words to the farthest parts of the world.",
      "19": "Yet I ask, did Israel not understand? First, Moses says:\nI will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;\nI will make you angry with a nation that does not understand.",
      "20": "And Isaiah also boldly says:\nI was found by those who were not looking for me;\nI became well known to those who were not asking for me.",
      "21": "But about Israel he says:\nAll day long I stretched out my hands\nto a people who disobey and oppose me."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "So I say, did God reject his people? Absolutely not! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin.",
      "2": "God did not reject his people whom he foreknew—or don’t you know what Scripture says about Elijah, how he was pleading with God against Israel:",
      "3": "“Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars. I am the only one left, and they are trying to take my life.”",
      "4": "But what did God’s answer tell him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”",
      "5": "So in the same way at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.",
      "6": "Now if it is by grace, then it is not the result of works—otherwise grace would no longer be grace.",
      "7": "What then? Israel did not receive what it was striving to get. The elect did, but the rest were hardened.",
      "8": "Just as it is written:\nGod gave them a spirit of stupor,\neyes that do not see and ears that do not hear,\nright up to the present day.",
      "9": "And David says:\nLet their table be a trap and a net,\nand a snare and a retribution for them.",
      "10": "Let their eyes be darkened so they do not see,\nand let their backs be always bent.",
      "11": "So I ask, “Did they stumble in order to fall permanently?” Absolutely not! Rather, by their trespass, salvation came to the Gentiles to make the Israelites jealous.",
      "12": "Now if their trespass meant riches for the world, and their failure meant riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fullness mean!",
      "13": "I am speaking to you Gentiles. For as long as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I am going to speak highly of my ministry.",
      "14": "Perhaps I may make my own people jealous, and so save some of them.",
      "15": "For if their rejection meant the reconciliation of the world, what does their acceptance mean other than the dead coming to life?",
      "16": "If the part offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole batch. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.",
      "17": "But if some of the branches were broken off, and you—a wild olive branch—were grafted in among them and share in the rich sap from the root of the olive tree,",
      "18": "do not boast that you are better than the branches. If you do boast, remember that you are not supporting the root, but the root is supporting you.",
      "19": "Then you will say: “Branches were broken off so that I am grafted in.”",
      "20": "That is true—but remember that they were broken off because of unbelief, and you remain in place by faith. Do not be conceited, but stand in awe.",
      "21": "For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you.",
      "22": "So take note of God’s kindness and his severity: severity on those who have fallen, but God’s kindness on you—if you remain in his kindness; otherwise, you also will be cut off.",
      "23": "And if they do not remain in unbelief, those branches will be grafted in again, because God is able to graft them in again.",
      "24": "For if you were cut off from a wild olive tree and, contrary to nature, were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more easily will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?",
      "25": "For I do not want you to be uninformed about this mystery, brothers, so that you are not conceited in your opinion of yourselves. There has been a hardening of part of Israel until the full number of Gentiles has come in.",
      "26": "And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written:\nThe Deliverer will come out of Zion;\nhe will remove ungodliness from Jacob.",
      "27": "And this is my covenant with them\nwhen I take away their sins.",
      "28": "In regard to the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But, in regard to election, they are especially dear for the sake of the patriarchs,",
      "29": "because God’s gracious gifts and call are not regretted.",
      "30": "For just as you were once disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy due to their disobedience,",
      "31": "so also now they have become disobedient, so that by the mercy shown to you they may be shown mercy too.",
      "32": "For God imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may show mercy to all.",
      "33": "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!\nHow unsearchable are his judgments\nand how untraceable his ways!",
      "34": "“For who has known the mind of the Lord,\nor who has been his adviser?”",
      "35": "“Or who has first given to God\nthat he will be repaid?”",
      "36": "For from him and through him and to him are all things.\nTo him be the glory forever! Amen."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy and pleasing to God—which is your appropriate worship.",
      "2": "Also, do not continue to conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you test and approve what is the will of God—what is good, pleasing, and perfect.",
      "3": "So by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think in a way that results in sound judgment, as God distributed a measure of faith to each of you.",
      "4": "For we have many members in one body, and not all the members have the same function.",
      "5": "In the same way, though we are many, we are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.",
      "6": "We have different gifts, according to the grace God has given us. If the gift is prophecy, do it in complete agreement with the faith.",
      "7": "If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach.",
      "8": "If it is encouraging, then encourage. If it is contributing, be generous. If it is leadership, be diligent. If it is showing mercy, do it cheerfully.",
      "9": "Do not just pretend to love others. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good.",
      "10": "Be devoted to one another with brotherly love. Think of others as deserving more honor than yourselves.",
      "11": "Do not be lagging behind in zeal, but be fervent in spirit, as you continue to serve the Lord.",
      "12": "Be joyful in hope. Endure trials patiently. Persist in prayer.",
      "13": "Share with the saints who are in need. Be quick to welcome strangers as guests.",
      "14": "Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse.",
      "15": "Rejoice with those who are rejoicing; weep with those who are weeping.",
      "16": "Have the same respect for one another. Do not be arrogant, but associate with the humble. Do not think too highly of yourselves.",
      "17": "Do not pay anyone back evil for evil. Focus on those things that everyone considers noble.",
      "18": "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, maintain peace with everyone.",
      "19": "Do not take revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” says the Lord.",
      "20": "But:\nIf your enemy is hungry, feed him;\nif he is thirsty, give him a drink.\nFor by doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.",
      "21": "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "Everyone must submit to the governing authorities. For no authority exists except by God, and the authorities that do exist have been established by God.",
      "2": "Therefore the one who rebels against the authority is opposing God’s institution, and those who oppose will bring judgment on themselves.",
      "3": "For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to evil. Would you like to have no fear of the one in authority? Do what is good, and you will receive praise from him,",
      "4": "because he is God’s servant for your benefit. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because he does not carry the sword without reason. He is God’s servant, a punisher to bring wrath on the wrongdoer.",
      "5": "Therefore it is necessary to submit, not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience.",
      "6": "For this reason you also pay taxes, because the authorities are God’s ministers, who are employed to do this very thing.",
      "7": "Pay what you owe to all of them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, and honor to whom honor is owed.",
      "8": "Do not owe anyone anything except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.",
      "9": "For the commandments—do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet (and if there is any other commandment)—are summed up in this statement: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”",
      "10": "Love does no harm to a neighbor, so love is the fulfillment of the law.",
      "11": "And do this since you understand the present time. It is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.",
      "12": "The night is almost over, and the day is drawing near. So let us put away the deeds of darkness and put on the weapons of light.",
      "13": "Let us walk decently as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual sin and wild living, not in strife and jealousy.",
      "14": "Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not give any thought to satisfying the desires of your sinful flesh."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Accept a person who is weak in faith, and do not pass judgment on things that are just a difference of opinion.",
      "2": "One person believes it is right to eat anything. Another person who is weak eats only vegetables.",
      "3": "The one who eats everything should not look down on the person who does not do so, and the one who does not eat everything should not judge the person who does, because God has accepted him.",
      "4": "Who are you to pass judgment on someone else’s servant? It is up to his master to decide whether that servant stands or falls. And he will stand, because God is able to make him stand.",
      "5": "One person values one day above another. Another person values every day the same. Let each person be fully convinced in his own mind.",
      "6": "The person who honors a certain day does this for the Lord, and the person who eats does this for the Lord, because he gives thanks to God. And the person who does not eat does this for the Lord and gives thanks to God.",
      "7": "In fact, not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself.",
      "8": "Indeed, if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.",
      "9": "For this reason he died, rose, and lived, to be Lord of both the dead and the living.",
      "10": "But you, why do you pass judgment on your brother? And you, why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.",
      "11": "Indeed, it is written:\nAs I live, says the Lord,\nevery knee will bow to me,\nand every tongue will acknowledge God.",
      "12": "So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.",
      "13": "Therefore, let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, resolve never to put an obstacle or a snare in the path of your brother.",
      "14": "I know, and I am convinced in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in and of itself, but it becomes unclean for the one who considers it to be unclean.",
      "15": "For example, if your brother is offended because of the food you eat, you are no longer walking in line with love. Do not destroy that person for whom Christ died by the food you eat!",
      "16": "So do not give others a reason to speak evil about what you consider good.",
      "17": "For the kingdom of God does not consist of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.",
      "18": "Certainly a person who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and has the approval of people.",
      "19": "Consequently, let us pursue those things that lead to peace and building up one another.",
      "20": "Do not tear down God’s work for the sake of food. Everything is pure, but it is wrong for a person to eat if it causes anyone to stumble.",
      "21": "It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything if it causes your brother to stumble.",
      "22": "Keep the conviction that you have in these matters between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves.",
      "23": "But the one who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because it does not proceed from faith. Everything that does not proceed from faith is sin."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the weaknesses of those who are not strong, and not just to please ourselves.",
      "2": "Each of us should please his neighbor for the good purpose of building him up.",
      "3": "For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written: “The insults of those who are insulting you fell on me.”",
      "4": "Indeed, whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that, through patient endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we would have hope.",
      "5": "And may God, the source of patient endurance and encouragement, grant that you agree with one another in accordance with Christ Jesus,",
      "6": "so that with one mind, in one voice, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "7": "For this reason, accept one another as Christ also accepted you to the glory of God.",
      "8": "For I am saying that Christ became a servant of those who are circumcised for the sake of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs.",
      "9": "He also did this so that the Gentiles would glorify God for his mercy, as it is written:\nFor this reason I will praise you among the Gentiles,\nand I will sing to your name.",
      "10": "And again it says:\nRejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.",
      "11": "And again:\nPraise the Lord, all you Gentiles,\nand let all the peoples give him praise.",
      "12": "And again Isaiah says:\nThere will be a Root of Jesse,\nand he is the one who will rise up to rule the Gentiles;\non him the Gentiles will place their hope.",
      "13": "Now may the God of hope fill you with complete joy and peace as you continue to believe, so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.",
      "14": "I myself am convinced about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are also full of goodness, filled with complete knowledge, and able to instruct one another.",
      "15": "But I have written a letter to you (rather boldly at times) as a reminder to you, because of the grace God has given me",
      "16": "to be a public minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. I am to do the priestly work of proclaiming the gospel of God so that the Gentiles would be an acceptable offering, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.",
      "17": "Therefore I have a reason to boast in Christ Jesus about my service to God.",
      "18": "For I will not dare to speak about anything except those things Christ accomplished through me that resulted in the Gentiles’ obedience. Christ accomplished them by word and deed,",
      "19": "along with the power of signs and wonders done by the power of God’s Spirit. As a result, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum.",
      "20": "And so I consider it an honor to proclaim the gospel where Christ’s name is not known, so that I may not build on another man’s foundation.",
      "21": "Instead, as it is written:\nThose who were not told about him will see,\nand those who have not heard will understand.",
      "22": "This is also the reason I have been prevented many times from coming to you.",
      "23": "But now I no longer have a place to work in these regions, and I have longed for many years to come to you.",
      "24": "So when I go to Spain, I hope to visit you on my way. After I have enjoyed being with you for a while, I hope that you will help me on my journey there.",
      "25": "Right now I am going to Jerusalem bringing assistance to the saints.",
      "26": "For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem.",
      "27": "Indeed, they were pleased to do this and, to be sure, they are indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual things, then the Gentiles owe it to them to serve them with material things.",
      "28": "So, after I complete this project by delivering this fruit safely to them, I will set out for Spain and visit you on the way.",
      "29": "And I know that when I come to you, I will arrive with the full blessing of Christ.",
      "30": "Now I urge you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, to struggle with me in prayers to God on my behalf.",
      "31": "Pray that I may be rescued from those in Judea who are disobedient and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints,",
      "32": "so that by God’s will I may come to you in joy and be refreshed in your company.",
      "33": "May the God of peace be with you all. Amen."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea.",
      "2": "Welcome her in the Lord in a manner that is worthy of saints, and assist her in whatever way she may need your help, for she has certainly been a helper for many people, including me.",
      "3": "Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,",
      "4": "who risked their necks for my life. I am not the only one who is thankful to them. All the churches of the Gentiles are as well.",
      "5": "Greet also the church that meets at their house.\nGreet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.",
      "6": "Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you.",
      "7": "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and fellow prisoners, who are highly regarded by the apostles. They were in Christ before I was.",
      "8": "Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord.",
      "9": "Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys.",
      "10": "Greet Apelles, who was tested and approved in Christ.\nGreet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus.",
      "11": "Greet Herodion, my relative.\nGreet those from the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord.",
      "12": "Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, who worked hard in the Lord.\nGreet my dear friend Persis, who has worked very hard for the Lord.",
      "13": "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who was a mother to me too.",
      "14": "Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.",
      "15": "Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.",
      "16": "Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.",
      "17": "But I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the teaching that you learned, and keep away from them.",
      "18": "For such people are not serving Christ our Lord but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they seduce the hearts of the unsuspecting.",
      "19": "Your obedience has become known to everyone, so I am very joyful about you. But I want you to continue to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.",
      "20": "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.",
      "21": "Timothy, my coworker, greets you, along with Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my relatives.",
      "22": "I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.",
      "23": "Gaius, my host and the host of the whole church, greets you.\nErastus, the city treasurer, greets you, and Quartus, the brother.",
      "24": "",
      "25": "Now to him who is able to strengthen you—\naccording to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was veiled in silence for long ages past,",
      "26": "but now has been revealed through the prophetic Scriptures and made known to all the Gentiles, in keeping with the command of the eternal God, resulting in the obedience of faith—",
      "27": "to God, who alone is wise, be glory forever through Jesus Christ. Amen."
    }
  },
  "1 Corinthians": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,",
      "2": "To the church of God in Corinth—those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, who are called as saints—along with all in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:",
      "3": "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!",
      "4": "I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus.",
      "5": "You were enriched in him in every way, in all your speaking and all your knowledge,",
      "6": "because the testimony about Christ was established in you.",
      "7": "As a result you do not lack any gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "8": "He will also keep you strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "9": "God is faithful, who called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.",
      "10": "Brothers, I am making an appeal to you using the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I ask that you all express the same view and not have any divisions among you, but that you be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.",
      "11": "For the news I heard about you, my brothers, from members of Chloe’s household, is that there are rivalries among you.",
      "12": "What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”",
      "13": "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?",
      "14": "I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,",
      "15": "so that no one can say that I baptized you into my own name.",
      "16": "(I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides them, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)",
      "17": "For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel—not with the wisdom used in speeches, so that the cross of Christ would not be emptied of its power.",
      "18": "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.",
      "19": "In fact, it is written:\nI will destroy the wisdom of the wise;\nthe intelligence of the intelligent I will bring to nothing.",
      "20": "Where is the wise man? Where is the expert in the Jewish law? Where is the probing thinker of the present age? Has God not shown that the wisdom of this world is foolish?",
      "21": "Indeed, since the world through its wisdom did not know God, God in his wisdom decided to save those who believe, through the foolishness of the preached message.",
      "22": "Yes, Jews ask for signs, Greeks desire wisdom,",
      "23": "but we preach Christ crucified—which is offensive to Jews and foolishness to Greeks,",
      "24": "but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.",
      "25": "We preach Christ crucified, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.",
      "26": "For example, consider your call, brothers. Not many of you were wise from a human point of view, not many were powerful, and not many were born with high status.",
      "27": "But God chose the foolish things of the world to put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are strong,",
      "28": "and God chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to do away with the things that are,",
      "29": "so that no one may boast before God.",
      "30": "But because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us the wisdom from God, namely, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.",
      "31": "God did this so that, just as it is written, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "As for me, brothers, when I came to you, I did not come with superior speech or wisdom in order to proclaim to you the testimony of God.",
      "2": "For I had no intention of knowing anything among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.",
      "3": "I came to you in weakness, in fear, and with much trembling.",
      "4": "My message and my preaching were not marked by persuasive words of human wisdom, but by a demonstration of the Spirit and of power,",
      "5": "so that your faith would not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.",
      "6": "Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, but it is not a wisdom of this world or of the rulers of this world, who are being reduced to nothing.",
      "7": "Instead we speak God’s wisdom that has been hidden in mystery—before the ages, God foreordained that this wisdom would result in our glory.",
      "8": "None of the rulers of this world knew it. (If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.)",
      "9": "But as it is written:\nWhat no eye has seen and no ear has heard\nand no human mind has conceived—\nthat is what God has prepared for those who love him.",
      "10": "But God revealed it to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.",
      "11": "Indeed, who among men knows a man’s thoughts except the man’s spirit within him? So also, no one else knows God’s thoughts except God’s Spirit.",
      "12": "What we received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the blessings freely given to us by God.",
      "13": "We also speak about these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual truths with spiritual words.",
      "14": "However, an unspiritual person does not accept the truths taught by God’s Spirit, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually evaluated.",
      "15": "But the spiritual person evaluates all things, and he himself is evaluated by no one.",
      "16": "Indeed, “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who will instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Brothers, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but as people who are led by the flesh, as infants in Christ.",
      "2": "I fed you with milk, not solid food, because you were not yet ready. Why, even now you are still not ready,",
      "3": "because you are still people who are following the flesh. Indeed, insofar as jealousy, strife, and factions have a place among you, are you not people who are following the flesh? Are you not behaving in a merely human way?",
      "4": "When one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not being merely human?",
      "5": "What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are ministers through whom you believed, and each served as the Lord gave him his role.",
      "6": "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.",
      "7": "So then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but it is God who causes the growth.",
      "8": "The one who plants and the one who waters are united, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.",
      "9": "For God is the one whom we serve as coworkers, and you are God’s field, God’s building.",
      "10": "In keeping with the grace of God given to me, as a wise master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. But let each person be careful how he builds on it.",
      "11": "In fact, no one can lay any other foundation than the one that has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.",
      "12": "But if anyone is building on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw,",
      "13": "each person’s work will become evident. The Day will make it plain, because it is going to be revealed in fire, and the fire will test each person’s work to show what sort of work it is.",
      "14": "If what someone has built remains, he will receive a reward.",
      "15": "If someone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but it will be like an escape through fire.",
      "16": "Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?",
      "17": "If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are.",
      "18": "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this world, let him become a fool so that he may become wise.",
      "19": "To be sure, the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”",
      "20": "and again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise; he knows that it is worthless.”",
      "21": "Therefore let no one boast about men. For all things belong to you—",
      "22": "whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All things belong to you,",
      "23": "and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "This is the way a person should think of us: as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.",
      "2": "In this connection, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.",
      "3": "But it is a trivial matter to me if I am evaluated by you or by a day in a human court. Why, I do not even evaluate myself.",
      "4": "I do not in fact know of anything against myself, but I am not justified by this; rather, the one who evaluates me is the Lord.",
      "5": "Therefore judge nothing ahead of time, until the Lord comes. He will bring to light whatever is hidden in darkness and also reveal the intentions of hearts. Then there will be praise for each person from God.",
      "6": "Brothers, I turned these things into a lesson using myself and Apollos as examples. I did this for your benefit, so that you may learn from us not to go beyond what is written. Then you will not be arrogant, favoring one person over the other.",
      "7": "For who makes you so special? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?",
      "8": "Oh, you are already filled! You have already become rich! You have begun to reign without us! If only that were really true, so that we could reign with you!",
      "9": "For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, in the lowliest position, like men sentenced to death, because we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to people.",
      "10": "We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak—but you are so strong! You are honored! But we are despised.",
      "11": "At the present we still hunger and thirst and lack proper clothing. We are treated roughly, and we have no settled place to live in.",
      "12": "We toil, working with our own hands. When we are verbally abused, we bless. When persecuted, we endure.",
      "13": "When slandered, we speak kind words. We have been treated like the world’s garbage, like everyone’s trash, right up to the present time.",
      "14": "I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my dear children.",
      "15": "Indeed, even if you would have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you would not have many fathers. I say this, because in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.",
      "16": "I urge you, therefore, be imitators of me.",
      "17": "That is why I have sent Timothy to you. He is my dearly loved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.",
      "18": "Some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.",
      "19": "But I will come to you soon, if the Lord is willing, and I will find out about the power, not the talk, of those who are arrogant.",
      "20": "For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power.",
      "21": "What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?"
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and it is a kind of sexual immorality that not even the Gentiles practice: A man has his father’s wife!",
      "2": "Yet you are proud! Shouldn’t you have been filled with sorrow so that the man who did this deed would be removed from among you?",
      "3": "Even though I am absent in body, I am present in spirit, and as one who is present, I have already decided about the man who has done such a thing.",
      "4": "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, and my spirit is there, along with the power of our Lord Jesus,",
      "5": "hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.",
      "6": "Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?",
      "7": "Purge out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, just as you are unleavened. For our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, namely, Christ!",
      "8": "So let us keep celebrating the festival, not with old yeast, not with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.",
      "9": "When I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the sexually immoral,",
      "10": "I did not at all mean the sexually immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world.",
      "11": "But in this situation, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother if he is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, or a drunkard, or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person.",
      "12": "For what business is it of mine to judge people outside the church? Do you not judge those inside?",
      "13": "God will judge the people outside the church. “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”"
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "If any one of you has a case against another, does he dare to seek judgment before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?",
      "2": "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to deal with insignificant lawsuits?",
      "3": "Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the matters of this life!",
      "4": "So if you have lawsuits involving matters of this life, do you appoint those people as your judges whom the church considers of no account?",
      "5": "I say this to make you feel ashamed. Is it really the case that there is not one wise man among you who would be able to decide a dispute between his brothers?",
      "6": "Instead, brother sues brother, and that in front of unbelievers!",
      "7": "The fact that you have lawsuits with one another is already a complete failure on your part. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?",
      "8": "Instead, you yourselves do the wronging and defrauding, and you do it to your brothers!",
      "9": "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor males who have sex with males,",
      "10": "nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor the verbally abusive, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.",
      "11": "And some of you were those types of people. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.",
      "12": "“All things are permitted for me”—but not all things are beneficial. “All things are permitted for me”—but I will not allow anything to control me.",
      "13": "“Foods are for the belly, and the belly is for foods, but God will do away with both of them.” However, the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.",
      "14": "God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.",
      "15": "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then remove the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Certainly not!",
      "16": "Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For it says, “The two will become one flesh.”",
      "17": "But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.",
      "18": "Flee from sexual immorality! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.",
      "19": "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,",
      "20": "for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "Now concerning the things you wrote: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.",
      "2": "But because of sexual sins, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.",
      "3": "The husband is to fulfill his obligation to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.",
      "4": "The wife does not have authority over her own body—her husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body—his wife does.",
      "5": "Do not deprive one another, unless you both agree to do so for a time, in order to devote yourselves to prayer and then come together again, so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.",
      "6": "However, I say this as a concession, not as a command.",
      "7": "For I wish all people were like me, but each person has his own gift from God. One person is blessed in this way, another in a different way.",
      "8": "I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain as I am.",
      "9": "But if they do not have self-control, they should marry, because it is better to marry than to burn with desire.",
      "10": "Next I command the married (it is the Lord’s command not mine): A wife is not to leave her husband",
      "11": "(but if she does leave, she is to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband), and a husband is not to divorce his wife.",
      "12": "But I, not the Lord, say to the rest: If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she is willing to go on living with him, he is not to divorce her.",
      "13": "If any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he is willing to go on living with her, she is not to divorce her husband.",
      "14": "For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified in connection with his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified in connection with her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.",
      "15": "But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. The brother or the sister is not bound in such cases, and God has called us to live in peace.",
      "16": "For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?",
      "17": "However, each person is to live in the situation the Lord assigned to him—the situation he was in when God called him to faith. I give this same command in all the churches.",
      "18": "If a man was circumcised when he was called, he should not become uncircumcised. If a man was uncircumcised when he was called, he should not get circumcised.",
      "19": "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping God’s commands is important.",
      "20": "Let each person stay in that calling in which he was called.",
      "21": "Were you a slave when you were called? Do not let it bother you. But if you are able to become free, take advantage of it.",
      "22": "For the slave who was called to be in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person. Likewise, the free person who was called is Christ’s slave.",
      "23": "You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of men.",
      "24": "Brothers, let each person remain before God in the situation he was in when he was called.",
      "25": "Now concerning virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one whom the Lord in his mercy made worthy of trust.",
      "26": "Accordingly, I think this is good because of the difficult situation we face, namely, that it is good for a person to remain as he is.",
      "27": "Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be freed. Are you unattached? Do not seek a wife.",
      "28": "But if you do get married, you have not sinned, and if a virgin gets married, she has not sinned. Yet such people will be under pressure in their earthly lives, and I am trying to spare you.",
      "29": "I also say this, brothers: The time is short. From now on, let those who have wives live as if they have none;",
      "30": "those who weep, as if not weeping; those who rejoice, as if not rejoicing; those who buy, as if not possessing;",
      "31": "and those who use the world, as if not getting any use out of it. For the way of life that belongs to this world is passing away.",
      "32": "I would like you to be free from concern. The unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord and thinks about how to please the Lord.",
      "33": "But the married man is concerned about the things of the world and thinks about how to please his wife,",
      "34": "and so he is divided. The unmarried woman and the virgin are concerned about the things of the Lord, so as to be holy both in body and in spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the things of the world and thinks about how to please her husband.",
      "35": "I am saying this for your own benefit, not to impose a restriction, but to encourage honorable, undistracted devotion to the Lord.",
      "36": "But if someone thinks he is behaving inappropriately toward his virgin, if his feelings are strong and it seems necessary, he should do what he desires. It is not a sin. They should marry.",
      "37": "But if someone stands firm in his heart and is not driven by need, but has control over his own desire and has decided in his own heart to keep his virgin as she is, he does well.",
      "38": "So then, he who marries his virgin does well, and he who does not marry her does better.",
      "39": "A wife is bound to her husband for as long as he lives, but if the husband has died, she is free to be married to any man she wishes, only in the Lord.",
      "40": "But she is more blessed if she stays as she is, in my judgment, and I think that I too have God’s Spirit."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.",
      "2": "If anyone supposes that he knows something, he does not yet know the way he ought to know.",
      "3": "But if anyone loves God, this person has been known by him.",
      "4": "So, concerning the eating of food from idol sacrifices, we know that an idol is not anything real in the world and that there is no God but one.",
      "5": "Indeed, even if there are so-called “gods,” whether in the heavens or on earth (as in fact there are many “gods” and many “lords”),",
      "6": "nevertheless for us there is one God—the Father, from whom all things exist and we exist for him—and one Lord—Jesus Christ, through whom all things exist and we exist through him.",
      "7": "However, that knowledge is not in everyone. Instead some, who are still affected by their former habit with the idol, eat the food as something sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.",
      "8": "Food will not bring us closer to God. We do not lack anything if we do not eat, nor are we better off if we do.",
      "9": "And be careful that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.",
      "10": "For if someone sees you, a person who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of this man, weak as he is, be emboldened to eat food from an idol sacrifice?",
      "11": "You see, the weak person is being destroyed by your knowledge—the brother for whose sake Christ died!",
      "12": "And when you sin in this way against your brothers and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.",
      "13": "Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I do not cause my brother to sin."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus, our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?",
      "2": "If I am not an apostle to others, yet at least I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.",
      "3": "This is my defense to those who examine me.",
      "4": "Do we not have a right to eat and to drink?",
      "5": "Do we not have a right to take along a wife who is a believer, as the rest of the apostles do, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?",
      "6": "Or are Barnabas and I the only ones who have no right to be spared from manual labor?",
      "7": "What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat some of its fruit? Or who takes care of a flock and does not drink milk from the flock?",
      "8": "Am I saying this just from a human point of view? Doesn’t the law also say this?",
      "9": "Yes, it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out grain.” Is God really concerned about oxen,",
      "10": "or does he say this entirely for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher ought to thresh in hope of getting a share.",
      "11": "If we sowed spiritual seed for your good, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you?",
      "12": "If others have some right to make this claim on you, don’t we even more? But we did not use this right. Instead, we endure everything so as not to cause any hindrance for the gospel of Christ.",
      "13": "Do you not know that those who do the work in the temple eat food from the temple, and those who attend to the altar receive a portion from what is on the altar?",
      "14": "In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel are to receive their living from the gospel.",
      "15": "But I have used none of these things.\nI am not writing this to have it done this way in my case, because it is better for me to die than to let anyone deprive me of my boast.",
      "16": "You see, if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast about, because an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!",
      "17": "If I do this as a volunteer, I receive compensation. But if not, I have been entrusted with a responsibility as a steward.",
      "18": "What then is my compensation? To present the gospel of Christ free of charge when I preach it, instead of making use of the right I have when I preach the gospel.",
      "19": "In fact, although I am free from all, I enslaved myself to all so that I might gain many more.",
      "20": "To the Jews, I became like a Jew so that I might gain Jews. To those who are under the law, I became like a person under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might gain those who are under the law.",
      "21": "To those who are without the law, I became like a person without the law (though I am not without God’s law but am within the law of Christ) so that I might gain those who are without the law.",
      "22": "To the weak, I became weak so that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all people so that I may save at least some.",
      "23": "And I do everything for the sake of the gospel so that I may share in it along with others.",
      "24": "Do you not know that when runners compete in the stadium, they all run, but only one receives the prize? Run like that—to win.",
      "25": "Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable victor’s wreath, but we do it for an imperishable one.",
      "26": "That is why there is nothing aimless about the way I run. There is no pummeling of the air in the way I box.",
      "27": "Instead I hit my body hard and make it my slave so that, after preaching to others, I myself will not be rejected."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea,",
      "2": "and they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.",
      "3": "They all ate the same spiritual food",
      "4": "and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them—and that rock was Christ!",
      "5": "Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them. He had them die in the wilderness.",
      "6": "Now these things took place as examples to warn us not to desire evil things the way they did.",
      "7": "Do not become idolaters like some of them—as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to celebrate wildly.”",
      "8": "And let us not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell.",
      "9": "Let us not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and so were being destroyed by the serpents.",
      "10": "And do not grumble, as some of them grumbled, and were destroyed by the destroyer.",
      "11": "All these things that were happening to them had meaning as examples, and they were written down to warn us, to whom the end of the ages has come.",
      "12": "So let him who thinks he stands be careful that he does not fall.",
      "13": "No testing has overtaken you except ordinary testing. But God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tested beyond your ability, but when he tests you, he will also bring about the outcome that you are able to bear it.",
      "14": "Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.",
      "15": "I speak to you as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I am saying.",
      "16": "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?",
      "17": "Because there is one bread, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.",
      "18": "Consider the people of Israel. Those who eat the sacrifices are partners of the altar, aren’t they?",
      "19": "So what am I saying? That food from idol sacrifices is anything, or that an idol is anything?",
      "20": "No, but I do say this: What the Gentiles sacrifice, “they sacrifice to demons, and not to God,” and I do not want you to become partners of demons.",
      "21": "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.",
      "22": "Or are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he is?",
      "23": "“Everything is permitted”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permitted”—but not everything builds up.",
      "24": "Let no one seek his own good, but that of others.",
      "25": "Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without asking questions for the sake of conscience.",
      "26": "For “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”",
      "27": "If one of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat whatever you are served without asking questions for the sake of conscience.",
      "28": "But if someone says to you, “This is from a sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience.",
      "29": "I mean the other person’s conscience, not your own. For why is my freedom judged by someone else’s conscience?",
      "30": "If I eat the food with thankfulness, why am I criticized for something for which I give thanks?",
      "31": "So whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do everything to the glory of God.",
      "32": "Do not give offense to Jews, or Greeks, or God’s church,",
      "33": "just as I also try to please all people in all things, by not seeking what is best for me but for the many, so that they may be saved."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Be imitators of me, just as I am of Christ.",
      "2": "I praise you, brothers, for remembering me in all things and holding firmly to the teachings as I delivered them to you.",
      "3": "However, I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and man is woman’s head, and God is Christ’s head.",
      "4": "Every man who prays or prophesies with a covering hanging down from his head dishonors his head.",
      "5": "But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for it is one and the same thing as being a woman with a shaved head.",
      "6": "Indeed, if a woman does not wear a head covering, she should cut off her hair too. But if it is shameful for a woman to cut off her hair or shave her head, she should wear a head covering.",
      "7": "For a man ought not to wear a head covering, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is man’s glory.",
      "8": "For man is not from woman, but woman from man,",
      "9": "and man was not created for the woman, but woman for the man.",
      "10": "For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.",
      "11": "Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.",
      "12": "For as woman came from man, so also man comes through woman, and all things are from God.",
      "13": "Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?",
      "14": "Doesn’t the nature of things itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is disgraceful for him,",
      "15": "whereas if a woman has long hair, it is glorious for her? For her long hair has been given to her as a covering.",
      "16": "But if anyone is inclined to be contentious—we have no such custom, and neither do God’s churches.",
      "17": "Now in giving you this next command, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse.",
      "18": "For in the first place, I hear that when you come together in an assembly, there are divisions among you. And to some extent I believe it,",
      "19": "for there also have to be factions among you so that those who are approved may become evident among you.",
      "20": "So when you come together in the same place, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat.",
      "21": "For when you eat, each one goes ahead and takes his own supper, and so one person goes hungry while another is drunk.",
      "22": "What, don’t you have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise God’s church and humiliate those who have nothing? What am I to say to you? Shall I praise you? In this matter I do not praise you!",
      "23": "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread,",
      "24": "and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”",
      "25": "In the same way, after the meal, he also took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new testament in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”",
      "26": "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.",
      "27": "Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the Lord’s body and blood.",
      "28": "Instead, let a person examine himself and after doing so, let him eat of the bread and drink from the cup.",
      "29": "For if anyone eats and drinks in an unworthy way because he does not recognize the Lord’s body, he eats and drinks judgment on himself.",
      "30": "Because of this, many among you are weak and sick, and quite a few have fallen asleep.",
      "31": "But if we judged ourselves, we would not be undergoing judgment.",
      "32": "However, when we undergo judgment, we are being disciplined by the Lord so that we may not be condemned with the world.",
      "33": "Therefore, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.",
      "34": "If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that your coming together may not result in judgment. The rest of my instructions I will give when I come."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.",
      "2": "You know that when you were pagans, you were deceived and somehow led away to mute idols.",
      "3": "Therefore I am informing you that no one speaking by God’s Spirit says, “A curse be upon Jesus,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.",
      "4": "There are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.",
      "5": "There are different kinds of ministries, and yet the same Lord.",
      "6": "There are various kinds of activity, but the same God, who produces all of them in everyone.",
      "7": "Each person is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.",
      "8": "To one person a message of wisdom is given by the Spirit; to another, a message of knowledge, as the same Spirit provides it;",
      "9": "by the same Spirit, faith is given to someone else; and to another, the same Spirit gives healing gifts.",
      "10": "Another is given powers to do miracles; another, the gift of prophecy; another, the evaluating of spirits; someone else, different kinds of tongues; and another, the interpretation of tongues.",
      "11": "One and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them to each one individually as he desires.",
      "12": "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ.",
      "13": "For by one Spirit we all were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free people, and we were all caused to drink one Spirit.",
      "14": "Furthermore, the body is not one member, but many.",
      "15": "If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,” it does not on that account cease to be part of the body.",
      "16": "If the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not part of the body,” it does not on that account cease to be part of the body.",
      "17": "If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?",
      "18": "But now God has arranged the members in the body, each and every one of them, as he desired.",
      "19": "If they were all one member, where would the body be?",
      "20": "But as it is, there are many members, yet one body.",
      "21": "The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need for you,” or again the head to the feet, “I have no need for you.”",
      "22": "On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are much more necessary.",
      "23": "As for the parts of the body we consider less honorable, these we provide with more honor. We treat our unpresentable parts with more modesty,",
      "24": "whereas our presentable parts have no such need. But God put the body together in a way that gave more honor to the parts that lack it.",
      "25": "He did it so that there might not be any division in the body, but that the members might all have the same concern for one another.",
      "26": "So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.",
      "27": "You are the body of Christ, and individually you are members of it.",
      "28": "And God appointed in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then miracles, healing gifts, helpful acts, leadership abilities, kinds of tongues.",
      "29": "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all miracle workers?",
      "30": "Do all have healing gifts? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?",
      "31": "But eagerly seek the greater gifts. And now, I am going to show you a more excellent way."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.",
      "2": "If I have the gift of prophecy and know all the mysteries and have all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.",
      "3": "If I give away everything I own, and if I give up my body that I may be burned but do not have love, I gain nothing.",
      "4": "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. It does not brag. It is not arrogant.",
      "5": "It does not behave indecently. It is not selfish. It is not irritable. It does not keep a record of wrongs.",
      "6": "It does not rejoice over unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth.",
      "7": "It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.",
      "8": "Love never comes to an end. But if there are prophetic gifts, they will be done away with; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be done away with.",
      "9": "For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part,",
      "10": "but when that which is complete has come, that which is partial will be done away with.",
      "11": "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.",
      "12": "Now we see indirectly using a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I was fully known.",
      "13": "So now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Keep on pursuing love, and eagerly seek spiritual gifts, but especially prophecy.",
      "2": "For the person who speaks in a tongue speaks to God, not to people. For no one understands him, but he speaks mysteries in the Spirit.",
      "3": "However, the person who prophesies speaks to people things that edify, encourage, and comfort.",
      "4": "The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophesies edifies the church.",
      "5": "I would like all of you to speak in tongues, but I would prefer that you prophesy. For the person who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church may be built up.",
      "6": "Brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what good will I do you, unless I communicate to you a revelation, or some knowledge, or a prophecy, or some teaching?",
      "7": "Even lifeless instruments that produce sound, such as a flute or a harp, if they do not make the notes distinct from one another, how will anyone know what is being played on the flute or harp?",
      "8": "If the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will get ready for battle?",
      "9": "So also with you: Unless you use your tongue to produce intelligible speech, how will anyone know what is being spoken? To be sure, you will be speaking only into the air.",
      "10": "There are perhaps ever so many kinds of languages in the world, and not one of them is without meaning.",
      "11": "Accordingly, if I do not understand the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker, and he will be a foreigner to me.",
      "12": "So also with you: Since you are eager for spiritual gifts, seek to use them abundantly in a way that will build up the church.",
      "13": "That is why a person who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret.",
      "14": "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.",
      "15": "So what is to be done? I will pray using my spirit, and I will pray also using my understanding. I will sing using my spirit, and I will sing also using my understanding.",
      "16": "Otherwise, how will an uninformed person say the “Amen” after you give thanks, since he does not know what you are saying?",
      "17": "To be sure, you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.",
      "18": "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.",
      "19": "But in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.",
      "20": "Brothers, do not be children in your thinking, but be like babies in regard to evil, and be mature in your thinking.",
      "21": "It is written in the law, “By different tongues and by foreign lips I will speak to this people, and even so, they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”",
      "22": "Therefore, tongues are a sign meant for unbelievers, not believers, whereas prophecy is for believers, not unbelievers.",
      "23": "So if the whole church comes together in the same place and all speak in tongues, and uninformed visitors or unbelievers come in, won’t they say that you are crazy?",
      "24": "But if all prophesy and some unbeliever or uninformed visitor comes in, he is reproved by all and judged by all,",
      "25": "the secrets of his heart are revealed, and under those circumstances he will fall down on his face and worship God, declaring, “God really is among you!”",
      "26": "So, brothers, what is to be done? When you come together, each one of you has a psalm, or a teaching, or a revelation, or an utterance in a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done in a way that builds people up.",
      "27": "If someone speaks in a tongue, limit it to two or at most three (speaking one at a time), and have one person interpret.",
      "28": "But if there is no interpreter, he is to keep silent in the church and keep his speaking between himself and God.",
      "29": "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others carefully evaluate what was said.",
      "30": "But if a revelation comes to another person as he sits there, let the first person become silent.",
      "31": "For you all can do your prophesying one at a time, so that all may learn and all may be encouraged.",
      "32": "The spirits of the prophets are also subject to the prophets,",
      "33": "for God is not a God of disorder, but of peace.\nAs in all the churches of the saints,",
      "34": "the women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak. Instead they are to be subordinate, as also the Law says.",
      "35": "If they desire to learn something, let them ask their own men at home, because it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church.",
      "36": "Or are you the ones from whom the word of God has gone out? Or did it come to you alone?",
      "37": "If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual person, let him recognize that the things I write to you are the Lord’s commands.",
      "38": "But if anyone disregards them, he should be disregarded.",
      "39": "So, brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.",
      "40": "But let all things be done decently and in good order."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "Brothers, I am going to call your attention to the gospel that I preached to you. You received it, and you took your stand on it.",
      "2": "You are also being saved by that gospel that was expressed in the words I preached to you, if you keep your hold on it—unless you believed in vain.",
      "3": "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:\nthat Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,",
      "4": "that he was buried,\nthat he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,",
      "5": "and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.",
      "6": "After that he appeared to over five hundred brothers at the same time, most of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep.",
      "7": "Then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles.",
      "8": "Last of all, he appeared also to me, the stillborn child, so to speak.",
      "9": "For I am the least of the apostles, and I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted God’s church.",
      "10": "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not ineffective. On the contrary, I worked more than all of them (and yet it wasn’t my doing, but it was the grace of God, which was with me, that did it).",
      "11": "So whether it is I or they, that is what we preach, and that is what you believed.",
      "12": "Now if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how is it that some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?",
      "13": "If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised.",
      "14": "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is pointless, and your faith is pointless too.",
      "15": "Then we are even guilty of giving false testimony about God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it were true that the dead are not raised.",
      "16": "For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.",
      "17": "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.",
      "18": "Then it also follows that those who fell asleep in Christ perished.",
      "19": "If our hope in Christ applies only to this life, we are the most pitiful people of all.",
      "20": "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.",
      "21": "For since death came by a man, the resurrection of the dead also is going to come by a man.",
      "22": "For as in Adam they all die, so also in Christ they all will be made alive.",
      "23": "But each in his own order: Christ as the firstfruits and then Christ’s people, at his coming.",
      "24": "Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has done away with every other ruler and every other authority and power.",
      "25": "For he must reign “until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”",
      "26": "Death is the last enemy to be done away with.",
      "27": "Certainly, “he has put all things in subjection under his feet.” Now when it says that all things have been put in subjection, obviously that does not include the one who subjected all things to him.",
      "28": "But when all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, in order that God may be all in all.",
      "29": "Otherwise, what will those people do who get baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why do they even get baptized for them?",
      "30": "Why do we live in danger every hour?",
      "31": "Day by day I face death, as surely as I boast about you, brothers, in Christ Jesus our Lord.",
      "32": "If I fought wild animals in Ephesus with human motives, what good did it do me? If the dead are not raised, then “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”",
      "33": "Do not be deceived! “Keeping bad company corrupts good morals.”",
      "34": "Use sober judgment, as is right, and do not sin, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.",
      "35": "But someone will object, “How can it be that the dead are raised? With what kind of body are they going to come?”",
      "36": "You are being foolish. What you sow is not made alive unless it dies.",
      "37": "And what you sow is not the body that will be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or some other grain.",
      "38": "But God gives it a body of the kind he wanted it to have, and to each of the seeds he gives its own body.",
      "39": "Flesh is not all the same kind. Instead, people have one kind of flesh, animals have another kind, birds another, and fish yet another.",
      "40": "There are also celestial bodies and bodies on earth, but the glory of the celestial bodies differs from that of the bodies on earth.",
      "41": "There is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars; in fact, one star differs from another in glory.",
      "42": "That is the way the resurrection of the dead will be. What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable.",
      "43": "It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.",
      "44": "It is sown as a natural body; it is raised as a spiritual body.\nIf there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.",
      "45": "So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living natural being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.",
      "46": "However, that which is spiritual is not first; rather, first comes the natural, then the spiritual.",
      "47": "The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven.",
      "48": "As was the man made of dust, so are the people who are made of dust, and as is the heavenly man, so the heavenly people will be.",
      "49": "And just as we have borne the image of the man made of dust, let us also bear the image of the heavenly man.",
      "50": "Now I say this, brothers: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and what is perishable is not going to inherit what is imperishable.",
      "51": "Look, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,",
      "52": "in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.",
      "53": "For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.",
      "54": "But once this perishable body has put on imperishability, and this mortal body has put on immortality, then what is written will be fulfilled:\nDeath is swallowed up in victory.",
      "55": "Death, where is your sting?\nGrave, where is your victory?",
      "56": "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.",
      "57": "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!",
      "58": "Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "Now concerning the collection for the saints, do as I directed the churches in Galatia to do.",
      "2": "On the first day of every week, each of you is to set something aside in keeping with whatever he gains, saving it up at home, so that when I come, no collections will need to be carried out.",
      "3": "When I arrive, those whom you approve will be provided with letters, and I will send these representatives to deliver your gracious gift to Jerusalem.",
      "4": "If it is appropriate for me to go also, they will go with me.",
      "5": "I will come to you when I have passed through Macedonia, for I am going to go through Macedonia.",
      "6": "Perhaps I will have an extended stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way, wherever I go.",
      "7": "For I do not wish to see you now in passing. I hope to stay with you for a while, if the Lord permits.",
      "8": "But I will stay on in Ephesus until Pentecost,",
      "9": "because a door has opened for me, a great opportunity for action, and there are many adversaries.",
      "10": "But if Timothy comes, make sure he has no reason to be afraid while he is with you, for he does the work of the Lord, as I do.",
      "11": "Therefore let no one despise him. But send him on his way in peace so that he may come to me, because I am expecting him, and so are the brothers with me.",
      "12": "Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to go to you with the brothers. It was not at all his desire to go now, but he will when he has an opportunity.",
      "13": "Keep alert. Stand firm in the faith. Demonstrate manly courage. Be strong.",
      "14": "Let everything you do be done in love.",
      "15": "Brothers, you know Stephanas and his household. You know that they are the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they volunteered for service to the saints.",
      "16": "I urge that you also submit to them and to everyone who joins in and works hard.",
      "17": "I am glad that Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus came, because they supplied what was lacking on your part,",
      "18": "and they refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such people.",
      "19": "The churches in the province of Asia greet you. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, together with the church that meets in their house.",
      "20": "All the brothers greet you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.",
      "21": "This greeting is written by me, Paul, with my own hand.",
      "22": "If anyone does not love the Lord—let him be under a curse! Marana tha!",
      "23": "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.",
      "24": "My love be with all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen."
    }
  },
  "2 Corinthians": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,\nTo the church of God that is in Corinth, together with all the saints who are everywhere in Achaia:",
      "2": "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "3": "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,",
      "4": "who comforts us in all our trouble, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.",
      "5": "For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows.",
      "6": "If we are troubled, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the ability to endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering.",
      "7": "Our hope for you is sure, since we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so you also share in our comfort.",
      "8": "Brothers, we do not want you to be unaware of the trouble that happened to us in the province of Asia. We were burdened so greatly, so far beyond our ability to bear it, that we even gave up hope of living.",
      "9": "Yes, we even felt the sentence of death within ourselves. This happened so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.",
      "10": "He rescued us from such a terrible death, and he will continue to rescue us. We have set our hope on him that he will also rescue us again,",
      "11": "as you join in helping us with your prayers for us. Then many people will thank God for the gracious gift given to us through many prayers.",
      "12": "Indeed, this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world with God-given holiness and sincerity, not with the wisdom of the flesh, but rather in God’s grace—especially toward you.",
      "13": "In fact, we are not writing you anything other than what you read or also understand. And I hope you will understand completely—",
      "14": "as you have also understood us in part—that on the day of our Lord Jesus we are going to be your reason for boasting, just as you are our reason.",
      "15": "In this confidence, I was planning to visit you first, so that you would have a second gracious gift.",
      "16": "Then I planned to travel from you on to Macedonia, and to return again from Macedonia to you to receive help from you on my way to Judea.",
      "17": "So when I made this plan, I did not do it lightly, did I? Or the things I plan, am I planning them the way the sinful flesh does, so that I would be saying both “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?",
      "18": "As surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”",
      "19": "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us (by me, Silas, and Timothy), was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him the “Yes” stands firm.",
      "20": "In fact, as many promises as God has made, they have always been “Yes” in him. For that reason we also say “Amen” through him to the glory of God.",
      "21": "God is the one who makes both us and you to be strong in Christ. He anointed us.",
      "22": "He sealed us as his own and gave us the Spirit as the down payment in our hearts.",
      "23": "I call God as my witness, on my very life, that I avoided coming to Corinth in order to spare you.",
      "24": "Not that we are lording it over your faith, but we are working together with you for your joy. For you stand firm by faith."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "That is why I made up my mind that I would not make another sad visit to you.",
      "2": "For if I make you sad, then who is there to make me glad, other than those I made sad?",
      "3": "I am writing for this very purpose: That when I arrive, I will not be made sad by those who should make me glad. I am confident about all of you—that what gives me joy is what gives joy to all of you.",
      "4": "In fact, out of much trouble and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears. My goal was not to make you sad, but that you would know how very much I love you.",
      "5": "Now if anyone has caused sorrow, he has not done it to me, but to all of you to some extent (not to overstate it).",
      "6": "This punishment inflicted on such a person by the majority is enough,",
      "7": "so that instead you should rather forgive and comfort him, or else such a person could be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.",
      "8": "For that reason, I urge you to reaffirm your love for him.",
      "9": "In fact, this was also the purpose of my writing: I wanted to know the result of your being tested, that is, if you are obedient in all things.",
      "10": "If you forgive anyone anything, I do too. To be sure, if I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven it in the presence of Christ for your sake,",
      "11": "so that Satan would not take advantage of us. We are certainly not unaware of his schemes.",
      "12": "When I came to Troas to proclaim the gospel of Christ and a door was opened for me by the Lord,",
      "13": "I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said good-bye to them and went on to Macedonia.",
      "14": "But thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ and reveals the fragrance of his knowledge through us in every place.",
      "15": "Yes, we are the fragrance of Christ for God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.",
      "16": "To some we are the odor of death that is a prelude to death, to the others the fragrance of life that is a prelude to life. And who is qualified for these things?",
      "17": "To be sure, we are not like many who peddle the word of God for profit. Instead, in Christ we speak with sincerity in the sight of God, as men from God."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?",
      "2": "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.",
      "3": "It is clear that you are a letter from Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets that are hearts of flesh.",
      "4": "Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God.",
      "5": "Not that we are competent by ourselves to claim that anything comes from us; rather, our competence is from God.",
      "6": "He also made us competent as ministers of a new testament (not of letter, but of spirit). For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.",
      "7": "If the ministry that brought death (which was engraved in letters on stone) came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look directly at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face (though it was fading),",
      "8": "how will the ministry of the spirit not be much more glorious?",
      "9": "For if the ministry that brought condemnation has glory, the ministry that brought righteousness has even more glory.",
      "10": "In fact, in this case, what was glorious is no longer very glorious, because of the greater glory of that which surpasses it.",
      "11": "Indeed, if what is fading away was glorious, how much more glorious is that which is permanent!",
      "12": "Therefore, since we have this kind of hope, we act with great boldness.",
      "13": "We are not like Moses, who put a veil over his face, so that the Israelites could not continue to look at the end of the radiance, as it was fading away.",
      "14": "In spite of this, their minds were hardened. Yes, up to the present day, the same veil remains when the Old Testament is read. It has not been removed because it is taken away only in Christ.",
      "15": "Instead, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts.",
      "16": "But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.",
      "17": "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.",
      "18": "But all of us who reflect the Lord’s glory with an unveiled face are being transformed into his own image, from one degree of glory to another. This too is from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Therefore, since we have this ministry as a result of the mercy shown us, we are not discouraged.",
      "2": "On the contrary, we have renounced shameful, underhanded methods. We do not operate in a deceitful way, and we do not distort the word of God. Instead, by proclaiming the truth clearly, we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.",
      "3": "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing.",
      "4": "In the case of those people, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from clearly seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is God’s image.",
      "5": "Indeed, we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.",
      "6": "For the God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” is the same one who made light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.",
      "7": "We hold this treasure in clay jars to show that its extraordinary power is from God and not from us.",
      "8": "We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not despairing;",
      "9": "persecuted, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed.",
      "10": "We always carry around in our body the death of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.",
      "11": "To be sure, while we are living we are continually being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh.",
      "12": "So then, death is working in us, but life is working in you.",
      "13": "Since we have that same spirit of faith, which corresponds to what is written: “I believed; therefore, I have spoken,” we also believe, and therefore we speak.",
      "14": "For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and bring us (together with you) into his presence.",
      "15": "In fact, all this is for your benefit, so that as grace increases, it will overflow to the glory of God, as more and more people give thanks.",
      "16": "Therefore we are not discouraged. But even if our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day.",
      "17": "Yes, our momentary, light trouble produces for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond any comparison.",
      "18": "We are not focusing on what is seen, but on what is not seen. For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Now we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal home in heaven, which is not made by human hands.",
      "2": "In fact, the reason we groan is that we long to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven.",
      "3": "If we do indeed put it on, we will certainly not be found naked.",
      "4": "To be sure, while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.",
      "5": "Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as the down payment.",
      "6": "Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord,",
      "7": "for we walk by faith, not by sight.",
      "8": "But we are confident and would much prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.",
      "9": "And for this reason we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home or away.",
      "10": "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he did while in the body, whether good or bad.",
      "11": "So, since we know the fear of the Lord, we are trying to persuade people. Now, we are well known by God, and I hope that we are also well known in your consciences.",
      "12": "We are not commending ourselves to you again, but we are giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you have a reply for those who boast about outward appearance rather than what is in the heart.",
      "13": "Actually, if we were out of our minds, it was for God. If we are in our right minds, it is for you.",
      "14": "For the love of Christ compels us, because we came to this conclusion: One died for all; therefore, all died.",
      "15": "And he died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for him, who died in their place and was raised again.",
      "16": "As a result, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we knew Christ according to the flesh, we no longer know him that way.",
      "17": "So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come!",
      "18": "And all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.",
      "19": "That is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation.",
      "20": "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, inasmuch as God is making an appeal through us. We urge you, on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.",
      "21": "God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "As fellow workers we also urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.",
      "2": "For he says:\nAt a favorable time I listened to you,\nand in the day of salvation I helped you.\nLook, now is the favorable time! See, now is the day of salvation!",
      "3": "We are giving no one a reason to stumble in any way, so that our ministry will not be blamed.",
      "4": "Rather, in every way we show ourselves to be God’s ministers: in great endurance, in troubles, in hardships, in difficulties,",
      "5": "in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in hard work, in sleepless nights, in times of hunger;",
      "6": "in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere love,",
      "7": "in the word of truth, in the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness on the right and on the left;",
      "8": "through glory and dishonor, through bad report and good report; treated as deceivers yet being honest,",
      "9": "treated as unknown and yet being well known; as dying, and yet look—we live; as punished yet not put to death;",
      "10": "as grieving yet always rejoicing; as poor yet making many rich; as having nothing yet possessing everything.",
      "11": "We have spoken to you openly, Corinthians. Our heart is standing wide open.",
      "12": "We have plenty of room for you, but you do not have room for us in your affections.",
      "13": "I am speaking as to my children: In exchange, open your hearts wide too.",
      "14": "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?",
      "15": "And what agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what does a believer share in common with an unbeliever?",
      "16": "And what mutual agreement does God’s temple have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, just as God said:\nI will live and walk among them.\nI will be their God, and they will be my people.",
      "17": "Therefore come out from them, and be separate, says the Lord.\nTouch no unclean thing, and I will welcome you.",
      "18": "I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "So then, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles flesh and spirit as we seek to bring sanctification to its goal in the fear of God.",
      "2": "Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one. We have corrupted no one. We have taken advantage of no one.",
      "3": "I am not saying this to condemn you. In fact, I have said before that you are in our hearts—we died together and live together with you!",
      "4": "I have great confidence in you. I am very proud of you. I am filled with encouragement. I am overflowing with joy in all our trouble.",
      "5": "In fact, when we came to Macedonia, our flesh had no relief. Instead, we were troubled in every way—conflicts on the outside, fears on the inside.",
      "6": "But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us with the arrival of Titus,",
      "7": "and not only with his arrival, but also with the comfort he had received concerning you. He told us about your longing, your sorrow, and your serious concern for me. As a result, I rejoiced even more.",
      "8": "For even if I caused you sorrow with my letter, I do not regret it (even though I did regret it, for I see that my letter caused you sorrow—yet only for a little while).",
      "9": "Now I rejoice, not because you were made to feel sorrow, but because this sorrow resulted in repentance. Yes, you were made sorry in a godly way. So you were not harmed in any way by us.",
      "10": "In fact, godly sorrow produces repentance, which leads to salvation, leaving no regret. On the other hand, worldly sorrow produces death.",
      "11": "Yes, look what godly sorrow produced in you: what diligence, what eagerness to clear yourself, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what correction! In every way you proved yourselves to be pure in this matter.",
      "12": "So although I wrote to you, it was not because of the one who did what was wrong, or because of the one who was harmed by it. I wrote instead so that your genuine concern for us would be revealed to you in the sight of God.",
      "13": "For that reason we have been comforted.\nIn addition to our comfort, we rejoiced a great deal more at the joy of Titus, because all of you have set his spirit at rest.",
      "14": "For if I made any boast to him about you, I have not been put to shame. Rather, just as everything we said to you was true, so also our boasting to Titus turned out to be true.",
      "15": "And his heart goes out to you even more, as he remembers the obedience of all of you (how you received him with fear and trembling).",
      "16": "I rejoice because I have complete confidence in you."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "Now brothers, we want you to know about the grace of God that was given in the churches of Macedonia:",
      "2": "In a severe test of trouble, their overflowing joy and their deep poverty overflowed into an abundance of their generosity.",
      "3": "I testify that of their own free will they gave according to their ability, and even beyond their ability,",
      "4": "pleading with us with an urgent request for the gracious privilege of joining in this service to the saints.",
      "5": "And they did this not as we had expected, but in keeping with God’s will they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us.",
      "6": "As a result we urged Titus, since he had already made a beginning, to bring to completion this gracious gift on your part.",
      "7": "But just as you overflow in every way—in faith, in word, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us—see that you also overflow in this gracious gift.",
      "8": "I do not say this as a command, but to test how genuine your love is, by comparing it with the eagerness of others.",
      "9": "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.",
      "10": "And I am giving advice in this matter because it is going to be helpful for you. Last year, you were not only the first to take action, but also the first to be willing.",
      "11": "Now bring the work to completion too, so that your eagerness to start may be matched by your completing it with what you have.",
      "12": "For if the eagerness is there, a gift is acceptable according to what someone has, not according to what he does not have.",
      "13": "Certainly, our goal is not that others take it easy while you are burdened, but that there may be equality.",
      "14": "At the present time, your abundance will provide what they lack, in order that their abundance will also provide what you lack—in this way there will be equality.",
      "15": "As it is written, “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”",
      "16": "Thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you,",
      "17": "because he accepted our encouragement and went to you eagerly, of his own free will.",
      "18": "We sent along with him the brother who is recognized by all the churches for his preaching of the gospel.",
      "19": "Not only that—but also he was elected by the churches to be our traveling companion, as we administer this gracious gift to the glory of the Lord and to show our eagerness to help.",
      "20": "We are trying to avoid any criticism of the way we are administering this lavish gift.",
      "21": "To be sure, we are taking into consideration what is proper, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of other people.",
      "22": "We sent along with them our brother who has often proved to us in many tests that he is eager, and now is even more eager, because of the great confidence he has in you.",
      "23": "As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker for your benefit. Our brothers, messengers sent by the churches, are the glory of Christ.",
      "24": "So then, show the evidence of your love in the sight of the churches, and demonstrate why we boasted to them about you."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "It is really not necessary for me to write to you about the service to the saints,",
      "2": "because I know your eagerness. I am boasting about it on your behalf to the Macedonians, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year. Your zeal has stirred up many of them.",
      "3": "But I am sending the brothers so that our boasting on your behalf will not prove to be empty in this case, but that you will be prepared just as I have been saying.",
      "4": "Otherwise, if any Macedonians come along with me and find you unprepared, we (to say nothing of you) would be ashamed of this confidence.",
      "5": "That is why I considered it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance, and to arrange ahead of time the expression of praise that you previously promised, so that it may be ready as an expression of praise, not of grudging selfishness.",
      "6": "This is what I mean: The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. The one who sows generously will also reap generously.",
      "7": "Each one should give as he has determined in his heart, not reluctantly or under pressure, for God loves a cheerful giver.",
      "8": "God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will overflow in every good work.",
      "9": "As it is written:\nHe scattered; he gave to the poor.\nHis righteousness remains forever.",
      "10": "And he who provides seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed for sowing, and will increase the harvest of your righteousness.",
      "11": "You will be made rich in every way so that you may be generous in every way, which produces thanksgiving to God through us.",
      "12": "To be sure, the administration of this service is not only making up for what is lacking among the saints, but it is also overflowing in many prayers of thanksgiving to God.",
      "13": "By proving yourselves in this service, many people are glorifying God, as they see the obedience shown in your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity shown in your sharing with them and all people.",
      "14": "At the same time as they pray for you, they also express their longing for you, because of the extraordinary measure of God’s grace given to you.",
      "15": "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!"
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Now I myself, Paul, appeal to you by the humility and gentleness of Christ—I, who am “gentle” when I am in your presence, but “bold” toward you when I am away.",
      "2": "I pray that, when I arrive there, I may not have to be bold with the confidence that I expect to use in daring to confront some who think that we walk in the way the sinful flesh does.",
      "3": "For even though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage war in the way the sinful flesh does.",
      "4": "Certainly, the weapons of our warfare are not those of the flesh, but weapons made powerful by God for tearing down strongholds. We tear down thoughts",
      "5": "such as all arrogance that rises up against the knowledge of God, and we make every thought captive so that it is obedient to Christ.",
      "6": "And we are ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is fully restored.",
      "7": "You are looking at things only according to the outward appearance. If anyone has convinced himself that he belongs to Christ, let him consider this about himself: We belong to Christ just as much as he does.",
      "8": "Indeed, even if I may boast some more about our authority, which the Lord has given for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will not be put to shame.",
      "9": "My purpose is not to seem as if I am trying to frighten you by my letters.",
      "10": "For some say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his physical presence is weak, and his speech amounts to nothing.”",
      "11": "Let such a person consider this: What we are, by our word through letters when we are away, is just what we will be in our work when we are present.",
      "12": "To be sure, we do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who speak highly of themselves. On the contrary, when they measure themselves only by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.",
      "13": "But we will not boast about things that cannot be measured. Instead, we will boast according to the measure of the assignment that the God who measures things measured out to us: to reach out also as far as to you.",
      "14": "Indeed, we are not overdoing our boasting, as if we had not come to you. In fact, we were the first ones to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ.",
      "15": "We are not boasting about things that cannot be measured, that is, in the hard work of others. But we are hoping that, as your faith grows, our assignment will be greatly increased while we are among you,",
      "16": "with the result that we will preach the gospel to the regions beyond you. Then we will not be boasting about what someone else has already done in his assignment.",
      "17": "But let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.",
      "18": "To be sure, it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "I wish that you would be patient with me in regard to a little foolishness—but you are already being patient with me.",
      "2": "You see, I am jealous about you, with a godly jealousy, because I promised to present you as a pure virgin to one husband, Christ.",
      "3": "But I am afraid that somehow, just as the serpent deceived Eve with his cunning, so also your minds might be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.",
      "4": "In fact, if someone comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you accept a different spirit, which you did not accept before, or a different “gospel,” which you did not welcome before, you put up with it all too well.",
      "5": "I do not think that I am in any way inferior to the “super-apostles.”",
      "6": "But even if I am an amateur in speech, yet I am not an amateur in knowledge. No, in everything we have clearly demonstrated that to you in every way.",
      "7": "Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself, so that you would be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge?",
      "8": "I robbed other churches, by receiving support from them to minister to you!",
      "9": "And when I was with you and needed something, I did not burden anyone, because when the brothers came from Macedonia, they supplied what I needed. In every way I kept myself from ever being a burden to you, and I will continue to do so.",
      "10": "As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting about me will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia.",
      "11": "Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do.",
      "12": "But what I am doing, and will continue to do, is being done in order to cut off the opportunity of those who want an opportunity to boast that they should be considered equal to us.",
      "13": "In fact, such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.",
      "14": "And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.",
      "15": "So it is no great surprise if his ministers also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Their end will match their works.",
      "16": "I say again, no one should think that I am a fool. But if you do, then receive me as a fool, so that I may boast a little.",
      "17": "What I am saying when I boast so confidently is not the way the Lord speaks; rather, it is a foolish manner of speaking.",
      "18": "Since many are boasting as the sinful flesh does, I will also boast.",
      "19": "You gladly put up with fools, since you are just so wise!",
      "20": "In fact, you put up with it if anyone makes you his slave, robs you, takes advantage of you, looks down on you, or strikes you in the face!",
      "21": "I am ashamed to say that we were too weak for that!\nHowever bold anyone might be (I am speaking in a foolish way), I am going to be bold too.",
      "22": "Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s seed? So am I.",
      "23": "Are they ministers of Christ? (I am speaking in a crazy way.) I am even more. I’ve done more hard work, been in prisons more often, been whipped far more, and I’ve been close to death many times.",
      "24": "Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.",
      "25": "Three times I was beaten with rods. One time I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day on the open sea.",
      "26": "I have often been on journeys, in danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from my own people, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the wilderness, in danger on the sea, in danger among false brothers.",
      "27": "I have worked hard and struggled. I’ve spent many sleepless nights. I’ve been hungry and thirsty. I’ve gone without food many times. I’ve been cold and lacked clothing.",
      "28": "Besides those external matters, there is the daily pressure on me of my concern for all the churches.",
      "29": "Who is weak without my being weak? Who falls into sin without my being distressed?",
      "30": "If it is necessary that I boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.",
      "31": "The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is eternally blessed, knows that I am not lying.",
      "32": "In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas kept the city of Damascus on alert to arrest me,",
      "33": "but I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped from his hands."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "I must go on boasting, although there is nothing to be gained. So I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.",
      "2": "I know a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago, was carried up to the third heaven (whether in the body, I do not know, or out of the body, I do not know—God knows).",
      "3": "And I know that such a man (whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know—God knows)",
      "4": "was carried up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words that a man cannot possibly speak.",
      "5": "On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except about my weaknesses.",
      "6": "Indeed, if I wanted to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain from doing this, so that no one will think more highly of me than what he sees in me or hears from me.",
      "7": "Therefore, to keep me from becoming arrogant due to the extraordinary nature of these revelations, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me, so that I would not become arrogant.",
      "8": "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that he would take it away from me.",
      "9": "And he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will be glad to boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may shelter me.",
      "10": "That is why I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For whenever I am weak, then am I strong.",
      "11": "I have become a fool. You forced me. After all, I ought to be commended by you, because I was not inferior to the “super-apostles” in any way, even if I am nothing.",
      "12": "The signs of an apostle—signs and wonders and miracles—were performed among you with all perseverance.",
      "13": "For how were you treated worse than the other churches, except that I myself was not a burden to you? Forgive me for this wrong.",
      "14": "See, this is the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you, because I do not seek your possessions, but you. After all, the children should not have to save up for their parents, but the parents for their children.",
      "15": "But I will very gladly spend and be completely spent on behalf of your souls. If I love you all the more, am I to be loved that much less?",
      "16": "But be that as it may, I did not burden you. Oh, but I was just being crafty and using deceit to exploit you, wasn’t I!",
      "17": "Did I ever take advantage of you through any one of the men I sent to you?",
      "18": "I urged Titus to go and sent our brother with him. Surely Titus did not take any advantage of you, did he? Did we not walk in the same spirit—in the very same footprints?",
      "19": "Are you thinking that we are trying to defend ourselves to you all this time? We are speaking in the sight of God in Christ. Dear friends, all these words are for your strengthening.",
      "20": "For I am afraid that when I arrive, I may not find you as I want you to be, and that you might not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, pride, and disorder.",
      "21": "I fear that, when I arrive again, my God will humble me in regard to you, and I will have to grieve for many who sinned earlier and have not repented of the uncleanness, the sexual immorality, and the lewd sins they committed."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "This is the third time I am coming to you. “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”",
      "2": "I have said this before, and before I arrive I am saying it again—as I did when I was present the second time, even though I am now absent—to those who sinned earlier and to all the rest: When I arrive, I will not spare you.",
      "3": "I say this because you are seeking proof that Christ (who is not weak toward you, but is powerful in you) is speaking in me.",
      "4": "To be sure, he was crucified as a result of weakness, yet he lives as a result of God’s power. Certainly, we are also weak in him, but we will live with him for your benefit, as a result of God’s power.",
      "5": "Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not know this about yourselves: that Jesus Christ is in you—unless perhaps you fail the test?",
      "6": "But I hope that you will recognize that we are not failing the test.",
      "7": "We pray to God that you may not do anything evil, not so that we may appear to have passed the test, but so that you may do what is good, even if we may seem like those who are failing to pass the test.",
      "8": "To be sure, we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.",
      "9": "Yes, we rejoice whenever we are weak and you are strong. And we are praying for your complete restoration.",
      "10": "It is for this reason that I am writing these things while I am still absent, so that, when I am present, I may not have to deal harshly with you, using the authority that the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.",
      "11": "Finally, brothers, rejoice. Set things in order. Be encouraged. Agree with one another. Be at peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.",
      "12": "Greet one another with a holy kiss.",
      "13": "All the saints greet you.",
      "14": "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."
    }
  },
  "Galatians": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, an apostle—not from men, nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—",
      "2": "and all of the brothers who are with me,\nTo the churches of Galatia:",
      "3": "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "4": "He gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father—",
      "5": "to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.",
      "6": "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ, for a different gospel,",
      "7": "which is really not another gospel at all. There are, however, some who are trying to disturb you by perverting the gospel of Christ.",
      "8": "But even if we or an angel from heaven would preach any gospel other than the one we preached to you—a curse on him!",
      "9": "As we have said before, so I now say again: If anyone preaches to you any gospel other than the one you received—a curse on him!",
      "10": "Am I now seeking the favor of people or of God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to gain the approval of people, I would not be a servant of Christ.",
      "11": "But I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin.",
      "12": "For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation from Jesus Christ.",
      "13": "Certainly you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God to an extraordinary degree and tried to destroy it.",
      "14": "I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my own people, because I was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.",
      "15": "However, God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased",
      "16": "to reveal his Son in me, so that I would preach him among the Gentiles. At that time, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood,",
      "17": "and I did not go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. Instead I went away into Arabia, and then I returned again to Damascus.",
      "18": "Next, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to meet Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days.",
      "19": "But I saw none of the other apostles, except James, the Lord’s brother.",
      "20": "(Now about the things I am writing to you—look, I assure you in the presence of God that I am not lying.)",
      "21": "Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.",
      "22": "I was still personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.",
      "23": "They heard only: “The one who was once persecuting us is now preaching the faith that he once tried to destroy.”",
      "24": "And they were praising God for what happened to me."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Then, after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, also taking Titus with me.",
      "2": "I went up in keeping with a revelation, and I laid before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. But I did this privately before those who were considered important, in order to make sure that I was not running—or had not run—in vain.",
      "3": "But Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, even though he is Greek.",
      "4": "This was an issue because of the false brothers, who slipped in under false pretenses to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. Their goal was to make us slaves.",
      "5": "We refused to give in to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel would continue with you.",
      "6": "But as for those who were considered to be important (what sort of people they once were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality), indeed, those who were considered to be important added nothing to my gospel.",
      "7": "On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter was entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised.",
      "8": "For God, who worked effectively in Peter to serve as an apostle to the circumcised, also worked effectively in me to serve as an apostle to the Gentiles.",
      "9": "And because James, Cephas, and John, who were considered to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship. They agreed that we were to go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.",
      "10": "The only thing they asked was that we remember the poor, the very thing that I was also eager to do.",
      "11": "But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly wrong.",
      "12": "For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when those people came, he drew back and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision group.",
      "13": "And the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.",
      "14": "But when I saw that they were not acting according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of all of them, “If you, a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live like the Jews?”",
      "15": "“We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.",
      "16": "We know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.",
      "17": "But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves were also found to be sinners, then is Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not!",
      "18": "“In fact, if I build up again those things that I destroyed, I bring on myself the judgment of being a lawbreaker.",
      "19": "Indeed, through the law I died to the law that I might live for God.",
      "20": "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I am now living in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.",
      "21": "I do not regard the grace of God as nothing. As a matter of fact, if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.",
      "2": "I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?",
      "3": "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to reach the goal by the flesh?",
      "4": "Did you experience so many things for nothing, if it were indeed for nothing?",
      "5": "So then, does the one who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the law? Or does he do it by your believing what you hear—",
      "6": "in the same way as Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”?",
      "7": "Understand, then, that those who believe are the children of Abraham.",
      "8": "Foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, Scripture proclaimed the gospel in advance to Abraham, saying, “In you, all nations will be blessed.”",
      "9": "So then, those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.",
      "10": "In fact, those who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.”",
      "11": "Clearly no one is declared righteous before God by the law, because “The righteous will live by faith.”",
      "12": "The law does not say “by faith.” Instead it says, “The one who does these things will live by them.”",
      "13": "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. As it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”",
      "14": "He redeemed us in order that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that we would receive the promised Spirit through faith.",
      "15": "Brothers, I am speaking in human terms. When someone has established a last will and testament, no one nullifies it or adds to it.",
      "16": "The promises God spoke referred to Abraham and to his seed. It doesn’t say, “And to seeds,” as if it were referring to many, but, as referring to one, “And to your seed,” who is Christ.",
      "17": "What I am saying is this: The law, which came into being 430 years after the covenant established earlier by God in Christ, does not annul that covenant, with the result that it invalidates the promise.",
      "18": "In fact, if the inheritance is by the law, it is no longer by the promise. But God graciously gave it to Abraham by a promise.",
      "19": "Then what about the law? It was added for the purpose of revealing transgressions, until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. It was transmitted through angels by the hand of a mediator.",
      "20": "Now a mediator is not needed for one party, but God is one.",
      "21": "Then is the law against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given that could give life, certainly righteousness would have been derived from the law.",
      "22": "But Scripture imprisoned all things under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ would be given to those who believe.",
      "23": "But before this faith came, we were held in custody under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed.",
      "24": "So the law was our chaperone until Christ, so that we might be justified by faith.",
      "25": "But now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a chaperone.",
      "26": "In fact, you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.",
      "27": "Indeed, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.",
      "28": "There is not Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one and the same in Christ Jesus.",
      "29": "And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants and heirs according to the promise."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "What I am saying is this: As long as the heir is a young child, he is no different from a slave. Although he is owner of everything,",
      "2": "he is still under guardians and managers until the day set by his father.",
      "3": "So also, when we were younger children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world.",
      "4": "But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law,",
      "5": "in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons.",
      "6": "And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to shout, “Abba, Father!”",
      "7": "So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if you are a son, then you are also an heir of God through Christ.",
      "8": "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.",
      "9": "But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, why are you turning back again to the basic principles that are weak and miserable? Do you want to be enslaved by them all over again?",
      "10": "You carefully observe days, months, seasons, and years.",
      "11": "I am fearful about you, that somehow my labor for you was wasted.",
      "12": "I beg you, brothers, become like me, for I also became like you. You did me no harm.",
      "13": "You know that, because of a weakness of the flesh, I preached the gospel to you the first time.",
      "14": "And you did not despise or disdain the test my flesh gave you. Instead, you welcomed me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.",
      "15": "So where is this blessed attitude of yours now? Yes, I can say for a fact that, if it were possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.",
      "16": "So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?",
      "17": "Those people are eager to win you over, but not in a good way. Rather, they want to alienate you, so that you will be eager for them.",
      "18": "But it is always a good thing to have someone eager in a good way—not just when I am present with you.",
      "19": "My children, I am suffering birth pains for you again until Christ is formed in you.",
      "20": "I wish I were present with you now and could change my tone, because I am perplexed about you.",
      "21": "Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you really listening to the law?",
      "22": "For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman, and one by the free woman.",
      "23": "However, the son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but the son by the free woman was born through a promise.",
      "24": "These things can be used as an illustration; namely, the women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children into slavery. This is Hagar.",
      "25": "You see, this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and she corresponds to present-day Jerusalem, because Jerusalem is in slavery along with her children.",
      "26": "But the Jerusalem that is above is free. She is our mother.",
      "27": "For it is written:\nRejoice, barren woman who does not give birth. Break forth and shout for joy, woman who does not suffer birth pains, because the barren woman has more children than does the woman who has a husband.",
      "28": "Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of the promise.",
      "29": "But just as back then the one who was born according to the flesh persecuted the one who was born according to the Spirit, so this is also the case now.",
      "30": "But what does the Scripture say? “Throw out the slave woman and her son, because the son of the slave woman will certainly not receive the inheritance with the son of the free woman.”",
      "31": "For this same reason, brothers, we are not children of a slave woman, but of the free woman."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not allow anyone to put the yoke of slavery on you again.",
      "2": "Look, I, Paul, tell you that if you allow yourselves to be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you.",
      "3": "I testify again to every man who allows himself to be circumcised that he is obligated to do the whole law.",
      "4": "You who are trying to be declared righteous by the law are completely separated from Christ. You have fallen from grace.",
      "5": "Indeed, through the Spirit, we by faith are eagerly waiting for the sure hope of righteousness.",
      "6": "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters. Rather, it is faith working through love that matters.",
      "7": "You were running well! Who cut in on you, so that you are no longer persuaded by the truth?",
      "8": "This persuasion is not from the one who calls you.",
      "9": "A little yeast works through the whole batch.",
      "10": "I am confident in the Lord that you will have no other opinion than this. But the one who is trying to disturb you will pay the penalty, whoever he is.",
      "11": "Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? Then the offense of the cross has been abolished.",
      "12": "If only those who are upsetting you would also cut themselves off!",
      "13": "After all, brothers, you were called to freedom. Only do not use your freedom as a starting point for your sinful flesh. Rather, serve one another through love.",
      "14": "In fact, the whole law is summed up in this one statement: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”",
      "15": "But if you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.",
      "16": "What I am saying is this: Walk by the spirit, and you will not carry out what the sinful flesh desires.",
      "17": "For the sinful flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the sinful flesh. In fact, these two continually oppose one another, so that you do not continue to do these things you want to do.",
      "18": "But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the control of the law.",
      "19": "Now the works of the sinful flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, complete lack of restraint,",
      "20": "idolatry, sorcery, hatred, discord, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies,",
      "21": "envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things similar to these. I warn you, just as I also warned you before, that those who continue to do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.",
      "22": "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,",
      "23": "gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.",
      "24": "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful flesh with its passions and desires.",
      "25": "If we live by the spirit, let us also walk in step with it.",
      "26": "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Brothers, if a person is caught in some trespass, you who are spiritual should restore such a person in a spirit of humility, carefully watching yourself so that you are not also tempted.",
      "2": "Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ.",
      "3": "For if someone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.",
      "4": "Let each person test his own work, and then he will take pride in regard to himself and not his neighbor.",
      "5": "For each man will bear his own burden.",
      "6": "Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with his teacher.",
      "7": "Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. To be sure, whatever a man sows, he will also reap.",
      "8": "Indeed, the one who sows for his own sinful flesh will reap destruction from the sinful flesh. But the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.",
      "9": "Let us not become weary of doing good, because at the appointed time we will reap, if we do not give up.",
      "10": "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the household of faith.",
      "11": "See what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.",
      "12": "Those who want to look good in the flesh are the ones who are trying to compel you to be circumcised. Their only reason is so that they are not persecuted for the cross of Christ.",
      "13": "As a matter of fact, those who are circumcised do not keep the law themselves. But they want to have you circumcised, so that they can boast about your flesh.",
      "14": "But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.",
      "15": "In fact, in Christ Jesus circumcision or uncircumcision does not matter. What matters is being a new creation.",
      "16": "Peace and mercy on those who follow this rule, namely, on the Israel of God.",
      "17": "Finally, let no one cause me any trouble, because I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus on my body.",
      "18": "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen."
    }
  },
  "Ephesians": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,\nTo the saints who are in Ephesus, who are believers in Christ Jesus:",
      "2": "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "3": "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.",
      "4": "He did this when he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy and blameless in his sight. In love",
      "5": "he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ. He did this in accordance with the good purpose of his will,",
      "6": "and for the praise of his glorious grace, which he has graciously given us in the one he loves.",
      "7": "In him we also have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in keeping with the riches of his grace,",
      "8": "which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight.",
      "9": "He made known to us the mystery of his will in keeping with his good purpose, which he planned in Christ.",
      "10": "This was to be carried out when the time had fully come, in order to bring all things together in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.",
      "11": "In him we have also obtained an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in keeping with the purpose of his will.",
      "12": "He did this so that his glory would be praised as a result of us, who were the first to hope in Christ.",
      "13": "In him, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and in him, when you also believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.",
      "14": "He is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of God’s own possession, so that his glory would be praised.",
      "15": "This is why, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,",
      "16": "I never stop giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.",
      "17": "I keep praying that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, will give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing Christ fully.",
      "18": "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope to which he has called you, just how rich his glorious inheritance among the saints is,",
      "19": "and just how surpassingly great his power is for us who believe.",
      "20": "It is as great as the working of his mighty strength, which God worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,",
      "21": "far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, and above every name that is given, not only in this age but also in the one to come.",
      "22": "God also placed all things under his feet and made him head over everything for the church.",
      "23": "The church is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "You were dead in your trespasses and sins,",
      "2": "in which you formerly walked when you followed the ways of this present world. You were following the ruler of the domain of the air, the spirit now at work in the people who disobey.",
      "3": "Formerly, we all lived among them in the passions of our sinful flesh, as we carried out the desires of the sinful flesh and its thoughts. Like all the others, we were by nature objects of God’s wrath.",
      "4": "But God, because he is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,",
      "5": "made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!",
      "6": "He also raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.",
      "7": "He did this so that, in the coming ages, he might demonstrate the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.",
      "8": "Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—",
      "9": "not by works, so that no one can boast.",
      "10": "For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance so that we would walk in them.",
      "11": "Therefore, remember that at one time, you Gentiles in the flesh—the ones who are called “uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised” (which is performed physically by human hands)—",
      "12": "remember that at that time you were separated from Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise. You were without hope and without God in the world.",
      "13": "But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.",
      "14": "For he himself is our peace. He made the two groups one by destroying the wall of hostility that divided them",
      "15": "when he abolished the law of commandments and regulations in his flesh. He did this to create in himself one new person out of the two, in this way making peace.",
      "16": "And he did this to reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by putting the hostility to death on it.",
      "17": "He also came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.",
      "18": "For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.",
      "19": "So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household.",
      "20": "You have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the Cornerstone.",
      "21": "In him the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.",
      "22": "In him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—",
      "2": "Surely you have heard of the administration of God’s grace given to me for you,",
      "3": "namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation (as I have already written briefly).",
      "4": "When you read this, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.",
      "5": "This mystery was not made known to people in past generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets.",
      "6": "This mystery is that in Christ Jesus the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and people who also share in the promise through the gospel.",
      "7": "I became a servant of this gospel, in keeping with the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by the working of his power.",
      "8": "To me—even though I am the very least of all the saints—was given this grace: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ",
      "9": "and to enlighten everyone about the administration of this mystery. In past ages this mystery remained hidden in God, who created all things.",
      "10": "He did this so that, through the church, the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.",
      "11": "This was done according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.",
      "12": "In him we can freely approach God with confidence through faith in him.",
      "13": "So I ask you not to lose heart because of what I am suffering for you, because it is your glory.",
      "14": "For this reason I kneel before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,",
      "15": "from whom the entire family in heaven and on earth receives its name.",
      "16": "I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he would strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner self,",
      "17": "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then, being rooted and grounded in love,",
      "18": "I pray that you would be able to comprehend, along with all the saints, how wide and long and high and deep his love is,",
      "19": "and that you would be able to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.",
      "20": "Now to him, who is able, according to the power that is at work within us, to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine,",
      "21": "to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "As a prisoner in the Lord, therefore, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.",
      "2": "Live with all humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love.",
      "3": "Make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.",
      "4": "There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in the one hope of your calling.",
      "5": "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,",
      "6": "one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all.",
      "7": "But to each one of us grace was given, according to the measure of the gift from Christ.",
      "8": "That is why it says, “When he ascended on high, he took captivity captive and gave gifts to his people.”",
      "9": "Now what does it mean when it says “he ascended,” other than that he also had descended to the lower parts, namely, the earth?",
      "10": "He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.",
      "11": "He himself gave the apostles, as well as the prophets, as well as the evangelists, as well as the pastors and teachers,",
      "12": "for the purpose of training the saints for the work of serving, in order to build up the body of Christ.",
      "13": "This is to continue until we all reach unity in the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, resulting in a mature man with a stature reaching to the measure of the fullness of Christ.",
      "14": "The goal is that we would no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, when people use tricks and invent clever ways to lead us astray.",
      "15": "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we would in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head.",
      "16": "From him the whole body, being joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows in accordance with Christ’s activity when he measured out each individual part. He causes the growth of the body so that it builds itself up in love.",
      "17": "So I tell you this and testify to it in the Lord: Do not walk any longer as the Gentiles walk, in their futile way of thinking.",
      "18": "They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of their hearts.",
      "19": "Because they have no sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality, with an ever-increasing desire to practice every kind of impurity.",
      "20": "But you did not learn Christ in that way,",
      "21": "if indeed you have heard of him and were taught in him (since the truth is in Jesus).",
      "22": "As far as your former way of life is concerned, you were taught to take off the old self, which is corrupted by its deceitful desires,",
      "23": "and to be renewed continually in the spirit of your mind,",
      "24": "and to put on the new self, which has been created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness.",
      "25": "Therefore, after you put away lying, let each of you speak truthfully with your neighbor, because we are all members of one body.",
      "26": "“Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.",
      "27": "Do not give the Devil an opportunity.",
      "28": "Let the one who has been stealing steal no longer. Instead, let him work hard doing what is good with his own hands, so that he has something to share with a person who is in need.",
      "29": "Do not let any unwholesome talk come from your mouths. Say only what is beneficial when there is a need to build up others, so that it will be a blessing to those who hear.",
      "30": "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.",
      "31": "Get rid of every kind of bitterness, rage, anger, quarreling, and slander, along with every kind of malice.",
      "32": "Instead, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven us."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Therefore, be imitators of God as his dearly loved children.",
      "2": "And walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.",
      "3": "But do not let sexual immorality, any kind of impurity, or greed even be mentioned among you, as is proper for saints.",
      "4": "Obscenity, foolish talk, and coarse joking are also out of place. Instead, give thanks.",
      "5": "Certainly you are aware of this: No immoral, impure, or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, who is God.",
      "6": "Let no one deceive you with empty words. It is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience.",
      "7": "So do not share in what they do.",
      "8": "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,",
      "9": "for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.",
      "10": "Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord,",
      "11": "and do not participate in fruitless deeds of darkness. Instead, expose them.",
      "12": "For it is shameful even to mention the things that are done by people in secret.",
      "13": "But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes things visible.",
      "14": "Therefore it is said, “Awake, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”",
      "15": "Consider carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise people, but as wise people.",
      "16": "Make the most of your time, because the days are evil.",
      "17": "For this reason, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.",
      "18": "And do not get drunk on wine, which causes you to lose control. Instead, be filled with the Spirit",
      "19": "by speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (singing and making music with your hearts to the Lord),",
      "20": "by always giving thanks for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,",
      "21": "and by submitting to one another in reverence for Christ.",
      "22": "Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.",
      "23": "For the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he himself is the Savior.",
      "24": "Moreover, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.",
      "25": "Husbands, love your wives, in the same way as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her",
      "26": "to make her holy, by cleansing her with the washing of water in connection with the Word.",
      "27": "He did this so that he could present her to himself as a glorious church, having no stain or wrinkle or any such thing, but so that she would be holy and blameless.",
      "28": "In the same way, husbands have an obligation to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.",
      "29": "To be sure, no one has ever hated his own body, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,",
      "30": "because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones.",
      "31": "“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will be one flesh.”",
      "32": "This is a great mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.",
      "33": "In any case, each one of you also is to love his wife as himself, and each wife is to respect her husband."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.",
      "2": "“Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise:",
      "3": "“that it may go well with you and that you may live a long life on the earth.”",
      "4": "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.",
      "5": "Slaves, obey your human masters with respect and reverence, and with a sincere heart, just as you obey Christ.",
      "6": "Do this not just when they are watching, as if merely to please people, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.",
      "7": "Serve with eagerness, as for the Lord and not for people,",
      "8": "because you know that each person, whether slave or free, will receive back from the Lord whatever good he has done.",
      "9": "And masters, do the same for your slaves. Do not threaten them, because you know that the one who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and with him there is no favoritism.",
      "10": "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.",
      "11": "Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the schemes of the Devil.",
      "12": "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.",
      "13": "For this reason, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to take a stand on the evil day and, after you have done everything, to stand.",
      "14": "Stand, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness fastened in place,",
      "15": "and with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace tied to your feet like sandals.",
      "16": "At all times hold up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One.",
      "17": "Also take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.",
      "18": "At every opportunity, pray in the Spirit with every kind of prayer and petition. Stay alert for the same reason, always persevering in your intercession for all the saints.",
      "19": "Pray for me also, that when I open my mouth a message will be given to me that boldly reveals the mystery of the gospel,",
      "20": "for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may speak about it boldly, as it is necessary for me to speak.",
      "21": "Tychicus, our dear brother and a faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing.",
      "22": "I am sending him to you for this very reason, that you may know how we are, and that he may comfort your hearts.",
      "23": "Peace to the brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "24": "Grace be with all who have an undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
    }
  },
  "Philippians": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,\nTo all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons:",
      "2": "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "3": "I thank my God every time I remember you.",
      "4": "Every time I pray for all of you, I always pray with joy,",
      "5": "because of your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.",
      "6": "I am convinced of this very thing: that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.",
      "7": "I am equally convinced that it is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, for both in my chains and in my defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all share in this grace with me.",
      "8": "Yes, God is my witness of how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.",
      "9": "And I pray that your love may still increase more and more in knowledge and every insight.",
      "10": "This will result in your approval of the things that really matter, so that you will be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,",
      "11": "filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.",
      "12": "I want you to know, brothers, that the things which happened to me actually took place to advance the gospel.",
      "13": "And so it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to all the rest, that I am in chains because of Christ.",
      "14": "And, through my chains, the majority of the brothers in the Lord have become much more confident about daring to speak the word of God fearlessly.",
      "15": "Some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, and others out of good will.",
      "16": "The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am placed here for the defense of the gospel.",
      "17": "The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking they can cause trouble for me while I am in chains.",
      "18": "What does it matter? Only this, that in every way, whether for outward appearance or for the truth, Christ is being proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.\nYes, and I will continue to rejoice,",
      "19": "because I know that this will turn out for my deliverance, through your prayer and the support of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.",
      "20": "This matches my earnest expectation and hope that I will in no way be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, so even now, Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.",
      "21": "Yes, for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.",
      "22": "But if I am to go on living in the flesh, that will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet which should I prefer? I do not know.",
      "23": "I am pulled in two directions, because I have the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.",
      "24": "But, it is more necessary for your sake that I remain in the flesh.",
      "25": "And since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and will continue with all of you, for your progress and joy in the faith.",
      "26": "And so by my coming to you again, my goal is to give you even more reason to boast in Christ Jesus.",
      "27": "Just conduct yourselves in a way that is worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come to see you or am absent, I may hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, contending together with one soul for the faith of the gospel,",
      "28": "not frightened in any way by the adversaries. This is a sign for them of their destruction and of your salvation, and that from God.",
      "29": "For it has been graciously granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him,",
      "30": "having the same kind of struggle that you saw I was in, and that you now hear I am still experiencing."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,",
      "2": "then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being united in spirit, and having one mind.",
      "3": "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility consider one another better than yourselves.",
      "4": "Let each of you look carefully not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.",
      "5": "Indeed, let this attitude be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.",
      "6": "Though he was by nature God, he did not consider equality with God as a prize to be displayed,",
      "7": "but he emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. When he was born in human likeness, and his appearance was like that of any other man,",
      "8": "he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.",
      "9": "Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,",
      "10": "so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,",
      "11": "and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.",
      "12": "So then, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only when I was with you, but also now much more in my absence, continue to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.",
      "13": "In fact, it is God who is working in you, both to will and to work, for the sake of his good pleasure.",
      "14": "Do everything without complaining and arguing,",
      "15": "so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without blemish among a crooked and perverted generation. You shine among them like lights in the world,",
      "16": "as you hold on to the word of life. Then I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.",
      "17": "But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I continue to be glad and rejoice with you all.",
      "18": "In the same way, also be glad and rejoice with me.",
      "19": "I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered when I receive news about you.",
      "20": "To be sure, I have no one else like him, who will be genuinely concerned about your welfare.",
      "21": "For, the others all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.",
      "22": "But you know Timothy’s proven character, that as a child for his father, he served with me in the gospel.",
      "23": "So he is the one I hope to send just as soon as I see how things go with me.",
      "24": "But I have confidence in the Lord that I myself will be coming soon too.",
      "25": "I also considered it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier, as well as the one you sent to serve me in my need.",
      "26": "I sent him because he was longing for all of you and was distressed, because you had heard that he was sick.",
      "27": "As a matter of fact, he was sick, nearly to death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow.",
      "28": "Now I am especially eager to send him, so that you may rejoice when you see him again, and I may be relieved.",
      "29": "Therefore, receive him in the Lord with all joy, and hold men like him in high regard,",
      "30": "because he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life in order to fill in what was lacking in your service to me."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things again to you, and it is a safeguard for you.",
      "2": "Beware of the dogs. Beware of the evildoers. Beware of the mutilation.",
      "3": "For we are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who are confident in Christ Jesus, and who place no confidence in the flesh,",
      "4": "even though I have grounds for confidence also in the flesh. If anyone else thinks that he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more:",
      "5": "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;",
      "6": "in regard to zeal, persecuting the church; in regard to the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.",
      "7": "But, whatever things were a profit for me, these things I have come to consider a loss because of Christ.",
      "8": "But even more than that, I consider everything to be a loss because of what is worth far more: knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have lost all things and consider them rubbish, so that I may gain Christ",
      "9": "and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, which comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God by faith.",
      "10": "I do this so that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,",
      "11": "in the hope that in some way I may arrive at the resurrection from the dead.",
      "12": "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus also took hold of me.",
      "13": "Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it yet, but there is one thing I do: Forgetting the things that are behind and straining toward the things that are ahead,",
      "14": "I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.",
      "15": "Therefore, let all of us who are mature continue to think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this to you too.",
      "16": "Only let us think the same thing and walk in line with what we already have attained.",
      "17": "Brothers, join together in imitating me and in paying attention to those who are walking according to the pattern we gave you.",
      "18": "To be sure, many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. I told you about them often, and now I am saying it while weeping.",
      "19": "Their end is destruction, their god is their appetite, and their glory is in their shame. They are thinking only about earthly things.",
      "20": "But our citizenship is in heaven. We are eagerly waiting for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "21": "By the power that enables him to subject all things to himself, he will transform our humble bodies to be like his glorious body."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "So then, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, in this way keep standing firm in the Lord, my dear friends.",
      "2": "I appeal to Euodia and I appeal to Syntyche to come to an agreement in the Lord.",
      "3": "Yes, and I ask you, true coworker, bring these women together, who contended alongside me in the gospel, as did also Clement and the rest of my coworkers, whose names are in the book of life.",
      "4": "Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice!",
      "5": "Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.",
      "6": "Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.",
      "7": "And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.",
      "8": "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if anything is excellent, and if anything is praiseworthy, think about these things.",
      "9": "The things that you learned, received, heard, and saw in me: Keep doing these things. And the God of peace will be with you.",
      "10": "I rejoice greatly in the Lord now that you have revived your concern for me once again. Actually, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it.",
      "11": "I am not saying this because I lack anything; in fact, I have learned to be content in any circumstances in which I find myself.",
      "12": "I know what it is to live in humble circumstances, and I know what it is to have more than enough. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, while being full or hungry, while having plenty or not enough.",
      "13": "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.",
      "14": "Nevertheless, you did well by becoming partners with me in my affliction.",
      "15": "You Philippians know that in the beginning of your experience with the gospel, when I left Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone.",
      "16": "Even while I was in Thessalonica, you sent help more than once for my needs.",
      "17": "Not that I am seeking a gift, but I am seeking the fruit that adds to your account.",
      "18": "I have been paid in full, and I have more than enough. I am fully supplied since I’ve received from Epaphroditus the things that came from you, a sweet-smelling fragrance, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.",
      "19": "And my God will fully supply your every need, according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.",
      "20": "Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever! Amen.",
      "21": "Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you.",
      "22": "All the saints greet you, especially those who are from Caesar’s household.",
      "23": "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen."
    }
  },
  "Colossians": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,",
      "2": "To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:\nGrace to you and peace from God our Father.",
      "3": "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,",
      "4": "because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints",
      "5": "because of the hope that is stored up for you in heaven. You have already heard about this in the word of truth, the gospel",
      "6": "that is present with you now. The gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the entire world, just as it also has been doing among you from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth.",
      "7": "You learned this from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf.",
      "8": "He is the one who told us about your love in the Spirit.",
      "9": "For this reason, from the day we heard about your love, we also have not stopped praying for you. We keep asking that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,",
      "10": "so that you might live in a way that is worthy of the Lord. Our goal is that you please him by bearing fruit in every kind of good work and by growing in the knowledge of God,",
      "11": "as you are being strengthened with all power because of his glorious might working in you. Then you will have complete endurance and patience, joyfully",
      "12": "giving thanks to the Father, who qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.",
      "13": "The Father rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,",
      "14": "in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.",
      "15": "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,",
      "16": "for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, things seen and unseen, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.",
      "17": "He is before all things, and all things hold together in him.",
      "18": "He is also the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things he might have the highest rank.",
      "19": "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,",
      "20": "and through him to reconcile all things to himself (whether things on earth or in heaven) by making peace through the blood of his cross.",
      "21": "At one time, you were alienated from God and hostile in your thinking as expressed through your evil deeds.",
      "22": "But now Christ reconciled you in his body of flesh through death, in order to present you holy, blameless, and faultless before him—",
      "23": "if you continue steadfast and firm in faith, without being moved away from the hope of the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a minister.",
      "24": "Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.",
      "25": "I became a minister of the church for your benefit when God gave me the task of fully proclaiming the word of God,",
      "26": "namely, the mystery that was hidden for past ages and generations, but now has been revealed to his saints.",
      "27": "God wanted to make known to them what is the wealth of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles—this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.",
      "28": "We proclaim him as we admonish and teach everyone with all wisdom, so that we might present everyone perfect in Christ.",
      "29": "This is the goal I am laboring to reach, striving with his strength, which is powerfully at work in me."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Indeed, I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those in Laodicea, and for all those who have not seen me personally.",
      "2": "I am doing this so that their hearts may be encouraged as they are brought together in love, and into all the wealth of assurance that understanding brings, into the knowledge of the mystery of God, which is Christ.",
      "3": "All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him.",
      "4": "I say this so that no one deceives you with persuasive speech that sounds reasonable.",
      "5": "For though I am absent bodily, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your orderliness and the firmness of your faith in Christ.",
      "6": "Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him,",
      "7": "by being rooted and built up in him, and strengthened in the faith just as you were taught, while you overflow in faith with thanksgiving.",
      "8": "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, which are in accord with human tradition, namely, the basic principles of the world, but not in accord with Christ.",
      "9": "For all the fullness of God’s being dwells bodily in Christ.",
      "10": "And you have been brought to fullness in him. Christ is the head over every ruler and authority.",
      "11": "You were also circumcised in him, with a circumcision not done by human hands, in the putting off of the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,",
      "12": "when you were buried with Christ in baptism. And in baptism you were also raised with him through the faith worked by the God who raised Christ from the dead.",
      "13": "Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses.",
      "14": "God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross.",
      "15": "After disarming the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them by triumphing over them in Christ.",
      "16": "Therefore, do not let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink, or in regard to a festival or a New Moon or a Sabbath day.",
      "17": "These are a shadow of the things that were coming, but the body belongs to Christ.",
      "18": "Do not let anyone who enjoys false humility and the worship of angels tell you that you are disqualified from the prize. This person goes into detail about what he has seen. He is puffed up for no reason by the attitude of his sinful flesh.",
      "19": "He does not hold on to the head, from whom the whole body grows with the growth that comes from God as it is supported and held together by its sinews and ligaments.",
      "20": "If you died with Christ to the basic principles of the world, why do you submit to its rules, as if you were still living in the world?",
      "21": "“Do not touch!” “Do not taste!” “Do not handle!”",
      "22": "All of these rules end in destruction when they are used, because they are in accord with human commands and teachings.",
      "23": "While such rules have the appearance of wisdom with self-chosen religion, which consists of humiliation and severe treatment of the body, they have no value at all in checking the self-indulgence of the sinful flesh."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Therefore, because you were raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.",
      "2": "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.",
      "3": "For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.",
      "4": "When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.",
      "5": "So put to death whatever is worldly in you: sexual immorality, uncleanness, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.",
      "6": "It is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience.",
      "7": "You too once walked in these things, when you were living in them.",
      "8": "But now, you too are to rid yourselves of all of these: wrath, anger, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.",
      "9": "Do not lie to each other since you have put off the old self with its practices,",
      "10": "and put on the new self, which is continually being renewed in knowledge, according to the image of its Creator.",
      "11": "Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but rather Christ is all and is in all.",
      "12": "Therefore, as God’s elect, holy and loved, clothe yourselves with heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.",
      "13": "Bear with one another and forgive each other if anyone has a complaint against anyone else. Forgive, just as Christ forgave you.",
      "14": "And, in addition to all these things, put on love, which ties things together in perfect unity.",
      "15": "Let the peace of Christ control your hearts, to which you were also called, in one body. And be thankful.",
      "16": "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God.",
      "17": "And everything you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.",
      "18": "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.",
      "19": "Husbands, love your wives and do not treat them harshly.",
      "20": "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord.",
      "21": "Fathers, do not embitter your children, so that they do not become discouraged.",
      "22": "Slaves, obey your human masters in everything, not just when they are watching you, like people-pleasers, but with a sincere heart, out of respect for the Lord.",
      "23": "Whatever you do, keep working at it with all your heart, as for the Lord and not for people,",
      "24": "because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. Keep serving the Lord Christ!",
      "25": "Indeed, the one who does what is wrong will be repaid for what he did wrong, and there is no favoritism."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Masters, show justice and fairness to your slaves, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.",
      "2": "Be persistent in prayer, and as you pray, be alert and thankful.",
      "3": "At the same time, pray for us too, that God might open a door for our message, so that we can tell the mystery about Christ, for which I am in prison.",
      "4": "Pray that I may make it known clearly, as it is necessary for me to speak.",
      "5": "Walk in wisdom in the way you act toward those on the outside, making the most of your opportunity.",
      "6": "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you are to answer each person.",
      "7": "Tychicus, my dear brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord, will tell you everything about me.",
      "8": "I am sending him to you for this very reason, that you may know how we are, and that he may comfort your hearts.",
      "9": "I am sending him along with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is going on here.",
      "10": "Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. You received instructions about him. If he comes to you, welcome him.",
      "11": "Jesus, who is called Justus, also greets you. These are my only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are circumcised, and who have been a source of comfort to me.",
      "12": "Epaphras greets you. He is one of you and is a servant of Christ. He is always struggling in prayer for you, praying that you may stand complete and fully assured in all the will of God.",
      "13": "Indeed, I can testify about him that he has worked very hard in your place, in the place of those in Laodicea, and in the place of those in Hierapolis.",
      "14": "Luke, the dearly loved doctor, greets you, as does Demas.",
      "15": "Greet the brothers in Laodicea. Greet Nympha and the church at her house.",
      "16": "When this letter has been read among you, make sure that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans. And make sure that you also read the letter from Laodicea.",
      "17": "Tell Archippus, “See to it that you fulfill the ministry that you received in the Lord.”",
      "18": "This greeting is written by me, Paul, with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. Amen."
    }
  },
  "1 Thessalonians": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, Silas, and Timothy,\nTo the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:\nGrace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "2": "We always give thanks to God for all of you as we make mention of you in our prayers,",
      "3": "because we constantly remember before God our Father your work produced by faith, your labor produced by love, and your patient endurance produced by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "4": "Dear brothers, loved by God, we know that God has chosen you,",
      "5": "because our gospel did not come to you with mere words, but with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction. You yourselves know very well what kind of people we proved to be for your sake, while we were with you.",
      "6": "You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, when you welcomed the word during a time of great affliction with the joy from the Holy Spirit,",
      "7": "so that you became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.",
      "8": "Indeed, the word of the Lord has resounded from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith in God has become known. As a result, we do not need to say anything,",
      "9": "because they themselves inform us about what kind of reception we received from you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.",
      "10": "They also report how you patiently wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, the one who is going to rescue us from the coming wrath."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Indeed, brothers, you yourselves know that our visit to you was not a waste of time.",
      "2": "Even though we had suffered previously and were treated shamefully in Philippi (as you know), we were bold in our God to speak the gospel of God to you in the face of great opposition.",
      "3": "For our appeal does not come from error or impure motives, or by way of deceit.",
      "4": "Instead, just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please people but God, who examines our hearts.",
      "5": "Indeed, as you know, we never at any time used flattering speech, nor did we act with greed as a motive. God is our witness.",
      "6": "Also, we did not seek the praise of people (neither yours nor anyone else’s),",
      "7": "even though we could have been a burden as Christ’s apostles. On the contrary, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.",
      "8": "We yearned for you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.",
      "9": "Surely, brothers, you remember our labor and hardship! We worked night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you, while we preached the gospel of God to you.",
      "10": "You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devout, righteous, and blameless we were toward you who believe.",
      "11": "In the same way, you know that we treated each of you as a father deals with his own children:",
      "12": "encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who is calling you into his kingdom and glory.",
      "13": "There is also another reason we give thanks to God unceasingly, namely, when you received God’s word, which you heard from us, you did not receive it as the word of men but as the word of God (as it really is), which is now at work in you who believe.",
      "14": "Yes, brothers, you became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus, because you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews",
      "15": "who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and who severely persecuted us. They are not pleasing to God and are hostile to all people.",
      "16": "By hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved, they are always filling up the full measure of their sins. And the wrath has come upon them completely.",
      "17": "As for us, brothers, after we were separated from you like orphans for just a short time (in person, not in our heart), it was with great desire that we made every effort to see you again in person.",
      "18": "For we wanted to come to you (I, Paul, wanted this, not just once, but twice), but Satan hindered us.",
      "19": "Indeed, who is our hope or joy or crown about which we boast before our Lord Jesus when he returns? Is it not you?",
      "20": "Yes, you are our glory and our joy."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "So, when we could not stand it any longer, we thought it best to remain behind in Athens alone,",
      "2": "and we sent Timothy, our brother and coworker for God in the gospel of Christ. We sent him to strengthen and encourage you in your faith,",
      "3": "so that no one will be shaken by these trials, for you know well that we are destined for this.",
      "4": "In fact, even when we were with you, we told you ahead of time that we were going to suffer, and it happened just that way, as you know.",
      "5": "This is why, when I could not stand it any longer, I sent to find out about your faith, because I was afraid that somehow the Tempter had tempted you and our labor might have been for nothing.",
      "6": "But now, Timothy has returned to us from you and has told us the good news about your faith and love. He also told us that you always have fond memories of us and long to see us, just as much as we also long to see you.",
      "7": "Because of this, brothers, in all our distress and affliction, we have been encouraged about you through your faith.",
      "8": "For now we really live, if you are standing firm in the Lord.",
      "9": "Indeed, how can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have before God on account of you?",
      "10": "Night and day we are praying earnestly to see you in person and to supply what is lacking in your faith.",
      "11": "May God our Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.",
      "12": "And may the Lord increase your love and make it overflow for each other and for all people, just as ours does for you,",
      "13": "so that he may establish your hearts as blameless in holiness before our God and Father, when our Lord Jesus comes with all his saints."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Therefore, beyond this, brothers, just as you received instruction from us about how you are to walk so as to please God (as indeed you are doing), we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that you do so even more.",
      "2": "To be sure, you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.",
      "3": "Indeed, this is God’s will: that you be sanctified, namely, that you keep yourselves away from sexual immorality.",
      "4": "He wants each of you to learn to obtain a wife for yourself in a way that is holy and honorable,",
      "5": "not in lustful passion like the heathen, who do not know God.",
      "6": "No one is to overstep and take advantage of his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we said previously and solemnly testified to it.",
      "7": "For God did not call us for uncleanness, but in sanctification.",
      "8": "Consequently, whoever rejects this is not rejecting a man, but the God who gives you his Holy Spirit.",
      "9": "Concerning brotherly love, there is no need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God, with the result that you love one another.",
      "10": "In fact, you are doing so toward all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers, to do this even more,",
      "11": "and to make it your ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, just as we instructed you.",
      "12": "Do this so that you are conducting yourselves decently toward outsiders and are not lacking anything.",
      "13": "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you do not grieve in the same way as the others, who have no hope.",
      "14": "Indeed, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then in the same way we also believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.",
      "15": "In fact, we tell you this by the word of the Lord: We who are alive and left until the coming of the Lord will certainly not go on ahead of those who have fallen asleep.",
      "16": "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.",
      "17": "Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.",
      "18": "Therefore, encourage one another with these words."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Concerning the times and dates, brothers, there is no need to write to you,",
      "2": "for you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.",
      "3": "When people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will suddenly come on them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will certainly not escape.",
      "4": "But you, brothers, are not in the dark so that this day takes you by surprise like a thief,",
      "5": "for you are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness.",
      "6": "So then let us not sleep like everyone else, but rather let us remain alert and sober.",
      "7": "To be sure, those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.",
      "8": "But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.",
      "9": "You see, God did not appoint us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "10": "He died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.",
      "11": "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as you are also doing.",
      "12": "Brothers, we ask you to take note of those who work hard among you, who exercise leadership over you in the Lord, and who admonish you.",
      "13": "Hold them in the highest regard in love, on account of their work. Live at peace with each other.",
      "14": "We also encourage you, brothers, to admonish those who are idle. Encourage those who are discouraged, help those who are weak, and be patient with everyone.",
      "15": "See to it that no one repays evil with evil, but instead, always strive to do good to each other and to everyone else.",
      "16": "Rejoice always.",
      "17": "Pray without ceasing.",
      "18": "In everything give thanks. For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.",
      "19": "Do not extinguish the Spirit.",
      "20": "Do not treat prophecies with contempt.",
      "21": "But test everything. Hold on to the good.",
      "22": "Keep away from every kind of evil.",
      "23": "May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "24": "The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.",
      "25": "Brothers, pray for us.",
      "26": "Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.",
      "27": "I put you under oath to the Lord to read this letter to all the holy brothers.",
      "28": "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you."
    }
  },
  "2 Thessalonians": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, Silas, and Timothy,\nTo the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:",
      "2": "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "3": "We are always obligated to thank God for you, brothers, as is fitting, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love that each and every one of you has for one another is increasing.",
      "4": "So we ourselves boast about you in God’s churches in regard to your patient endurance and faith in all your persecutions and in the trials that you are enduring.",
      "5": "This is evidence of God’s righteous verdict that resulted in your being counted worthy of God’s kingdom, for which you also suffer.",
      "6": "Certainly, it is right for God to repay trouble to those who trouble you,",
      "7": "and to give relief to you, who are troubled along with us. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his powerful angels,",
      "8": "he will exercise vengeance in flaming fire on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.",
      "9": "Such people will receive a just penalty: eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious strength,",
      "10": "on that day when he comes to be glorified among his saints, and to be marveled at among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.",
      "11": "For this reason, we are always praying for you, that our God will make you worthy of your calling and use his power to fulfill every good desire and work of your faith,",
      "12": "so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him, in keeping with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Now, about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together with him, we ask you, brothers,",
      "2": "not to be quickly shaken from your composure or disturbed by a spirit, a message, or a letter thought to be from us, which says that the day of the Lord has already come.",
      "3": "Let no one deceive you in any way, because that day will not come until the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed—the son of destruction.",
      "4": "He opposes and exalts himself above everyone who is called God or every object of worship, so that he sits in the temple of God, displaying himself as God.",
      "5": "Do you not remember that, while I was still with you, I kept telling you these things?",
      "6": "And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed in his own time.",
      "7": "In fact, the mystery of this lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who is now holding him back moves out of the way.",
      "8": "Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy when he appears in splendor at his coming.",
      "9": "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan, with every kind of miracle, that is, with false signs and wonders,",
      "10": "and with every kind of unrighteousness that deceives those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.",
      "11": "And because of this, God continues to send them a strong delusion, so that they believe the lie,",
      "12": "in order that all those may be condemned who refused to believe the truth but instead delighted in unrighteousness.",
      "13": "But we are always obligated to thank God for you, brothers, loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and faith in the truth.",
      "14": "For this reason he also called you through our gospel so that you would obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "15": "So then, brothers, stand firm and hold on to the teachings that were passed along to you, either by word of mouth or by a letter from us.",
      "16": "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope,",
      "17": "encourage your hearts and establish you in every good work and word."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Finally, brothers, pray for us so that the word of the Lord may spread quickly and be glorified just as it was among you.",
      "2": "Pray also that we may be rescued from evil and wicked people. For not everyone has faith.",
      "3": "Still, the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and protect you from the Evil One.",
      "4": "We also have confidence in the Lord concerning you, that you are doing and will continue to do what we are telling you.",
      "5": "May the Lord continue to direct your hearts to God’s love and Christ’s patient endurance.",
      "6": "We instruct you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to avoid every brother who is walking idly and not in accordance with the teaching that you received from us.",
      "7": "In fact, you yourselves know how necessary it is for you to imitate us, because we were not idle among you.",
      "8": "We never ate anyone’s bread without paying for it. Instead, with labor and hardship we worked night and day, so that we would not be a burden to any of you.",
      "9": "This was not because we lacked authority, but to provide an example for you to imitate.",
      "10": "In fact, when we were with you, this was our command to you: If anyone does not want to work, he should not eat.",
      "11": "Indeed, we hear that some among you are idle, not busy working, but being busybodies.",
      "12": "In the Lord Jesus Christ, we command and urge these people to work quietly and eat their own bread.",
      "13": "But you, brothers, do not grow weary of doing good.",
      "14": "And if anyone does not obey our word in this letter, take note of him so that you do not associate with him, in order that he may be put to shame.",
      "15": "Yet do not consider him an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.",
      "16": "May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with you all.",
      "17": "This greeting is written by me, Paul, with my own hand. This is a distinguishing sign of how I write in every letter.",
      "18": "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all."
    }
  },
  "1 Timothy": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope,",
      "2": "To Timothy, my true child in the faith:\nGrace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.",
      "3": "As I urged you while I was going to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach any different doctrines",
      "4": "or pay any attention to myths and endless genealogies that bring about aimless speculations rather than God’s plan, which centers in faith.",
      "5": "The goal of this command is love that comes from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith.",
      "6": "By veering away from these things, some have turned aside into meaningless talk.",
      "7": "They want to be teachers of the law, although they do not comprehend what they are saying or the things they so strongly affirm.",
      "8": "Now, we know that the law is good as long as one uses it correctly—",
      "9": "keeping in mind that the law is not laid down for a righteous person, but for lawless and rebellious people, for godless people and sinners, for unholy and worldly people, for those who kill their fathers and those who kill their mothers, for murderers,",
      "10": "for sexually immoral people, for homosexuals, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and for whatever else is opposed to sound teaching—",
      "11": "in keeping with the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I was entrusted.",
      "12": "I give thanks to the one who empowered me, namely, Christ Jesus our Lord, that he treated me as trustworthy, appointing me into his ministry.",
      "13": "He did this even though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. But I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.",
      "14": "The grace of our Lord overflowed on me along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.",
      "15": "This saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” of whom I am the worst.",
      "16": "But I was shown mercy for this reason: that in me, the worst sinner, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his unlimited patience as an example for those who are going to believe in him, resulting in eternal life.",
      "17": "Now to the King eternal, to the immortal, invisible, only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.",
      "18": "I am entrusting this instruction to you, Timothy, my child, according to the prophecies about you, which were made earlier, so that by them you may fight the good fight,",
      "19": "with faith and a good conscience. By rejecting these, some people have suffered shipwreck with regard to their faith,",
      "20": "including Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I handed over to Satan so that they might be taught not to blaspheme."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,",
      "2": "for kings and all those who are in authority, in order that we might live a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and dignity.",
      "3": "This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,",
      "4": "who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.",
      "5": "For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,",
      "6": "who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.",
      "7": "For this testimony, I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I speak the truth; I am not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.",
      "8": "Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument.",
      "9": "Likewise, I also want women to adorn themselves with respectable clothing, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair, gold, pearls, or expensive clothes,",
      "10": "but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.",
      "11": "A woman should learn in a quiet manner with full submission.",
      "12": "And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. Instead, she is to continue in a quiet manner.",
      "13": "For Adam was formed first, then Eve.",
      "14": "And it was not Adam who was deceived, but it was the woman who was deceived and became a transgressor.",
      "15": "But she will be saved—while bearing children—if they remain in faith and love and sanctification with self-control."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "This saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to become an overseer, he desires a noble task.",
      "2": "It is necessary, then, for the overseer to be above reproach, the husband of only one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,",
      "3": "not a drunkard, not a violent man but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.",
      "4": "It is necessary that he manage his own household well, with all dignity making sure that his children obey him.",
      "5": "(If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church?)",
      "6": "He must not be a recent convert, or he might become conceited and fall into the same condemnation as the Devil.",
      "7": "In addition, he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he may not fall into disgrace and the Devil’s trap.",
      "8": "In the same way, it is necessary that deacons be dignified, not deceitful, not devoted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain—",
      "9": "men who hold on to the mystery of the faith with a clean conscience.",
      "10": "Let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons, if they are found to be blameless.",
      "11": "In the same way women must be worthy of respect, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in everything.",
      "12": "Let each deacon be the husband of only one wife, managing his children and his own household well.",
      "13": "Certainly, those who serve well as deacons gain for themselves good standing and great boldness in the faith they have in Christ Jesus.",
      "14": "I am writing these things to you even though I hope to come to you shortly.",
      "15": "But if I am delayed, I wanted you to know how it is necessary to behave in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.",
      "16": "Undeniably, great is the mystery of godliness:\nHe was revealed in flesh,\nwas justified in spirit,\nwas seen by messengers,\nwas preached among the nations,\nwas believed on in the world,\nwas taken up in glory."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "The Spirit clearly says that, in later times, some will fall away from the faith, because they devote themselves to deceitful spirits and the doctrines of demons,",
      "2": "in connection with the hypocrisy of liars, whose own consciences have been seared.",
      "3": "They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.",
      "4": "In fact, everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,",
      "5": "because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.",
      "6": "If you point out these things to the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of the faith and the good doctrine, which you have followed faithfully.",
      "7": "Pay no attention to worldly and absurd myths, but train yourself for godliness.",
      "8": "For bodily training is beneficial to an extent, but godliness is beneficial in all things, because it holds promise both for life now and for the life to come.",
      "9": "This saying is trustworthy and worthy of all acceptance.",
      "10": "Indeed, it is for this reason that we work hard and are insulted: because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.",
      "11": "Insist on these things and continue teaching them.",
      "12": "Let no one look down on your youth. Instead, be an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.",
      "13": "Until I come, devote yourself to the reading of Scripture, to encouraging, and to teaching.",
      "14": "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy when the elders laid their hands on you.",
      "15": "Practice these things. Constantly be involved in them, so that everyone may see your progress.",
      "16": "Pay close attention to yourself and to the doctrine. Persevere in them, because by doing this you will save both yourself and those who listen to you."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but encourage him as a father, younger men as brothers,",
      "2": "older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity.",
      "3": "Honor widows who are truly widows.",
      "4": "But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to be devoted to their own household and repay their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.",
      "5": "Now the widow who is without relatives has put her hope in God and continues in her petitions and prayers night and day.",
      "6": "But the widow who lives only for her own pleasure is dead, even while she lives.",
      "7": "Insist on these things also, in order that they may be above criticism.",
      "8": "But if anyone does not provide for his own family, and especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.",
      "9": "Let a widow be put on the list if she is over sixty years old, has been a wife of one husband,",
      "10": "and has a good reputation for doing good: if she brought up children, if she showed hospitality to strangers, if she washed the feet of the saints, if she provided help for those in distress, and if she dedicated herself to every good work.",
      "11": "But do not put younger widows on the list, for when they have strong sensual desires that pull them away from Christ, they want to marry,",
      "12": "and so they bring judgment on themselves because they set aside their former pledge.",
      "13": "At the same time, they also learn to be lazy as they go about from house to house. They not only learn to be lazy, but also to be gossips and busybodies, saying things that they should not say.",
      "14": "Therefore I want younger widows to marry, to have children, to keep house, and to give no opportunity for the enemy to slander them.",
      "15": "In fact, some have already turned away to follow Satan.",
      "16": "If any believing woman has widows in her family, let her keep helping them rather than letting them become a burden to the church, so that the church may help those who are truly widows.",
      "17": "The elders who lead well should be considered worthy of double honor, especially the ones who work hard in the word and doctrine.",
      "18": "For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker is worthy of his pay.”",
      "19": "Do not accept an accusation against an elder, except on the testimony of two or three witnesses.",
      "20": "In the presence of everyone, rebuke the ones who persist in sin, so that the rest may be afraid.",
      "21": "I solemnly charge you, in the presence of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, that you follow these instructions without prejudice, doing nothing out of partiality.",
      "22": "Do not lay hands on anyone hastily and do not take part in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.",
      "23": "Stop drinking just water, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent sicknesses.",
      "24": "The sins of some people are obvious, going on ahead of them to judgment, but the sins of others follow them there.",
      "25": "In the same way, good works are also obvious, and the ones that are not obvious cannot stay hidden."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "All who are under a yoke of slavery should consider their own masters worthy of all respect, so that God’s name and his teaching may not be blasphemed.",
      "2": "And those who have believing masters should not be disrespectful toward them because they are brothers. Instead, they should serve them even better, because those who benefit from their good service are believers and dear to them.\nTeach and urge these things.",
      "3": "If anyone teaches different doctrines and does not devote himself to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching,",
      "4": "he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. Instead, he has a morbid craving for controversies and battles over words, things that produce envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions,",
      "5": "and constant frictions among people whose minds are depraved, who have lost hold of the truth, imagining that their godliness is a means of financial gain. Separate yourselves from such people.",
      "6": "But godliness with contentment is great gain.",
      "7": "For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly cannot take anything out.",
      "8": "But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be satisfied.",
      "9": "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into complete destruction and utter ruin.",
      "10": "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils. By striving for money, some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.",
      "11": "But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.",
      "12": "Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life, to which you were called and about which you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.",
      "13": "I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who made a good confession as a witness before Pontius Pilate,",
      "14": "that you keep this command without spot and without fault, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,",
      "15": "which he will make known at the proper time—the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords,",
      "16": "who alone has immortality, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or is able to see. To him be honor and power forever! Amen.",
      "17": "Instruct those who are rich in this present age not to be arrogant or to put their hope in the uncertainty of riches, but rather in God, who richly supplies us with all things for our enjoyment.",
      "18": "Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share.",
      "19": "In this way they are storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.",
      "20": "O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, turning away from godless, empty talk and the contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge.”",
      "21": "By professing it, some have veered away from the faith. Grace be with you. Amen."
    }
  },
  "2 Timothy": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in accordance with the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus,",
      "2": "To Timothy, my child, whom I love:\nGrace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.",
      "3": "I thank God, whom I serve with a clean conscience as my ancestors did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day.",
      "4": "When I remember your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy.",
      "5": "I remember your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am convinced that it also lives in you.",
      "6": "For this reason I am reminding you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.",
      "7": "For God did not give us a timid spirit, but a spirit of power and love and sound judgment.",
      "8": "So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Instead, join with me in suffering for the gospel while relying on the power of God.",
      "9": "He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,",
      "10": "and it has now been revealed through the appearance of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.",
      "11": "For this gospel I was appointed a herald, apostle, and teacher of the Gentiles,",
      "12": "and that is why I am suffering these things. But I am not ashamed, because I know the one in whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.",
      "13": "Hold fast to the pattern of sound words that you heard from me, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.",
      "14": "Through the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you.",
      "15": "You know that everyone in the province of Asia turned away from me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.",
      "16": "May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he refreshed me many times and was not ashamed of my chains.",
      "17": "On the contrary, after he arrived in Rome, he searched diligently for me and found me.",
      "18": "May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day. And you know very well how much he did when he served in Ephesus."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.",
      "2": "Entrust the things you heard from me, in the presence of many witnesses, to faithful men who will also be able to teach others.",
      "3": "Share hardships as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.",
      "4": "No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the affairs of everyday life. If he does, he will not please the one who enlisted him.",
      "5": "Also, if someone competes as an athlete, he does not receive a crown unless he competes according to the rules.",
      "6": "The hardworking farmer should receive a share of the crops first.",
      "7": "Think about what I am saying, because the Lord will give you understanding in everything.",
      "8": "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, a descendant of David, in accordance with my gospel,",
      "9": "for which I am suffering, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained.",
      "10": "For this reason I endure all things for the sake of the elect, so that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, along with eternal glory.",
      "11": "This saying is trustworthy:\nIndeed, if we have died with him, we will also live with him;",
      "12": "If we endure, we will also reign with him;\nIf we deny him, he will also deny us;",
      "13": "If we are faithless, he remains faithful,\n    because he cannot deny himself.",
      "14": "Remind people of these things, as you solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to fight about words, which does no good and only ruins those who listen.",
      "15": "Make every effort to present yourself to God as one who is approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, correctly handling the word of truth.",
      "16": "As for pointless chatter, avoid it, for it will lead to an ever greater measure of godlessness,",
      "17": "and their message will spread like gangrene. This includes Hymenaeus and Philetus,",
      "18": "who have veered away from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are overturning the faith of some.",
      "19": "Nevertheless, God’s foundation stands firm, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and “Let everyone who calls on the name of the Lord keep away from wickedness.”",
      "20": "In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay—some for honorable use and some for dishonorable use.",
      "21": "So if anyone cleanses himself thoroughly from these things, he will be an instrument for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master, and prepared to do every good work.",
      "22": "Flee from the lusts young people have and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, together with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.",
      "23": "But avoid foolish and ignorant arguments, since you know they breed quarrels.",
      "24": "It is necessary that a servant of the Lord not quarrel but be kind toward everyone, able to teach, able to bear evil without resentment,",
      "25": "and gentle in correcting those who oppose him. God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth,",
      "26": "and they may come to their senses and escape from the Devil’s trap, after they were captured by him to do his will."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "But know this: In the last days there will be terrible times.",
      "2": "For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemous, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,",
      "3": "unloving, not able to reconcile with others, slanderous, without self-control, savage, haters of what is good,",
      "4": "treacherous, reckless, puffed up with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,",
      "5": "holding to an outward form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such people.",
      "6": "For some of them are people who worm their way into households and gain control over vulnerable women who are overwhelmed with sins, led astray by various evil desires,",
      "7": "always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.",
      "8": "Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these people oppose the truth. They are people of depraved minds, disqualified in regard to the faith.",
      "9": "But they will not get very far, because their foolishness will be quite clear to everyone, just as it was in the case of Jannes and Jambres.",
      "10": "But you have faithfully followed my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfast endurance,",
      "11": "my persecutions, my sufferings—the kind that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, the kind of persecutions I endured—and the Lord rescued me from all of them.",
      "12": "Indeed, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,",
      "13": "while evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.",
      "14": "As for you, continue in the things you have learned and about which you have become convinced. You know from whom you learned them",
      "15": "and that from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.",
      "16": "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, and for training in righteousness,",
      "17": "so that the man of God may be complete, well equipped for every good work."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom:",
      "2": "Preach the word. Be ready whether it is convenient or not. Correct, rebuke, and encourage, with all patience and teaching.",
      "3": "For there will come a time when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, because they have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in line with their own desires.",
      "4": "They will also turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.",
      "5": "As for you, keep a clear head in every situation. Bear hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry.",
      "6": "You see, I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.",
      "7": "I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.",
      "8": "From now on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness. The Lord, the righteous Judge, will give it to me on that day, and not only to me but also to everyone who loved his appearing.",
      "9": "Make every effort to come to me quickly,",
      "10": "for Demas, because he loved this present world, has forsaken me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.",
      "11": "Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is useful to me for ministry.",
      "12": "I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus.",
      "13": "When you come, bring the cloak I left in Troas with Carpus, and the scrolls, especially the parchments.",
      "14": "Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will pay him back for what he did.",
      "15": "You be on your guard against him also, because he vehemently opposed our message.",
      "16": "At my first hearing, no one came to my defense, but everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them.",
      "17": "But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles would hear it, and I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.",
      "18": "The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.",
      "19": "Greet Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus.",
      "20": "Erastus remained in Corinth, and I left Trophimus in Miletus because he was sick.",
      "21": "Make every effort to come before winter. Eubulus greets you, as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers.",
      "22": "The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you. Amen."
    }
  },
  "Titus": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God’s elect people and the knowledge of the truth that conforms to godliness,",
      "2": "based on the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.",
      "3": "At the proper time he revealed this in his word, in the preaching that was entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,",
      "4": "To Titus, my true child in our common faith:\nGrace and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.",
      "5": "The reason I left you in Crete was so that you would set in order the things that were left unfinished and appoint elders in every city, as I directed you.",
      "6": "Such a man is to be blameless, the husband of only one wife, and to have believing children who are not open to a charge of wild living or disobedience.",
      "7": "Indeed an overseer, since he is God’s steward, must be blameless, not arrogant, not quick-tempered, not a drunkard, not violent, not eager for dishonest gain.",
      "8": "Instead, he must be hospitable, loving what is good, self-controlled, upright, devout, and disciplined.",
      "9": "He must cling to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he will be able both to encourage people by the sound teaching and also to correct those who oppose him.",
      "10": "For there are many who are rebellious, whose words are empty, and who deceive, especially those of the circumcision party.",
      "11": "The mouths of these people must be stopped, because they are ruining whole households by teaching what they should not teach, for the sake of dishonest gain.",
      "12": "One of their own prophets said, “Cretans are always liars, vicious beasts, and lazy gluttons.”",
      "13": "This testimony is true. For this reason, correct them sharply so that they may be sound in the faith,",
      "14": "not paying attention to Jewish myths or the commands of people who turn their backs on the truth.",
      "15": "All things are pure to those who are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are defiled and do not believe; rather, both their minds and consciences are defiled.",
      "16": "They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit to do anything good."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "But as for you, speak what is appropriate for sound doctrine.",
      "2": "Encourage older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and patient endurance.",
      "3": "Likewise, encourage older women to be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers, not enslaved to much wine, but teachers of what is good,",
      "4": "so that they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children,",
      "5": "to be self-controlled, pure, busy at home, kind, and submitting to their own husbands, that the word of God might not be slandered.",
      "6": "Likewise, encourage younger men to be self-controlled.",
      "7": "In all things show yourself to be an example of good works. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness,",
      "8": "and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that the one who opposes us will be put to shame, because he has nothing bad to say about us.",
      "9": "Encourage slaves to submit to their masters in everything, to be pleasing to them, not to be argumentative with them,",
      "10": "not to steal from them, but to demonstrate their complete trustworthiness, so that they may show the teaching of God our Savior to be attractive in every way.",
      "11": "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people.",
      "12": "It trains us to reject ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age,",
      "13": "while we wait for the blessed hope, that is, the glorious appearance of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.",
      "14": "He gave himself for us, to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are his own chosen people, eager to do good works.",
      "15": "Keep telling people these things. Continue to encourage and rebuke with full authority. Let no one ignore you."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready to do any good work,",
      "2": "to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, to be gentle, and to display every courtesy toward all people.",
      "3": "For at one time we ourselves were also foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by many kinds of evil desires and pleasures, living in malice and jealousy, being hated and hating one another.",
      "4": "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward mankind appeared,",
      "5": "he saved us—not by righteous works that we did ourselves, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewal by the Holy Spirit,",
      "6": "whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,",
      "7": "so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs in keeping with the hope of eternal life.",
      "8": "This saying is trustworthy. And I want you to insist on these things, so that those who believe in God are intent on keeping busy with good works. These things are honorable and useful for the people.",
      "9": "But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, rivalries, and quarrels about the law, because these are useless and fruitless.",
      "10": "Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning,",
      "11": "because you know that such a man is twisted and is sinning. He condemns himself.",
      "12": "When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, make every effort to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there.",
      "13": "Do your best to help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos for their journey, so that they are not lacking anything.",
      "14": "Let our people also learn to busy themselves with good works when urgent needs arise, so that they are not unfruitful.",
      "15": "Everyone with me sends you greetings. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all.\nAmen."
    }
  },
  "Philemon": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,\nTo Philemon, our dear friend and coworker,",
      "2": "to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your house:",
      "3": "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "4": "I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers,",
      "5": "because I hear about your love and faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints.",
      "6": "I pray that this fellowship of your faith may become active in understanding every good thing that belongs to us in Christ.",
      "7": "For I have received great joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother.",
      "8": "For that reason, even though I have plenty of boldness in Christ to order you to do what is proper,",
      "9": "I am appealing to you, instead, on the basis of love, just as I, Paul, am an old man and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.",
      "10": "I am appealing to you on behalf of my child Onesimus. I became his father while I was in chains.",
      "11": "There was a time when he was useless to you, but now he is useful both to you and to me.",
      "12": "I have sent him (who is my very heart) back to you. Welcome him.",
      "13": "I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might serve me in your place while I am in chains for the gospel.",
      "14": "But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that your kindness would not be the result of compulsion, but of willingness.",
      "15": "Perhaps this is why he was separated from you for a while: so that you would have him back forever,",
      "16": "no longer as a slave, but as more than a slave, as a dear brother. He certainly is dear to me, but he is even more of a dear brother to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.",
      "17": "So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.",
      "18": "And if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge it to me.",
      "19": "I, Paul, have written this with my own hand: I will repay it—not to mention that you owe me your very self.",
      "20": "Yes, brother, I am asking for a favor from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.",
      "21": "Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.",
      "22": "Just one more thing: Prepare a guest room for me, because I am hoping to be given back to you in answer to your prayers.",
      "23": "Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends his greetings to you,",
      "24": "as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my coworkers.",
      "25": "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen."
    }
  },
  "Hebrews": {
    "1": {
      "1": "In the past, God spoke to our forefathers by the prophets at many times and in many ways.",
      "2": "In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.",
      "3": "The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of the divine nature. He sustains all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high.",
      "4": "The Son became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.",
      "5": "For to which of the angels did God ever say:\nYou are my Son. Today I have begotten you?\nAnd again:\nI will be his Father, and he will be my Son.",
      "6": "And again, when he brought his firstborn into the world, he said:\nLet all God’s angels worship him.",
      "7": "About the angels he says:\nHe makes his messengers winds and his ministers flaming fire.",
      "8": "But about the Son he says:\nGod, your throne is forever and ever,\nand the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.",
      "9": "You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.\nTherefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy\n    beyond your companions.",
      "10": "And he says:\nIn the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundation of the earth,\nand the heavens are the works of your hands.",
      "11": "They will perish, but you remain.\nThey will all become old like a garment.",
      "12": "You will roll them up like a robe,\nand they will be changed like a garment.\nBut you are the same,\nand your years will never end.",
      "13": "To which of the angels has he ever said:\nSit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet?",
      "14": "Are not all angels ministering spirits sent out to serve for the benefit of those who are going to inherit salvation?"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Therefore, we need to pay even more attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.",
      "2": "For if the message that was spoken through angels was valid, and every transgression and disobedient act received a just punishment,",
      "3": "how will we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? First the message was spoken by the Lord; then it was confirmed to us by those who heard him.",
      "4": "God also testified to it with signs and wonders, various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his will.",
      "5": "For God did not place the coming world, about which we are speaking, under the control of angels.",
      "6": "But there is a place where someone has testified:\nWhat is man that you remember him,\nor the Son of Man that you look after him?",
      "7": "You made him lower than the angels for a little while.\nYou crowned him with glory and honor.",
      "8": "You put everything in subjection under his feet.\nIndeed, in putting everything in subjection to him, God left nothing that is not in subjection to him. At the present time, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.",
      "9": "But we look to Jesus (the one who was made lower than the angels for a little while, so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone), now crowned with glory and honor, because he suffered death.",
      "10": "Certainly it was fitting for God (the one for whom and through whom everything exists), in leading many sons to glory, to bring the author of their salvation to his goal through sufferings.",
      "11": "For he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified all have one Father. For that reason, he is not ashamed to call them brothers.",
      "12": "He says:\nI will declare your name to my brothers.\nWithin the congregation I will sing your praise.",
      "13": "And again:\nI will trust in him.\nAnd again:\nHere I am and the children God has given me.",
      "14": "Therefore, since the children share flesh and blood, he also shared the same flesh and blood, so that through death he could destroy the one who had the power of death (that is, the Devil)",
      "15": "and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.",
      "16": "For surely he was not concerned with helping angels but with helping Abraham’s offspring.",
      "17": "For this reason, he had to become like his brothers in every way, in order that he would be a merciful and faithful high priest in the things pertaining to God, so that he could pay for the sins of the people.",
      "18": "Indeed, because he suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, focus your attention on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.",
      "2": "He was faithful to the one who appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in God’s whole house.",
      "3": "In fact, Jesus is worthy of greater glory than Moses, in the same way that the builder of a house has more honor than the house.",
      "4": "For every house is built by someone, and God is the one who built everything.",
      "5": "Moses was faithful as a servant within God’s whole house by testifying to the things that would be spoken.",
      "6": "But Christ is faithful as a Son over God’s house. We are his house, if we hold on firmly to our confidence and the hope about which we boast until the end.",
      "7": "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:\nToday, if you hear his voice,",
      "8": "do not harden your hearts\nas in the rebellion,\nduring the time of testing in the wilderness.",
      "9": "Your fathers tested and tried me,\neven though they saw my works",
      "10": "for forty years.\nThat is why I was angry with that generation\nand said, “In their heart they are always going astray,\nand they did not learn my ways.”",
      "11": "So I swore an oath in my wrath,\n“They will never enter my rest.”",
      "12": "Watch out, brothers, so that there is not an evil, unbelieving heart in any of you that turns away from the living God.",
      "13": "But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.",
      "14": "For we have become people who share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firmly until the end.",
      "15": "As it is said:\nToday, if you hear his voice,\ndo not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.",
      "16": "Who was it who heard and rebelled? Wasn’t it all those who left Egypt, led by Moses?",
      "17": "And with whom was God angry for forty years? Surely it was with the ones who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness, wasn’t it?",
      "18": "And about whom did he swear an oath that they would not enter his rest, if it wasn’t concerning those who were disobedient?",
      "19": "So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be fearful that any one of you may be judged to have failed to reach it.",
      "2": "In fact, we have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did. But the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united in faith with those who did listen.",
      "3": "Indeed, we who believe are going to enter his rest.\nIt happened just as he vowed when he said:\nSo I swore an oath in my wrath,\n“They will never enter my rest.”\nAnd yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world.",
      "4": "For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in this way:\nAnd God rested on the seventh day from all his works.",
      "5": "And again in this statement:\nThey will never enter my rest.",
      "6": "Therefore, since it is still the case that some do enter this rest, and yet those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not enter because of disobedience,",
      "7": "God again set a certain day, namely, “today,” when he later said through David, as quoted before:\nToday, if you hear his voice,\ndo not harden your hearts.",
      "8": "For, if Joshua had given them rest, then God would not have spoken later about another day.",
      "9": "So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.",
      "10": "For the one who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God rested from his work.",
      "11": "Therefore, let us make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.",
      "12": "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the point of dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, even being able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart.",
      "13": "And there is no creature hidden from him, but everything is uncovered and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we will give an account.",
      "14": "Therefore, since we have a great high priest, who has gone through the heavens, namely, Jesus the Son of God, let us continue to hold on to our confession.",
      "15": "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin.",
      "16": "So let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "To be sure, every high priest is chosen from the people and is appointed to represent the people in the things pertaining to God, so that he may offer gifts, as well as sacrifices, for sins.",
      "2": "He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also weak in many ways.",
      "3": "And for this reason he is obligated to offer sacrifices for his own sins, just as he does for the people.",
      "4": "No one takes this honor on himself, but he is called by God, just as Aaron was.",
      "5": "In the same way, Christ did not take the glory of becoming a high priest on himself, but God said to him:\nYou are my Son.\nToday I have begotten you.",
      "6": "He also said the same thing in another place:\nYou are a priest forever, like Melchizedek.",
      "7": "In the days of his flesh, he offered prayers and pleas with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.",
      "8": "Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.",
      "9": "After he was brought to his goal, he became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him,",
      "10": "because he was designated by God as a high priest, like Melchizedek.",
      "11": "We have much to say about this, and it is difficult to explain, because you have become too lazy to listen.",
      "12": "In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the beginning principles of God’s word all over again. You have become people who need milk, not solid food.",
      "13": "For everyone who lives on milk is not acquainted with the word of righteousness, because he is still an infant.",
      "14": "But solid food is for mature people, who have their senses trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Therefore, leaving the beginning discussion of Christ, let us press on toward matters that require greater maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith in God,",
      "2": "of the teaching about baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.",
      "3": "And we will do this, if God permits.",
      "4": "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and shared in the Holy Spirit,",
      "5": "who have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age,",
      "6": "and who then fell away, to be restored to repentance because they are crucifying the Son of God again, to their own harm, and exposing him to public ridicule.",
      "7": "For the land that drinks the rain that often falls on it and produces plants useful to those farming it, this land receives a blessing from God.",
      "8": "But the land that grows thorns and thistles is worthless and will soon be cursed—its end is to be burned.",
      "9": "But even if we speak this way, we are confident of better things for you, dear friends, things belonging to salvation.",
      "10": "For God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love that you showed for his name’s sake, when you served the saints, and while you continue to serve them.",
      "11": "And we want each of you to continue to show the same eagerness, so that you may have the full assurance of your hope until the end.",
      "12": "Our goal is that you would not become lazy but imitators of those who inherited the promise through faith and patient endurance.",
      "13": "For God made a promise to Abraham, and since God had no one greater to swear by, “He swore by himself.”",
      "14": "He said, “I will most certainly bless you and make you increase in number.”",
      "15": "And so in this way, after Abraham had waited patiently, he received the promise.",
      "16": "To be sure, people swear by someone who is greater, and the oath serves as a confirmation for them that ends all disputes.",
      "17": "Because God wanted to show the heirs of the promise with even greater certainty that his plan was unchangeable, he guaranteed his promise with an oath.",
      "18": "He did this so that, through two unchangeable things (in which it is impossible that God would lie), we, who have fled for refuge by taking hold of this hope that is held out to us, might have strong encouragement.",
      "19": "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul. It is sure and firm, and it goes behind the inner curtain,",
      "20": "where Jesus entered ahead of us on our behalf, because he became a high priest forever like Melchizedek."
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "This Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, is the one who met Abraham as he was returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him,",
      "2": "and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, Melchizedek means “king of righteousness,” and then “king of Salem,” which is “king of peace.”",
      "3": "He is without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, and resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.",
      "4": "Consider how great this man was. Even Abraham, the patriarch, gave him a tenth from the best of the spoils.",
      "5": "According to the law, those sons of Levi who received the priesthood have a command to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brother Israelites, even though they also came from Abraham’s body.",
      "6": "But here the one who was not descended from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.",
      "7": "And without any question, it is the lesser who is blessed by the greater.",
      "8": "In the one case, those who are mortal collect the tenth; in the other case, the one who collects has testimony in Scripture that he lives.",
      "9": "And, through Abraham, even Levi, who collects the tenth, has paid a tenth, so to speak,",
      "10": "because he was still in the body of his forefather when Melchizedek met Abraham.",
      "11": "So if everything could have been brought to its goal through the Levitical priesthood (for the people received the law on the basis of that priesthood), what further need was there for another priest to arise who was like Melchizedek, yet not said to be like Aaron?",
      "12": "For when the priesthood is changed, by necessity a change in the law also happens.",
      "13": "Yet these things are said about the one who belonged to another tribe, from which no one had served at the altar.",
      "14": "It is certainly clear that our Lord is descended from Judah. Moses said nothing about priests in connection with that tribe.",
      "15": "And this becomes even clearer if another priest arises like Melchizedek,",
      "16": "who became a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement about physical descent, but on the basis of the power of an endless life.",
      "17": "For it has been testified in Scripture about him:\nYou are a priest forever, like Melchizedek.",
      "18": "To be sure, the former requirement is annulled, because it was weak and useless—",
      "19": "for the law did not bring anything to its goal—but now a better hope is introduced, by which we approach God.",
      "20": "And something like this did not happen without an oath. Indeed, others who became priests did so without an oath,",
      "21": "but this one became a priest with an oath, through the one who said to him:\nThe Lord has sworn an oath\nand will not change his mind:\n“You are a priest forever.”",
      "22": "In this way, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant.",
      "23": "There were many who became priests because death prevented any of them from continuing to remain in office.",
      "24": "But because this one endures forever, he has a permanent priesthood.",
      "25": "So for this reason he is able to save forever those who come to God through him, because he always lives to plead on their behalf.",
      "26": "This is certainly the kind of high priest we needed: one who is holy, innocent, pure, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.",
      "27": "Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices on a daily basis, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. In fact, he sacrificed for sins once and for all when he offered himself.",
      "28": "For the law appoints as high priests men who have weaknesses. But the word of the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been brought to his goal forever."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "The main point of what we are saying is this: We have the kind of high priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.",
      "2": "He is the minister in the Holy Place, which is the true sanctuary, which the Lord set up, not man.",
      "3": "For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, and for that reason this priest also needed to have something that he offered.",
      "4": "If this priest were on earth, he would not even be a priest, because there are priests who are designated by the law to offer gifts.",
      "5": "They serve at a place that is a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, a place exactly like that about which Moses was told when he was about to complete the tent. For God said, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.”",
      "6": "But now, Jesus has obtained a ministry that is as much superior as the covenant that he mediates is better, because it has been established on the basis of better promises.",
      "7": "Indeed, if that first covenant were without fault, there would have been no reason to look for a second.",
      "8": "But because God found fault with the people, he said:\nLook, the days are coming, says the Lord,\nwhen I will make a new covenant\nwith the house of Israel\nand with the house of Judah.",
      "9": "It will not be like the covenant\nthat I made with their forefathers\nat the time when I took them by the hand\nto lead them out of Egypt.\nBecause they did not remember my covenant,\nI ignored them, says the Lord.",
      "10": "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.\nI will put my laws into their mind,\nand I will write them on their hearts.\nI will be their God,\nand they will be my people.",
      "11": "Never again will a man teach his fellow citizen\nor his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,”\nbecause they will all know me,\nfrom the least of them to the greatest.",
      "12": "For I will be merciful in regard to their unrighteousness,\nand I will not remember their sins any longer.",
      "13": "When God said “new,” he made the first covenant obsolete, and something that is obsolete and growing old is going to disappear."
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "The first covenant had regulations for worship and for an earthly sanctuary.",
      "2": "The first room of the tent was furnished with the lampstand, the table, and the Bread of the Presence. This room was called the Holy Place.",
      "3": "And behind the second curtain was the room of the tent called the Most Holy Place.",
      "4": "It had the golden censer for incense and the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered entirely with gold. Inside the Ark was the golden jar holding the manna, Aaron’s staff that had sprouted buds, and the stone tablets of the covenant.",
      "5": "Above the Ark, the glorious cherubim overshadowed the atonement seat. We are not going to talk about these things in detail now.",
      "6": "After these things had been furnished in this way, the priests would always enter the first room of the tent to perform their ministries.",
      "7": "But only the high priest would enter the second section of the tent, once each year, and not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people committed in ignorance.",
      "8": "By this the Holy Spirit indicates that, while the first room of the tent existed, a way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed.",
      "9": "This tent is a picture pointing to the present time. Since it is only a picture, the gifts and sacrifices that are brought there are not able to clear the conscience of the worshipper.",
      "10": "They are only bodily regulations about foods, drinks, and various washings, which were in force until the time of the new order.",
      "11": "But when Christ appeared as the high priest of the good things that were coming, he went through the greater and more complete tent, which was not made by human hands (that is, it is not part of this creation).",
      "12": "He entered once into the Most Holy Place and obtained eternal redemption, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood.",
      "13": "Now if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on those who were unclean, sanctifies them so that their flesh is clean,",
      "14": "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works, so that we worship the living God?",
      "15": "For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant. A death took place as payment for the trespasses committed under the first covenant, so that those who are called would receive the promised eternal inheritance.",
      "16": "For where a will exists, it is necessary to establish the death of the one who made the will.",
      "17": "For a will takes effect at the time of death, since it is never in force when the one who made the will is still living.",
      "18": "For this reason, the first covenant was not ratified without blood.",
      "19": "Indeed, after every command was spoken by Moses to all the people, in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and a hyssop branch, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people.",
      "20": "He said, “This is the blood of the covenant that God established for you.”",
      "21": "In the same way he sprinkled blood on the tent and all the objects for worship.",
      "22": "And nearly everything is cleansed with blood according to the law. And, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.",
      "23": "Therefore, it was necessary that the copies of the things in heaven be cleansed by these sacrifices, but it was necessary that the heavenly things themselves be cleansed with sacrifices better than these.",
      "24": "For Christ did not enter a handmade sanctuary, a representation of the true sanctuary. Instead, he entered into heaven itself, now to appear before God on our behalf.",
      "25": "And he did not enter to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own.",
      "26": "Otherwise he would have needed to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once and for all, at the climax of the ages, in order to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself.",
      "27": "And, just as it is appointed for people to die only once and after this comes the judgment,",
      "28": "so also Christ was offered only once to take away the sins of many, and he will appear a second time—without sin—to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "In fact, the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the actual realization of those things. It will never be able to make perfect those who continually offer the same sacrifices year after year.",
      "2": "If it could do this, would they not have stopped bringing sacrifices, because the worshippers, once they were cleansed, would no longer have a bad conscience about sins?",
      "3": "Instead, these sacrifices reminded them of their sins year after year.",
      "4": "The fact is that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins.",
      "5": "Therefore when he entered the world, Christ said:\nSacrifice and offering you did not desire,\nbut you prepared a body for me.",
      "6": "You were not pleased\nwith burnt offerings and sin offerings.",
      "7": "Then I said, “Here I am.\nI have come to do your will, God.\nIn the scroll of the book it is written about me.”",
      "8": "First he said:\nSacrifices and offerings that were offered according to the law,\nboth burnt offerings and sin offerings,\nyou did not desire,\nand you were not pleased with them.",
      "9": "Then he said:\nHere I am.\nI have come to do your will.\nHe does away with the first in order to establish the second.",
      "10": "By this will, we have been sanctified once and for all, through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ.",
      "11": "In the one case, every priest stood ministering day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which are never able to remove sin.",
      "12": "In the other case, this priest, after he offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.",
      "13": "Since then he has been waiting until his enemies are made a footstool under his feet.",
      "14": "By only one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being sanctified.",
      "15": "The Holy Spirit also testifies in Scripture to us, for first he said:",
      "16": "This is the covenant I will make with them\nafter those days, says the Lord.\nI will put my laws on their hearts\nand I will write them on their mind.",
      "17": "Then he adds:\nAnd I will not remember their sins and their lawlessness any longer.",
      "18": "Now where these sins are forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.",
      "19": "Brothers, we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place through the blood of Jesus.",
      "20": "It is a new and living way he opened for us through the curtain, that is, his flesh.",
      "21": "We also have a great priest over the house of God.",
      "22": "So let us approach with a sincere heart, in the full confidence of faith, because our hearts have been sprinkled to take away a bad conscience, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.",
      "23": "Let us hold on firmly to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful.",
      "24": "Let us also consider carefully how to spur each other on to love and good works.",
      "25": "Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have the habit of doing. Rather, let us encourage each other, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.",
      "26": "For if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the full knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains any sacrifice for sins.",
      "27": "Instead, there is a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a raging fire that is going to consume the enemies of God.",
      "28": "Anyone who rejected the law of Moses was put to death without pity, on the basis of the testimony of two or three witnesses.",
      "29": "How much greater punishment do you think will be deserved by the person who trampled the Son of God underfoot, who considered insignificant the blood of the covenant, by which he was sanctified, and who insulted the Spirit of grace?",
      "30": "For we know the one who said:\nVengeance is mine. I will repay.\nAnd again:\nThe Lord will judge his people.",
      "31": "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.",
      "32": "Remember the former days when, after you were enlightened, you patiently endured a great struggle of sufferings.",
      "33": "Sometimes you were publicly shamed by insults and persecutions. At other times you became companions of those who were treated this way.",
      "34": "Indeed, you also sympathized with those in prison, and when your possessions were seized, you accepted it with joy, because you knew that you yourselves had a better and lasting possession.",
      "35": "So do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.",
      "36": "Certainly you need patient endurance so that, after you do God’s will, you may receive what was promised.",
      "37": "For in just a little while:\nThe one who is coming will come and will not delay.",
      "38": "And my righteous one will live by faith,\nbut if he shrinks back,\nmy soul takes no pleasure in him.",
      "39": "Now we are not part of those who shrink back, resulting in destruction, but of those who have faith, resulting in the soul’s salvation."
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Faith is being sure about what we hope for, being convinced about things we do not see.",
      "2": "For by this faith the ancients were commended in Scripture.",
      "3": "By faith we know that the universe was created by God’s word, so that what is seen did not come from visible things.",
      "4": "By faith Abel offered a better sacrifice to God than Cain did. By faith he was commended in Scripture as righteous; God testified favorably about his gifts. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.",
      "5": "By faith Enoch was taken up, so that he would not experience death, and he was not found because God took him away. In fact, before he was taken away, he was commended in Scripture as one who “pleased God.”",
      "6": "And without faith it is impossible to please God. Indeed, it is necessary for the one who approaches God to believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.",
      "7": "By faith Noah, when he was warned about things that had not been seen before, built an ark, in reverent fear, in order to save his family. By it he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that is by faith.",
      "8": "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go to a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance, and he left without knowing where he was going.",
      "9": "By faith he lived as a stranger in the Promised Land, as if it did not belong to him, dwelling in tents along with Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.",
      "10": "For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.",
      "11": "By faith Abraham also received the ability to conceive children, even though Sarah herself was barren and he was past the normal age, because he considered him faithful who made the promise.",
      "12": "And so from one man, and he as good as dead, descendants were born as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand along the seashore.",
      "13": "One by one, all of these died in faith, without having received the things that were promised, but they saw and welcomed them from a distance. They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.",
      "14": "Indeed, people who say things like that make it clear that they are looking for a land of their own.",
      "15": "And if they were remembering the land they had come from, they would have had an opportunity to return.",
      "16": "Instead, they were longing for a better land—a heavenly one. For that reason, God is not ashamed to be called their God, because he prepared a city for them.",
      "17": "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered Isaac. This man, who received the promises, was ready to offer his only son,",
      "18": "about whom it was said, “Through Isaac your offspring will be traced.”",
      "19": "He reasoned that God also had the ability to raise him from the dead, and in a figurative sense, Abraham did receive him back from the dead.",
      "20": "By faith Isaac also blessed Jacob and Esau about things that were going to happen.",
      "21": "By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons and worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.",
      "22": "By faith Joseph, as he neared the end of his life, mentioned the Exodus of the sons of Israel and gave instructions about his bones.",
      "23": "By faith Moses was hidden by his parents for three months after he was born, because they saw he was a special child, and they were not afraid of the king’s order.",
      "24": "By faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter when he grew up.",
      "25": "He chose to be mistreated with God’s people rather than enjoy sin for a little while.",
      "26": "He considered disgrace for the sake of Christ as greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.",
      "27": "By faith he left Egypt without fearing the king’s wrath, because he persevered as one who sees him who is invisible.",
      "28": "By faith he celebrated the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not strike them down.",
      "29": "By faith they passed through the Red Sea, as if going through on dry ground. When the Egyptians tried it, they were drowned.",
      "30": "By faith the walls of Jericho fell after the people marched around them for seven days.",
      "31": "By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with the unbelievers, because she welcomed the spies in peace.",
      "32": "And what more should I say? There would not be enough time for me to continue to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets.",
      "33": "By faith they conquered kingdoms, carried out justice, obtained things that were promised, shut the mouths of lions,",
      "34": "quenched the power of fire, escaped the edges of the sword, were made powerful after being weak, became mighty in battle, and caused foreign armies to flee.",
      "35": "Women received back their dead by resurrection. And others who were tortured did not accept their release, so that they may take part in a better resurrection.",
      "36": "Still others experienced mocking and lashes, in addition to chains and imprisonment.",
      "37": "They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were tempted; they were killed with the sword; they went around in sheepskins and goatskins, needy, afflicted, and mistreated.",
      "38": "The world was not worthy of them as they wandered in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.",
      "39": "All of these were commended in Scripture by faith, yet they did not receive what was promised,",
      "40": "because God had planned something better for us, namely, that they would not reach the goal apart from us."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us get rid of every burden and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and let us run with patient endurance the race that is laid out for us.",
      "2": "Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who is the author of our faith and the one who brings it to its goal. In view of the joy set before him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of God’s throne.",
      "3": "Carefully consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinful people, so that you do not grow weary and lose heart.",
      "4": "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood in your fight against sin.",
      "5": "Have you also forgotten the encouragement that addresses you as sons?\nMy son, do not regard the Lord’s discipline lightly,\nand do not become weary of his correction.",
      "6": "For the Lord disciplines the one whom he loves,\nand he corrects every son he accepts.",
      "7": "Endure suffering as discipline. God is dealing with you as sons. Is there a son whose father does not discipline him?",
      "8": "If you are not disciplined (and all of us have received it), then you are illegitimate children and not sons.",
      "9": "In addition, we have earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Should we not submit even more to the Father of the spirits and live?",
      "10": "They disciplined us for a little while, according to what seemed best to them, but God disciplines us for our good, so that we may have a share in his holiness.",
      "11": "No discipline seems pleasant when it is happening, but painful, yet later it yields a peaceful harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it.",
      "12": "Therefore strengthen your weak hands and feeble knees,",
      "13": "and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather healed.",
      "14": "Pursue peace with everyone and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.",
      "15": "Take care so that no one falls short of God’s grace and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and so defile many.",
      "16": "Take care that no one becomes sexually immoral or worldly, like Esau, who gave away his right as firstborn for a single meal.",
      "17": "Certainly you know that afterward he was rejected when he wanted to inherit the blessing, for he found no chance to change his father’s mind, even though he sought it with tears.",
      "18": "You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to burning fire, to darkness, to gloom, to a raging storm,",
      "19": "to the sound of a trumpet, and to a voice that spoke. Those who heard the voice asked that not one more word be added,",
      "20": "because they could not endure what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.”",
      "21": "The sight was so terrifying that even Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”",
      "22": "Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God; to the heavenly Jerusalem; to tens of thousands of angels in joyful assembly;",
      "23": "to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven; to God, who is the judge of all; to the spirits of righteous people who have been made perfect;",
      "24": "to Jesus, the mediator of a new testament; and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better message than the blood of Abel.",
      "25": "See to it that you do not refuse to listen to the one who is speaking. For if those people did not escape when they refused to listen to the one who spoke God’s message on earth, how much less likely is it that we will escape, if we turn away from the one who spoke God’s message to us from heaven?",
      "26": "At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also heaven.”",
      "27": "The words “once more” clearly indicate the removal of the things that are being shaken, that is, the things that have been made, so that the things that cannot be shaken remain permanently.",
      "28": "Therefore, since we are going to receive an unshakeable kingdom, let us be thankful. This is how we serve God in an acceptable way, with reverence and awe.",
      "29": "For our God is a consuming fire."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "Continue to show brotherly love.",
      "2": "Do not fail to show love to strangers, for by doing this some have welcomed angels without realizing it.",
      "3": "Remember those in prison, as if you were fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated, as if you yourselves were also suffering bodily.",
      "4": "Marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers.",
      "5": "Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. For God has said:\nI will never leave you,\nand I will never forsake you.",
      "6": "So then we say with confidence:\nThe Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid.\nWhat will man do to me?",
      "7": "Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Carefully consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.",
      "8": "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.",
      "9": "Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. For it is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which are of no help to those who make them a way of life.",
      "10": "We have an altar from which those who minister at the tent have no right to eat.",
      "11": "For the high priest brings the blood of the animals sacrificed for sins into the Most Holy Place, and then their bodies are burned outside the camp.",
      "12": "Jesus suffered outside the gate for this reason: to sanctify people by his own blood.",
      "13": "So then let us go to him, outside of the camp, bearing his disgrace.",
      "14": "For we do not have a permanent city here, but we are looking for the city that is coming.",
      "15": "Through Jesus, therefore, let us constantly offer to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.",
      "16": "And do not forget to do good and share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.",
      "17": "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as men who will give an account. Obey them, so that they may do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no benefit to you.",
      "18": "Pray for us, because we are sure that we have a good conscience, and because in everything we want to conduct ourselves in an honorable way.",
      "19": "I urge you to do this even more, so that I may be restored to you quickly.",
      "20": "Now may the God of peace—who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, in connection with his blood, which established the eternal testament—",
      "21": "may he equip you with every good thing to do his will, as he works in us what is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.",
      "22": "Now I urge you, brothers, to bear with this word of encouragement, for I have written you only a brief letter.",
      "23": "I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. If he arrives very soon, he and I will see you.",
      "24": "Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you.",
      "25": "Grace be with you all. Amen."
    }
  },
  "James": {
    "1": {
      "1": "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,\nTo the twelve tribes who are scattered abroad:\nGreetings.",
      "2": "Consider it complete joy, my brothers, whenever you fall into various kinds of trials,",
      "3": "because you know that the testing of your faith produces patient endurance.",
      "4": "And let patient endurance finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.",
      "5": "If any one of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives it to all without reservation and without finding fault, and it will be given to him.",
      "6": "But let him ask in faith, without doubting, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.",
      "7": "In fact, that person should not expect that he will receive anything from the Lord.",
      "8": "He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.",
      "9": "Let the brother of humble circumstances boast in his high position,",
      "10": "and the rich one in his humble position, because he will pass away like a flower of the grass.",
      "11": "Indeed, the sun rises with burning heat and dries up the grass. Its blossom falls off, and its beauty perishes. In the same way also, the rich person will wither away in his busy pursuits.",
      "12": "Blessed is the man who endures a trial patiently, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God promised to those who love him.",
      "13": "Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” because God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.",
      "14": "But each person is tempted when he is dragged away and enticed by his own desire.",
      "15": "Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.",
      "16": "Do not be deceived, my dear brothers.",
      "17": "Every good act of giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights, who does not change or shift like a shadow.",
      "18": "Just as he planned, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creations.",
      "19": "Remember this, my dear brothers: Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.",
      "20": "Certainly, a man’s anger does not bring about what is right before God.",
      "21": "So after getting rid of all moral filthiness and overflowing wickedness, receive with humility the word planted in you. It is able to save your souls.",
      "22": "Be people who do what the word says, not people who only hear it. Such people are deceiving themselves.",
      "23": "In fact, if anyone hears the word and does not do what it says, he is like a man who carefully looks at his own natural face in a mirror.",
      "24": "Indeed, he carefully looks at himself; then, he goes away and immediately forgets what he looked like.",
      "25": "But the one who looks carefully into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continues to do so—since he does not hear and forget but actually does what it says—that person will be blessed in what he does.",
      "26": "If anyone considers himself to be religious but deceives his own heart because he does not bridle his tongue, this person’s religion is worthless.",
      "27": "Religion that is pure and undefiled in the sight of God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "My brothers, have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ without showing favoritism.",
      "2": "For example, suppose a man enters your worship assembly wearing gold rings and fine clothing, and a poor man also enters wearing filthy clothing.",
      "3": "If you look with favor on the man wearing fine clothing and say, “Sit here in this good place,” but you tell the poor man, “Stand over there” or “Sit down here at my feet,”",
      "4": "have you not made a distinction among yourselves and become judges with evil opinions?",
      "5": "Listen, my dear brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom, which he promised to those who love him?",
      "6": "But you dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and don’t they drag you into court?",
      "7": "Aren’t they the ones who blaspheme the noble name that was pronounced over you?",
      "8": "However, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.",
      "9": "But if you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, since you are convicted by this law as transgressors.",
      "10": "In fact, whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of breaking all of it.",
      "11": "For the one who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.",
      "12": "So speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law of freedom.",
      "13": "For there will be judgment without mercy on the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.",
      "14": "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says that he has faith but has no works? Such “faith” cannot save him, can it?",
      "15": "If a brother or sister needs clothes and lacks daily food",
      "16": "and one of you tells them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but does not give them what their body needs, what good is it?",
      "17": "So also, such “faith,” if it is alone and has no works, is dead.",
      "18": "But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works.",
      "19": "You believe that God is one. Good for you! Even the demons believe that—and shudder!",
      "20": "But do you want proof, you mindless person, that such “faith” without works is dead?",
      "21": "Wasn’t Abraham our father shown to be righteous by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?",
      "22": "You see that his faith was working together with his works, and by his works his faith was shown to be complete.",
      "23": "And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” He was also called God’s friend.",
      "24": "You see that a person is shown to be righteous by works and not by faith alone.",
      "25": "In the same way also, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute shown to be righteous by works when she welcomed the spies and sent them out another way?",
      "26": "For just as the body without breath is dead, so also faith without works is dead."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.",
      "2": "To be sure, we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a fully mature man, able to bridle his whole body as well.",
      "3": "If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they will obey us, we also guide the whole animal.",
      "4": "And consider ships: Although they are very big and are driven by fierce winds, yet they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot wants to go.",
      "5": "So also the tongue is a small part of the body, yet it also boasts great things.\nConsider how a little flame can set a large forest on fire!",
      "6": "And the tongue is a fire. It is set among the parts of our body as a world of unrighteousness that stains the whole body, sets the whole course of life on fire, and is set on fire by hell.",
      "7": "Indeed, every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature is being tamed and has been tamed by mankind.",
      "8": "But no one is able to tame the human tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.",
      "9": "With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who are made in the likeness of God.",
      "10": "Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers, these things should not be this way.",
      "11": "A spring does not pour out both fresh and bitter water from the same opening, does it?",
      "12": "Can a fig tree bear olives, my brothers, or can a grapevine produce figs? A salt spring cannot produce fresh water either.",
      "13": "Who among you is wise and intelligent? Let him by his good way of living show that he does things in wise humility.",
      "14": "But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not boast and lie, contrary to the truth.",
      "15": "This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but it is worldly, unspiritual, and demonic.",
      "16": "In fact, where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and every bad practice.",
      "17": "But the wisdom that comes from above is first pure, then also peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, and sincere.",
      "18": "And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who practice peace."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Where do conflicts and quarrels among you come from? Don’t they come from your cravings for pleasure, which are at war in the parts of your body?",
      "2": "You want something but do not get it, so you murder. You desire something but cannot obtain it, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask.",
      "3": "You ask, and yet do not receive, because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on what gives you pleasure.",
      "4": "Adulterers, don’t you know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.",
      "5": "Or, do you think that Scripture has no reason for saying that the Spirit, who lives in us, yearns jealously?",
      "6": "But he gives greater grace! That is why it says, “God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.”",
      "7": "So, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.",
      "8": "Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded people.",
      "9": "Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be changed into mourning and your joy into gloom.",
      "10": "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.",
      "11": "Do not speak against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother is speaking against the law and judging the law. But if you judge the law, you are not one who does the law, but a judge.",
      "12": "There is one lawgiver and judge. He is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?",
      "13": "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that city, spend a year there, do business, and make a profit.”",
      "14": "You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? Indeed, it is a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears.",
      "15": "Instead, it is better for you to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live, and we will do this or that.”",
      "16": "But right now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.",
      "17": "So, for the one who knows the right thing to do and doesn’t do it, this is a sin."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Come now, you who are rich, weep and cry aloud over the miseries that are going to come upon you.",
      "2": "Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.",
      "3": "Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in these last days.",
      "4": "Listen, the wages that you failed to pay the workers who reaped your fields are crying out! And the cries of the harvesters have entered the ears of the Lord of Armies.",
      "5": "You have lived for pleasure on the earth and led a life of luxury. You have fattened your hearts on the day of slaughter.",
      "6": "You condemned and murdered the Righteous One. Does he not oppose you?",
      "7": "Therefore, brothers, be patient until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the valuable harvest from the ground, patiently waiting for it, until it receives the early and late rain.",
      "8": "You be patient too. Strengthen your hearts because the coming of the Lord is near.",
      "9": "Do not complain about one another, brothers, so that you will not be judged. Look! The Judge is standing at the doors!",
      "10": "Brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering with patient endurance.",
      "11": "See, we consider those who endured to be blessed. You have heard of the patient endurance of Job and have seen what the Lord did in the end, because the Lord is especially compassionate and merciful.",
      "12": "Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Just let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no,” so that you do not fall under judgment.",
      "13": "Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing songs of praise.",
      "14": "Is anyone among you sick? He should call the elders of the church, and they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.",
      "15": "And the prayer offered in faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.",
      "16": "So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, in order that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is able to do much because it is effective.",
      "17": "Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.",
      "18": "Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its harvest.",
      "19": "My brothers, if anyone among you wanders away from the truth and someone turns him back,",
      "20": "let it be known that the one who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins."
    }
  },
  "1 Peter": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,\nTo the elect, temporary residents in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,",
      "2": "who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ:\nGrace and peace be multiplied to you.",
      "3": "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he gave us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,",
      "4": "into an inheritance that is undying, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.",
      "5": "Through faith you are being protected by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed at the end of time.",
      "6": "Because of this you rejoice very much, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various kinds of trials",
      "7": "so that the proven character of your faith—which is more valuable than gold, which passes away even though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.",
      "8": "Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, yet by believing in him, you are filled with a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,",
      "9": "because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.",
      "10": "The prophets, who prophesied about the grace that has come to you, searched and studied carefully concerning this salvation,",
      "11": "trying to find out what person and what time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.",
      "12": "It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they wrote about these things. These are the things that have now been announced to you by those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even the angels long to look carefully into these things.",
      "13": "Therefore, after preparing your minds for action by exercising self-control, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.",
      "14": "As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.",
      "15": "Rather, just as the one who called you is holy, so also be holy in everything you do.",
      "16": "For it is written, “Be holy, because I am holy.”",
      "17": "If you call on the Father who judges impartially, according to the work of each person, conduct yourselves during the time of your pilgrimage in reverence,",
      "18": "because you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold,",
      "19": "but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot.",
      "20": "He was chosen before the foundation of the world but revealed in these last times for your sake.",
      "21": "Through him you are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.",
      "22": "Since you have purified your souls by obeying the truth, resulting in sincere brotherly love, love one another constantly from a pure heart.",
      "23": "For you have been born again, not from perishable seed but from imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.",
      "24": "For:\nAll flesh is like grass,\nand all its glory is like a flower of the field.\nThe grass withers,\nand the flower falls,",
      "25": "but the word of the Lord endures forever.\nAnd this is the word that was preached to you."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "Therefore rid yourselves of all evil, all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all slander.",
      "2": "Like newborn babies, crave the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow up with the result being salvation.",
      "3": "Certainly you have tasted that the Lord is good!",
      "4": "As you come to him, the Living Stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious,",
      "5": "you also, like living stones, are being built as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, in order to bring spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.",
      "6": "For it says in Scripture:\nSee, I lay a stone in Zion,\na chosen and precious cornerstone,\nand the one who believes in him will certainly not be put to shame.",
      "7": "Therefore, for you who believe, this is an honor. But for those who do not believe:\nThe stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,",
      "8": "and,\na stone over which they stumble\nand a rock over which they fall.\nBecause they continue to disobey the word, they stumble over it. And that is the consequence appointed for them.",
      "9": "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people who are God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.",
      "10": "At one time you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. At one time you were not shown mercy, but now you have been shown mercy.",
      "11": "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and temporary residents in the world, to abstain from the desires of the sinful flesh, which war against your soul.",
      "12": "Live an honorable life among the Gentiles so that even though they slander you as evildoers, when they observe your noble deeds, they may glorify God on the day he visits us.",
      "13": "Submit to every human authority because of the Lord, whether to the king as the supreme authority",
      "14": "or to governors as those who have been sent by him to punish those who do what is wrong and to praise those who do what is right.",
      "15": "For this is God’s will: that you silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good.",
      "16": "Do this as free people, and do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but use it as servants of God.",
      "17": "Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.",
      "18": "Slaves, submit to your masters with total respect, not only to those who are good and kind but also to those who are harsh.",
      "19": "For this is favorable: if a person endures sorrows while suffering unjustly because he is conscious of God.",
      "20": "For what credit is it to you if you receive a beating for sinning and patiently endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and endure it, this is favorable with God.",
      "21": "Indeed, you were called to do this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you would follow in his steps.",
      "22": "He did not commit a sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.",
      "23": "When he was insulted, he did not insult in return. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.",
      "24": "He himself carried our sins in his body on the tree so that we would be dead to sins and alive to righteousness. By his wounds you were healed.",
      "25": "For you were like sheep going astray, but you are now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Wives, in the same way, be submissive to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they might be won over without a word by the behavior of their wives,",
      "2": "as they observe your respectful and holy behavior.",
      "3": "Do not let your beauty be something outward, such as braided hair or wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes.",
      "4": "Rather let your beauty be the hidden person of your heart—the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight.",
      "5": "In fact, this is also how the holy women of the past who put their hope in God made themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands,",
      "6": "just as Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord. You are her daughters if you do what is good and do not fear anything that is intimidating.",
      "7": "Husbands, in the same way, continue to live with your wives with the knowledge that, as the wife, she is the weaker vessel. Also continue to accord them honor as fellow heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.",
      "8": "Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another. Show sympathy, brotherly love, compassion, and humility.",
      "9": "Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. Instead, speak a blessing, because you were called for the purpose of inheriting a blessing.",
      "10": "Indeed:\nLet the one who wants to love life\nand to see good days\nkeep his tongue from evil\nand his lips from saying anything deceitful.",
      "11": "Let him turn from evil and do what is good.\nLet him seek peace and pursue it.",
      "12": "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,\nand his ears are open to their requests.\nBut the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.",
      "13": "Who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?",
      "14": "But even if you should happen to suffer because of righteousness, you are blessed. Do not be afraid of what they fear, and do not be troubled.",
      "15": "But regard the Lord, the Christ, as holy in your hearts. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that is in you.",
      "16": "But speak with gentleness and respect, while maintaining a clear conscience, so that those who attack your good way of life in Christ may be put to shame because they slandered you as evildoers.",
      "17": "Indeed, it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil,",
      "18": "because Christ also suffered once for sins in our place, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in flesh but was made alive in spirit,",
      "19": "in which he also went and made an announcement to the spirits in prison.",
      "20": "These spirits disobeyed long ago, when God’s patience was waiting in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In this ark a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water.",
      "21": "And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the body but the guarantee of a good conscience before God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.",
      "22": "He went to heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Therefore, because Christ suffered in flesh, arm yourselves with the same mindset, because the one who has suffered in flesh is done with sin.",
      "2": "Do this so that you no longer live the rest of your time in the flesh for human desires but for God’s will.",
      "3": "Indeed, you have already spent enough time in the past doing what the Gentiles want to do: living in unbridled immorality, lusts, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and disgusting idolatry.",
      "4": "For this reason, they are surprised that you do not plunge into the same overflowing river of filth with them, and they slander you.",
      "5": "They will have to give an account to the one who is ready to judge the living and the dead.",
      "6": "In fact, it was for this reason that the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, so that they might be judged the way people are judged in flesh and that they might live the way God lives in spirit.",
      "7": "The end of all things is near. So have sound judgment and be self-controlled for the sake of your prayers.",
      "8": "Above all, love each other constantly, because love covers a multitude of sins.",
      "9": "Be hospitable to one another without complaining.",
      "10": "Serve one another, each according to the gift he has received, as good stewards of the many forms of God’s grace.",
      "11": "If anyone speaks, let him do it as one speaking the messages of God. If anyone serves, let him do it as one serving with the strength God supplies so that God may be glorified in every way through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.",
      "12": "Dear friends, do not be surprised by the fiery trial that is happening among you to test you, as if something strange were happening to you.",
      "13": "Instead rejoice whenever you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.",
      "14": "If you are insulted in connection with the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.",
      "15": "Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or as a meddler.",
      "16": "But if you suffer for being a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God in connection with this name.",
      "17": "For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. Now if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who disobey the gospel of God?",
      "18": "And if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, where will the ungodly sinner end up?",
      "19": "So let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to their faithful Creator while doing what is good."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Therefore, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and as one who also shares in the glory that is about to be revealed, I appeal to the elders among you:",
      "2": "Shepherd God’s flock that is among you, serving as overseers, not grudgingly but willingly, as God desires, not because you are greedy for money but because you are eager to do it.",
      "3": "Do not lord it over those entrusted to your care, but be examples for the flock.",
      "4": "And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive an unfading crown of glory.",
      "5": "Likewise, young men, be submissive to those who are older. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. For “God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.”",
      "6": "Therefore humble yourselves under God’s powerful hand so that he may lift you up at the appointed time.",
      "7": "Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.",
      "8": "Have sound judgment. Be alert. Your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.",
      "9": "Resist him by being firm in the faith. You know that the same kinds of sufferings are being laid on your brotherhood all over the world.",
      "10": "After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you.",
      "11": "To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.",
      "12": "I have written to you briefly (through Silas, whom I consider a faithful brother), to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.",
      "13": "She who is in Babylon, who was chosen along with you, greets you. So does Mark, my son.",
      "14": "Greet one another with a kiss of love.\nPeace to all of you who are in Christ Jesus."
    }
  },
  "2 Peter": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ,\nTo those who have obtained the same kind of faith as ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:",
      "2": "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.",
      "3": "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.",
      "4": "Through these he has given us his precious and great promises so that through them you may share in the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that sinful lust causes in the world.",
      "5": "And, for this very reason, after applying every effort, add moral excellence to your faith. To moral excellence, add knowledge.",
      "6": "To knowledge, add self-control. To self-control, add patient endurance. To patient endurance, add godliness.",
      "7": "To godliness, add brotherly affection. And to brotherly affection, add love.",
      "8": "For if you have these qualities and they are increasing, they are going to keep you from being idle or unfruitful in regard to your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "9": "Indeed, the person who lacks these qualities is shortsighted and, in fact, blind, because he has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.",
      "10": "Therefore, brothers, be more eager to make your calling and election sure for yourselves. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.",
      "11": "In fact, in this way you will be richly supplied with an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.",
      "12": "That is why I intend always to keep reminding you of these things, even though you already know them and are established in the truth you now have.",
      "13": "I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to keep you wide awake by reminding you,",
      "14": "because I know that the putting off of my tent is going to happen soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.",
      "15": "I will also make every effort so that after my departure you always have a reminder of these things.",
      "16": "To be sure, we were not following cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the powerful appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.",
      "17": "For he received honor and glory from God the Father, when the voice came to him from within the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”",
      "18": "We heard this voice, which came out of heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.",
      "19": "We also have the completely reliable prophetic word. You do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts,",
      "20": "since we know this above all else: No prophecy of Scripture comes about from someone’s own interpretation.",
      "21": "In fact, no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were being carried along by the Holy Spirit."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "There were false prophets also among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves.",
      "2": "Many will follow their depraved ways, and because of them the way of the truth will be blasphemed.",
      "3": "In their greed they will exploit you with fabricated messages. Their condemnation announced long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.",
      "4": "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned but handed them over to chains of darkness by casting them into hell, to be kept under guard for judgment;",
      "5": "and if God did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, along with seven others when he brought a flood on the world of ungodly people;",
      "6": "and if God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, by turning them into ashes when he made them an example of things to come for the ungodly;",
      "7": "and if he rescued righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the unrestrained immorality of the wicked people",
      "8": "(while that righteous man was living among them, he was tormented in his righteous soul day after day by the lawless deeds he saw and heard);",
      "9": "then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under guard until the day of judgment, in order to punish them.",
      "10": "This is especially true of those who follow the defiling lust of the flesh and who despise authority. Daring and arrogant, they do not tremble when they blaspheme glorious beings,",
      "11": "whereas angels, even though they are greater in strength and power, do not bring a slanderous judgment against them before the Lord.",
      "12": "But these people blaspheme in matters about which they are ignorant, just like unreasoning creatures that live by instinct and are born to be captured and destroyed. So they too will be destroyed as a consequence of their destructive activity.",
      "13": "They will be paid back for the harm they cause.\nThey consider it a pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, who take delight in their deceitful pleasures while they feast with you.",
      "14": "They have eyes full of longing for adulterous women and sins that never stop. They seduce unstable souls. They have trained their hearts for greed. They are children who are cursed.",
      "15": "They left the right way and went astray, following the path of Balaam, son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.",
      "16": "(He was rebuked for his disobedience. A donkey, which does not talk, spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.)",
      "17": "These men are wells without water, clouds driven away by a windstorm, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved.",
      "18": "For by uttering arrogant, empty words, they use the depraved lusts of the flesh to seduce those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.",
      "19": "While they promise these people freedom, they themselves are slaves to corruption, for a person is a slave to what has control of him.",
      "20": "Indeed, if, after escaping the defiling things of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and controlled by them again, they are worse off than they were at first.",
      "21": "In fact, it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy command passed on to them.",
      "22": "They demonstrate the truth of the proverb: “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and a washed sow returns to wallowing in the mud."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "Dear friends, this is now the second letter that I have written to you. I wrote both of them to stir up your sincere mind with a reminder",
      "2": "for you to remember the words spoken earlier by the holy prophets and the command of the Lord and Savior through your apostles.",
      "3": "First, know this: In the last days scoffers will come with their mocking, following their own lusts.",
      "4": "They will say, “Where is this promised coming of his? For from the time that our fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they have from the beginning of the creation.”",
      "5": "You see, what they are intentionally forgetting is that the heavens came into existence long ago by the word of God and that the earth came together out of the water and between the waters.",
      "6": "Through these waters the former world perished, when it was flooded with water.",
      "7": "And now, by that same word, the heavens and earth have been stored up for fire, since they are being kept until the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly.",
      "8": "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: For the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.",
      "9": "The Lord is not slow to do what he promised, as some consider slowness. Instead, he is patient for your sakes, not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance.",
      "10": "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a roar, the elements will be dissolved as they burn with great heat, and the earth and what was done on it will be burned up.",
      "11": "Therefore, since all these things will be destroyed, what kind of people ought you to be, living in holiness and godliness,",
      "12": "as you look forward to and hasten the coming of the day of God? That day will cause the heavens to be set on fire and destroyed, and the elements to melt as they burn with great heat.",
      "13": "But according to his promise we look forward to new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.",
      "14": "Therefore, dear friends, as you look forward to these things, make every effort to be found in peace, spotless and blameless in his sight.",
      "15": "Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him.",
      "16": "He spoke about these things the same way in all of his letters. There are some matters that are hard to understand in his letters, which the ignorant and unstable distort, as they also do with the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.",
      "17": "Therefore, dear friends, since you already know these things, be on your guard so that you do not fall from your own firm position by being led astray through the error of the wicked.",
      "18": "Instead grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and forever. Amen."
    }
  },
  "1 John": {
    "1": {
      "1": "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed and our hands have touched regarding the Word of Life—",
      "2": "the life appeared, and we have seen it. We testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.",
      "3": "We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.",
      "4": "We write these things to you so that our joy may be complete.",
      "5": "This is the message we heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light. In him there is no darkness at all.",
      "6": "If we say we have fellowship with him but still walk in darkness, we are lying and do not put the truth into practice.",
      "7": "But if we walk in the light, just as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.",
      "8": "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.",
      "9": "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.",
      "10": "If we say we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his Word is not in us."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.",
      "2": "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.",
      "3": "This is how we know that we have known him: if we keep his commands.",
      "4": "The one who says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.",
      "5": "If anyone keeps God’s word, the love of God is truly made complete in him. This is how we know that we are in him:",
      "6": "The one who says he remains in him should walk as Jesus walked.",
      "7": "Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one that you have had since the beginning. The old command is the message you heard.",
      "8": "At the same time, the command I am writing is new—it is true in Jesus and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.",
      "9": "The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is still in the darkness.",
      "10": "The one who loves his brother remains in the light, and nothing causes him to stumble.",
      "11": "The one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.",
      "12": "I am writing to you, dear children,\n    because your sins have been forgiven because of his name.",
      "13": "I am writing to you, fathers,\n    because you have known him who is from the beginning.\nI am writing to you, young men,\n    because you have overcome the Evil One.",
      "14": "I have written to you, little children,\n    because you have known the Father.\nI have written to you, fathers,\n    because you have known him who is from the beginning.\nI have written to you, young men,\n    because you are strong,\n    and the word of God remains in you,\n    and you have overcome the Evil One.",
      "15": "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.",
      "16": "For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, boasting about material possessions—is not from the Father but from the world.",
      "17": "The world and its desires pass away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.",
      "18": "Dear children, it is the last hour. The Antichrist is coming, just as you have heard, and even now many antichrists have come. (This is how you know that it is the last hour.)",
      "19": "They went out from us, but they really were not part of us. If they had been part of us, they would have stayed with us. Instead they all showed that they were not part of us.",
      "20": "You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.",
      "21": "I did not write to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.",
      "22": "Who is a liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is an antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son.",
      "23": "Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father. But the one who confesses the Son has the Father as well.",
      "24": "Let what you have heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and the Father.",
      "25": "And this is what he promised you: eternal life.",
      "26": "I have written these things to you about those who are misleading you.",
      "27": "As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you have no need for someone to teach you. Rather, since his anointing teaches you all things and since it is true and is no lie, remain in him, just as it has taught you.",
      "28": "So now, dear children, remain in him so that we may be confident when he appears and may be unashamed before him at his coming.",
      "29": "If you know that he is righteous, then you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "See the kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are! The world does not know us, because it did not know him.",
      "2": "Dear friends, we are children of God now, but what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he is revealed we will be like him, and we will see him as he really is.",
      "3": "Everyone who has this hope purifies himself just as Jesus is pure.",
      "4": "Everyone who commits sin also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.",
      "5": "You know that he appeared in order to take away our sins and in him there is no sin.",
      "6": "Anyone who remains in him does not sin. The person who keeps on sinning has not seen him or known him.",
      "7": "Dear children, do not let anyone deceive you. Whoever does what is right is righteous just as Jesus is righteous.",
      "8": "The one who continues to sin is of the Devil, because the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. This is why the Son of God appeared: to destroy the works of the Devil.",
      "9": "Nobody who has been born of God continues to commit sin, because God’s seed remains in him. He cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.",
      "10": "This is how the children of God and the children of the Devil are obvious: Everyone who does not do what is right is not from God, along with everyone who does not love his brother.",
      "11": "This is the message you have heard from the beginning: Love one another.",
      "12": "Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the Evil One and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own works were evil, while those of his brother were righteous.",
      "13": "Do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.",
      "14": "We know that we have crossed over from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death.",
      "15": "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.",
      "16": "This is how we have come to know love: Jesus laid down his life for us. And we also should lay down our lives for our brothers.",
      "17": "Whoever has worldly wealth and sees his brother in need but closes his heart against him—how can God’s love remain in him?",
      "18": "Dear children, let us love not only with word or with our tongue, but also in action and truth.",
      "19": "This is how we know that we are of the truth and how we will set our hearts at rest in his presence:",
      "20": "If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.",
      "21": "Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God.",
      "22": "We also receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight.",
      "23": "This then is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love one another just as he commanded us.",
      "24": "The one who keeps his commands remains in God and God in him. This is how we know that he remains in us: We know it from the Spirit, whom he has given to us."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.",
      "2": "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,",
      "3": "and every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is already in the world.",
      "4": "You are from God, dear children, and you have overcome the false prophets, because the one in you is greater than the one in the world.",
      "5": "They are from the world. That is why they speak from a worldly perspective and the world listens to them.",
      "6": "We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we can distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.",
      "7": "Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.",
      "8": "The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love.",
      "9": "This is how God’s love for us was revealed: God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him.",
      "10": "This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.",
      "11": "Dear friends, if God loved us so much, we also should love one another.",
      "12": "No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love has been brought to its goal in us.",
      "13": "This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.",
      "14": "We have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.",
      "15": "If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.",
      "16": "We also have come to know and trust the love that God has for us.\nGod is love. Whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.",
      "17": "In this way his love has been brought to its goal among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are just like Jesus.",
      "18": "There is no fear in love, but complete love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who continues to be afraid has not been brought to the goal in love.",
      "19": "We love because he first loved us.",
      "20": "If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For how can anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, love God, whom he has not seen?",
      "21": "This then is the command we have from him: The one who loves God should also love his brother."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the God who has given birth also loves one who has been born of him.",
      "2": "This is how we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep his commands.",
      "3": "In fact, this is love for God: that we keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,",
      "4": "because everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith.",
      "5": "Who is the one who overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.",
      "6": "This is the one who came by water and blood: Jesus Christ. He did not come by the water alone but by the water and by the blood. The Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.",
      "7": "In fact, there are three that testify:",
      "8": "the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one.",
      "9": "If we accept the testimony of people, God’s testimony is even greater, because it is the testimony that God gave about his Son.",
      "10": "The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in him, but the one who does not believe has made God out to be a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God gave about his Son.",
      "11": "This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.",
      "12": "The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life.",
      "13": "I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.",
      "14": "This is the confidence that we have before him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.",
      "15": "And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we also know that we receive the things we have asked from him.",
      "16": "If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not result in death, he will ask, and God will give life—to those who commit sin that does not result in death. There is sin that results in death; I am not saying that he should ask about that.",
      "17": "All unrighteousness is sin, but there is sin that does not result in death.",
      "18": "We know that anyone who has been born of God does not go on sinning. But the one who was born of God protects him, and the Evil One cannot take hold of him.",
      "19": "We know that we are from God and that the whole world lies in the grip of the Evil One.",
      "20": "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.",
      "21": "Dear children, guard yourselves from idols."
    }
  },
  "2 John": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The Elder,\nTo the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth—not only I, but also everyone who knows the truth—",
      "2": "because of the truth that remains in us and will be with us forever:",
      "3": "Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, in truth and love.",
      "4": "I was overjoyed to find out that some of your children are walking in the truth, in keeping with the command we received from the Father.",
      "5": "And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing a new command to you, but the one we have had from the beginning—let us love one another.",
      "6": "And this is love: that we walk according to his commands. This is the command: Just as you have heard from the beginning, keep on walking in it.",
      "7": "Many deceivers who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh have gone out into the world. Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist.",
      "8": "Watch yourselves so that you do not lose what we have labored for but receive a full reward.",
      "9": "Anyone who goes on ahead and does not remain in the teaching of Christ does not have God. The one who remains in this teaching has both the Father and the Son.",
      "10": "If someone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house. Do not even wish him well.",
      "11": "For the one who wishes him well shares in his wicked works.",
      "12": "I have many things to write to you, but I did not want to do it with paper and ink. I hope instead to be with you and speak to you face to face so that our joy may be made complete.",
      "13": "The children of your chosen sister greet you."
    }
  },
  "3 John": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The Elder,\nTo dear Gaius, whom I love in the truth:",
      "2": "Dear friend, I pray that you are doing well in every way and have good health, just as your soul is doing well.",
      "3": "Indeed, I was overjoyed when brothers came and testified to your truthfulness because you are walking in the truth.",
      "4": "I have no greater joy than when I hear that my children are walking in the truth.",
      "5": "Dear friend, you are being faithful in what you are doing for the brothers even though they are strangers.",
      "6": "They have testified before the church about your love. You will do well to send them off in a manner worthy of God.",
      "7": "They went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles.",
      "8": "Therefore, we have an obligation to support such men, so that we may be coworkers for the truth.",
      "9": "I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, does not welcome us.",
      "10": "For this reason, if I do come, I will call attention to what he is doing. He is disparaging us with wicked words, and he is not content with that. He also refuses to welcome the brothers. He even hinders and puts out of the church those who wish to welcome them.",
      "11": "Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does what is good is from God. The one who does what is evil has not seen God.",
      "12": "Demetrius has been endorsed by everyone, even by the truth itself. We also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true.",
      "13": "I had many things to write you, but I do not want to do it with pen and ink.",
      "14": "I hope to see you soon, and we will speak face to face.",
      "15": "Peace to you. Your friends here send their greetings to you. Greet our friends there by name."
    }
  },
  "Jude": {
    "1": {
      "1": "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,\nTo those who are called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:",
      "2": "Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.",
      "3": "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you concerning the salvation we share, I felt it was necessary for me to write, to urge you to continue to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once and for all.",
      "4": "For certain individuals slipped in secretly, about whom it was written some time ago that they are condemned. They are ungodly people who turn the grace of our God into a license for sin and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.",
      "5": "I want to remind you, though you already know all these things, that after the Lord rescued his people out of the land of Egypt, he later destroyed those who did not believe.",
      "6": "And the angels who did not keep their position of authority but left their own dwelling place behind—God has kept them in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.",
      "7": "Like Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who in a similar way indulged in extreme sexual immorality and pursued homosexual perversion, they serve as an example of those who are going to suffer the punishment of eternal fire.",
      "8": "Yet, in the very same way, these dreamers are defiling the flesh, despising authority, and blaspheming glorious ones.",
      "9": "But when the archangel Michael was disputing with the Devil and arguing about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a blasphemous condemnation against him. Instead he said, “The Lord rebuke you!”",
      "10": "But these people do not understand what they are blaspheming. They are being destroyed by the very things that they know by instinct (like unreasoning animals).",
      "11": "Woe to them! They have gone the way of Cain. They have abandoned themselves for hire to the error of Balaam. They perished in Korah’s rebellion.",
      "12": "These people are filthy stains on your love feasts when they eat with you without fear, shepherding themselves. They are clouds without rain, being driven along by the winds. They are autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots.",
      "13": "They are wild waves of the sea piling up the foam of their own shame. They are wandering stars for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved for eternity.",
      "14": "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about these people, saying, “Look, the Lord is going to come with tens of thousands of his holy ones,",
      "15": "to execute judgment against all of them and to convict every soul concerning all their ungodly deeds, which they did in an ungodly way, and concerning all the harsh words that ungodly sinners spoke against him.”",
      "16": "These are discontented grumblers, who walk according to their lusts, and their mouths speak boastful things as they flatter others to take advantage of them.",
      "17": "But you, dear friends, remember the words that were spoken earlier by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.",
      "18": "They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers who follow their own ungodly lusts.”",
      "19": "These are the people who cause divisions. They are worldly because they do not have the Spirit.",
      "20": "But you, dear friends, continue to build yourselves up in your most holy faith as you keep praying in the Holy Spirit.",
      "21": "Keep yourselves in God’s love as you continue to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, which results in eternal life.",
      "22": "Show mercy to those who are wavering.",
      "23": "Save others by snatching them out of the fire. Show mercy to still others with fear, hating even the clothing that is stained by the flesh.",
      "24": "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless in the presence of his glory with great joy,",
      "25": "to the only God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all time, now, and to all eternity. Amen."
    }
  },
  "Revelation": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The revelation from Jesus Christ that God gave him to show his servants the things that must soon take place. Christ expressed this revelation by means of symbols sent through his angel to his servant John.",
      "2": "John spoke as a witness to the word of God and to the testimony about Jesus Christ, that is, to everything he saw.",
      "3": "Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear it and hold on to the things written in it, because the time is near.",
      "4": "John,\nTo the seven churches in the province of Asia:\nGrace to you and peace from him who is, who was, and who is coming, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne,",
      "5": "and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.\nTo him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his own blood",
      "6": "and made us a kingdom and priests to God his Father—to him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.",
      "7": "Look, he is coming with clouds,\nand every eye will see him,\nincluding those who pierced him.\nAnd all the nations of the earth will mourn because of him.\nYes. Amen.",
      "8": "<J>“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, the one who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty.</J>",
      "9": "I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingship and patient endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus.",
      "10": "I was in spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard a loud voice behind me, like a trumpet,",
      "11": "<J>saying, “Write what you see on a scroll and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”</J>",
      "12": "I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. When I turned, I saw seven gold lampstands,",
      "13": "and among the lampstands was one like a son of man. He was clothed with a robe that reached to his feet, and around his chest he wore a gold sash.",
      "14": "His head and his hair were white, like white wool or like snow. His eyes were like blazing flames.",
      "15": "His feet were like polished bronze being refined in a furnace. His voice was like the roar of many waters.",
      "16": "He held seven stars in his right hand. A sharp two-edged sword was coming out of his mouth. His face was shining as the sun shines in all its brightness.",
      "17": "<J>When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last—</J>",
      "18": "<J>the Living One. I was dead and, see, I am alive forever and ever! I also hold the keys of death and hell.</J>",
      "19": "<J>“So write what you have seen, both those things that are and those that will take place after this.</J>",
      "20": "<J>“The mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven gold lampstands is this: The seven stars are the messengers of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”</J>"
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "<J>To the messenger of the church in Ephesus write:\nThe one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven gold lampstands, says this:</J>",
      "2": "<J>I know your works, your labor, and your patient endurance, and that you are not able to tolerate evil people. You have tested those who say they are apostles, but are not, and have found them to be liars.</J>",
      "3": "<J>Indeed, you do have patient endurance. You have endured hardships on account of my name and have not become weary.</J>",
      "4": "<J>But I have this against you: You have forsaken your first love.</J>",
      "5": "<J>Remember, therefore, the state from which you have fallen! Repent and do the works you did at first. Otherwise I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, if you do not repent.</J>",
      "6": "<J>But you do have this: You hate the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.</J>",
      "7": "<J>Whoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious I will give the privilege to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.</J>",
      "8": "<J>To the messenger of the church in Smyrna write:\nThe First and the Last, who was dead and came to life again, says this:</J>",
      "9": "<J>I know your suffering and your poverty—but you are rich. And I know the blasphemy that comes from those who say they are Jews but are not; rather, they are a synagogue of Satan.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Do not fear anything that you are about to suffer. Look, the Devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you will be tested, and you will suffer for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.</J>",
      "11": "<J>Whoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death.</J>",
      "12": "<J>To the messenger of the church in Pergamum write:\nThe one who has the sharp, two-edged sword says this:</J>",
      "13": "<J>I know where you live—where the throne of Satan is. And I know that you hold fast to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me even in the days when Antipas, my faithful witness, was put to death near you, the place where Satan lives.</J>",
      "14": "<J>But I have a few things against you: You have some people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who instructed Balak to put a stumbling block in front of the children of Israel so that they would eat things offered to idols and commit sexual immorality.</J>",
      "15": "<J>Likewise, you also have some people who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.</J>",
      "16": "<J>Therefore, repent! If not, I will come to you soon, and I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.</J>",
      "17": "<J>Whoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, which no one will know except the one who receives it.</J>",
      "18": "<J>To the messenger of the church in Thyatira write:\nThe Son of God, whose eyes are like fiery flames and whose feet are like polished bronze, says this:</J>",
      "19": "<J>I know your works and love and faith and service, as well as your patient endurance, and that you are doing more now than you did at first.</J>",
      "20": "<J>But I have this against you: You allow that woman Jezebel, the one who calls herself a prophetess, to deceive my servants and to teach them to commit sexual immorality and eat things offered to idols.</J>",
      "21": "<J>I gave her time to repent, but she is not willing to repent of her sexual immorality.</J>",
      "22": "<J>Look, I am going to throw her onto a bed and throw those who commit adultery with her into great suffering, if they do not repent of her works.</J>",
      "23": "<J>And I will put her children to death. And all the churches will know that I am the one who searches hearts and minds, and that I will give to each of you according to your works.</J>",
      "24": "<J>To the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold to this teaching, who do not know Satan’s “deep things,” as they call them, I say that I will not lay any other burden on you.</J>",
      "25": "<J>Only hold fast to what you have until I come.</J>",
      "26": "<J>To the one who is victorious and continues to do my works until the end, I will give him authority over the nations,</J>",
      "27": "<J>and he will rule them with an iron staff and shatter them like clay pots,</J>",
      "28": "<J>just as I myself have received authority from my Father. I will also give him the morning star.</J>",
      "29": "<J>Whoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.</J>"
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "<J>To the messenger of the church in Sardis write:\nThe one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this:\nI know your works. You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead.</J>",
      "2": "<J>Wake up, and strengthen what is left, which is about to die, for I have found that your works are not complete in the sight of my God.</J>",
      "3": "<J>Therefore remember what you received and heard. Hold on to it and repent! If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come upon you.</J>",
      "4": "<J>Yet you have a few names in Sardis, people who have not defiled their clothes. They will walk with me in white clothing, for they are worthy.</J>",
      "5": "<J>The one who is victorious in this way will be clothed in white clothing. I certainly will not erase his name from the Book of Life, and I will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.</J>",
      "6": "<J>Whoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.</J>",
      "7": "<J>To the messenger of the church in Philadelphia write:\nThe Holy One, the one who is true, the one who has the key of David, the one who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one can open, says this:</J>",
      "8": "<J>I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.</J>",
      "9": "<J>Look, I will make those who are from the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not but are lying—look, I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and make them realize that I have loved you.</J>",
      "10": "<J>Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will also keep you from the hour of testing, which is about to come over the whole inhabited world, to test those who dwell on the earth.</J>",
      "11": "<J>I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have so that no one takes your crown.</J>",
      "12": "<J>The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never leave it again. I will also write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God—the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God—and my new name.</J>",
      "13": "<J>Whoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.</J>",
      "14": "<J>To the messenger of the church in Laodicea write:\nThe Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation, says this:</J>",
      "15": "<J>I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. If only you were cold or hot!</J>",
      "16": "<J>So, because you are lukewarm and not hot or cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.</J>",
      "17": "<J>You say, “I am rich. I have become very wealthy and need nothing.” But you do not know that you are miserable, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.</J>",
      "18": "<J>I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments, so that you may be clothed and the shame of your nakedness may not become public, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.</J>",
      "19": "<J>I rebuke and discipline those whom I love. So take this seriously and repent.</J>",
      "20": "<J>Look, I stand at the door and I am knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will go in with him and dine with him, and he with me.</J>",
      "21": "<J>To the one who is victorious I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne.</J>",
      "22": "<J>Whoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.</J>"
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "After these things I looked, and there was a door opened in heaven! And the first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after these things.”",
      "2": "Immediately I was in spirit. And look! A throne was standing in heaven, and someone was sitting on the throne.",
      "3": "The one who was sitting there looked like a jasper stone and a ruby. Around the throne there was a rainbow that looked like an emerald.",
      "4": "Also around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and sitting on those thrones were twenty-four elders dressed in white garments, with gold crowns on their heads.",
      "5": "Out of the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and crashes of thunder. In front of the throne seven flaming lamps were burning, which are the seven spirits of God.",
      "6": "Also in front of the throne was something resembling a glassy sea, which was like crystal.\nIn the middle, near the throne and around the throne, there were four living creatures, full of eyes in front and in back.",
      "7": "The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature was like an ox, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.",
      "8": "Each one of the four living creatures had six wings, and the wings were full of eyes all around and underneath. Day and night, without pause, they keep saying:\nHoly, holy, holy,\nLord God Almighty,\nwho was and who is and who is coming.",
      "9": "Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to him who sits on the throne, the one who lives forever and ever,",
      "10": "the twenty-four elders bow down before him who sits on the throne. They worship the one who lives forever and ever and lay down their crowns in front of his throne as they say:",
      "11": "Worthy are you, our Lord and God,\nto receive the glory and the honor and the power,\n    for you have created all things,\n    and because of your will they existed and were created."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "And I saw a scroll in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, with writing on the front and on the back, sealed with seven seals.",
      "2": "And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll by breaking its seals?”",
      "3": "No one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.",
      "4": "And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.",
      "5": "Then one of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping. Look! The Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed and is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”",
      "6": "And I saw a Lamb standing in the center, near the throne, surrounded by the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders. The Lamb seemed to have been slain, and he had seven horns and seven eyes (these are the seven spirits of God that have been sent into all the world).",
      "7": "The Lamb came and took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne.",
      "8": "And when the Lamb took the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders bowed down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and gold bowls full of incense (these are the prayers of the saints).",
      "9": "And they sang a new song, saying:\nYou are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,\n    because you were slain,\n    and you bought us for God with your blood\n        out of every tribe and language and people and nation.",
      "10": "You made them to be a kingdom and priests for our God,\nand they will reign on the earth.",
      "11": "And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels who were around the throne and around the living creatures and the elders. Their number was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands upon thousands.",
      "12": "With a loud voice they were saying:\nWorthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive\npower and riches and\nwisdom and strength and\nhonor and glory and blessing.",
      "13": "I also heard every creature that is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:\nTo him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb\nbe blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.",
      "14": "The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders bowed down and worshipped."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "And I watched when the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. And I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come.”",
      "2": "And I looked, and there was a white horse, and its rider held a bow. A crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.",
      "3": "When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come.”",
      "4": "And another horse, a fiery red one, went out. Its rider was given power to take peace away from the earth so that people would slaughter one another. And a great sword was given to him.",
      "5": "When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come.” And I looked, and there was a black horse. Its rider had a scale in his hand.",
      "6": "And I heard something like a voice from among the four living creatures say, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius. And do not dilute the oil and the wine.”",
      "7": "When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come.”",
      "8": "And I looked, and there was a pale green horse. And its rider was named Death, and the Grave followed closely behind him. They were given power over a quarter of the earth, to kill people with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth.",
      "9": "When the Lamb opened the fifth seal, under the incense altar I saw the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the testimony they had maintained.",
      "10": "And they called out with a loud voice, saying, “O Lord, holy and true, how long until you judge and exact justice for our blood from those who live on the earth?”",
      "11": "A white robe was given to each one of them. And they were told to rest a little longer until their number would be complete, when their fellow servants and their brothers would be put to death as they were.",
      "12": "And I watched when the Lamb opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun became as black as sackcloth made of hair. The entire moon became like blood.",
      "13": "The stars of the sky fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its unripe figs when it is shaken by a strong wind.",
      "14": "The sky was removed like a scroll being rolled up. Every mountain and island was moved from its place.",
      "15": "The kings of the earth, the nobles, the military leaders, the rich, the powerful, and everyone—slave or free—hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.",
      "16": "And they kept saying to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,",
      "17": "for the great day of their wrath has come. Who is able to stand?”"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "After this I saw four angels, who stood at the four corners of the earth. They were holding back the four winds of the earth so that the wind could not blow on the earth, the sea, or any tree.",
      "2": "And I saw another angel coming up from the east, who had the seal of the living God. He called out with a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to harm the earth and the sea. He said,",
      "3": "“Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees until we have placed a seal on the foreheads of God’s servants.”",
      "4": "And I heard the number of those sealed:\n144,000 sealed from all the tribes of the people of Israel:",
      "5": "from the tribe of Judah, 12,000, who were sealed,from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000,from the tribe of Gad, 12,000,",
      "6": "from the tribe of Asher, 12,000,from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000,from the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000,",
      "7": "from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000,from the tribe of Levi, 12,000,from the tribe of Issachar, 12,000,",
      "8": "from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000,from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000,from the tribe of Benjamin, 12,000, who were sealed.",
      "9": "After these things I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing in front of the throne and of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and with palm branches in their hands.",
      "10": "They called out with a loud voice and said:\nSalvation comes from our God, who sits on the throne, and from\n    the Lamb.",
      "11": "All the angels stood around the throne, the elders, and the four living creatures. They fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God,",
      "12": "saying:\n            Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and\n    power and might belong to our God forever and ever. Amen.",
      "13": "One of the elders spoke to me and said, “These people dressed in white robes, who are they and where did they come from?”\nAnd I answered him, “Sir, you know.”",
      "14": "And he said to me:\nThese are the ones who are coming out of the great tribulation.\nThey have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of\n    the Lamb.",
      "15": "Because of this they are in front of the throne of God,\n    and they serve him day and night in his temple.\nHe who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.",
      "16": "They will never be hungry or thirsty ever again.\nThe sun will never beat upon them, nor will any scorching heat,",
      "17": "for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.\nHe will lead them to springs of living water.\nAnd God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.",
      "2": "And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.",
      "3": "Another angel, holding a gold censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given a large amount of incense to offer together with the prayers of all the saints on the gold altar that was in front of the throne.",
      "4": "And the smoke of the incense went up from the hand of the angel before God, together with the prayers of the saints.",
      "5": "The angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it on the earth. Then there came crashes of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.",
      "6": "The seven angels, who had the seven trumpets, prepared to sound them.",
      "7": "The first sounded his trumpet, and hail and fire mixed with blood were thrown on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.",
      "8": "Then the second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea became blood,",
      "9": "a third of the creatures that live in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.",
      "10": "Then the third angel sounded his trumpet, and a huge star, blazing like a lamp, fell from the sky. It fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.",
      "11": "The name of the star was Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood. Many of the people died from these waters because they had been made bitter.",
      "12": "Then the fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, as well as a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them became dark. And there was no light for a third of the day and likewise for the night.",
      "13": "Then I looked and I heard a single eagle flying in the middle of the sky, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to those whose home is on the earth because of the remaining trumpet blasts of the three angels who are about to sound their trumpets.”"
    },
    "9": {
      "1": "Then the fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen out of heaven to the earth, and the key to the pit of the abyss was given to him.",
      "2": "He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke came up out of the pit like the smoke from a huge furnace. The sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit.",
      "3": "And out of the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given the kind of power that scorpions of the earth have.",
      "4": "They were told not to harm the earth’s grass, any green plant, or any tree, but only those people who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads.",
      "5": "Indeed, they were not given permission to kill these people but only to torture them for five months. And the pain they cause is like the pain caused by a scorpion when it stings a person.",
      "6": "In those days people will seek death but will certainly not find it. They will long to die, but death will escape them.",
      "7": "The locusts looked like horses ready for battle. On their heads were what appeared to be crowns that were like gold. Their faces looked like human faces.",
      "8": "They had hair that looked like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth.",
      "9": "They had breastplates that appeared to be made of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots and horses charging into battle.",
      "10": "They had tails with stingers like those of scorpions, and in their tails they had power to hurt people for five months.",
      "11": "They have the angel of the abyss over them as their king. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon.",
      "12": "One woe is past. Look! After these things two more woes are coming.",
      "13": "Then the sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice speak from the four horns of the gold incense altar that is before God.",
      "14": "It said to the sixth angel, the one with the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”",
      "15": "And the four angels who had been prepared for this hour, day, month, and year were let loose so that they could kill a third of the people.",
      "16": "The number of soldiers on horseback was two hundred million. I heard their number.",
      "17": "And this is what I saw in the vision of the horses and their riders: They had breastplates that were fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire and smoke and sulfur.",
      "18": "As a result of these three plagues, the fire and the smoke and the sulfur that came out of their mouths, a third of mankind was killed.",
      "19": "For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like snakes that have heads, which they use to cause injuries.",
      "20": "The rest of the people, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands by giving up their worship of demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, or wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk.",
      "21": "And they did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immoralities, or their thefts."
    },
    "10": {
      "1": "Then I saw another powerful angel coming down out of heaven. He was clothed with a cloud, a rainbow was over his head, his face was like the sun, his feet were like pillars of fire,",
      "2": "and he had in his hand a little scroll, which had been opened. He put his right foot on the sea and his left on the land,",
      "3": "and he cried out with a loud voice, just as a lion roars. And when he cried out, the seven thunders spoke using their own voices.",
      "4": "When the seven thunders had spoken, I was about to write. But I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Seal up the things that the seven thunders said, and do not write them down.”",
      "5": "The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven,",
      "6": "and he swore by the one who lives forever and ever, who created the sky and the things in it, the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it. He said, “There will be no more delay.",
      "7": "Instead, in the days of the sound made by the seventh angel, that is, when he is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will also be completed, exactly as he made this good news known to his servants the prophets.”",
      "8": "The voice that I heard from heaven also spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that has been opened in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”",
      "9": "I went to the angel and said to him, “Give me the little scroll.”\nHe said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”",
      "10": "I took the little scroll out of the angel’s hand and ate it. It was as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.",
      "11": "And they said to me, “It is necessary that you prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.”"
    },
    "11": {
      "1": "Then a measuring rod like a staff was given to me. He said, “Stand up and measure the incense altar and the temple of God and those who worship in it.",
      "2": "Exclude the outer court of the temple and do not measure it, because it has been given to the heathen. They will trample the holy city for forty-two months.",
      "3": "I will commission my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”",
      "4": "These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that are standing before the Lord of the earth.",
      "5": "If anyone wants to harm them, fire is going to come out of their mouths and consume their enemies. If anyone should want to harm them, it is necessary that he be killed in this way.",
      "6": "These two have the authority to shut the sky so that no rain falls during the days when they are prophesying. They also have authority over the waters, to turn them into blood, and the authority to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.",
      "7": "When they finish their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will fight against them, conquer them, and kill them.",
      "8": "Their dead bodies will lie on the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.",
      "9": "Some from the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days and will not permit them to be placed in a tomb.",
      "10": "Those who dwell on the earth will also rejoice over them and celebrate by sending gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.",
      "11": "After three and a half days the breath of life from God came into them. They stood on their feet, and a great fear fell on those who saw them.",
      "12": "And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” They went up into heaven in a cloud, as their enemies watched them.",
      "13": "At that moment there was also a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed by the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave praise to the God of heaven.",
      "14": "The second woe is past. See, the third woe is coming soon.",
      "15": "Then the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying:\nThe kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and\n    of his Christ,\nand he will reign forever and ever.",
      "16": "The twenty-four elders, who were sitting on their thrones before God, also fell on their faces and worshipped God,",
      "17": "saying:\nWe thank you, Lord God Almighty, who is, and who was,\n    because you have taken your great power and reigned.",
      "18": "The nations were angry, and your anger has come.\nAnd the time has come\n    when the dead are to be judged, and\n    when you will give the reward to your servants the prophets\n            and to your saints,\n            namely, to those who fear your name, the small\n                and the great, and\n    when you will destroy those who destroy the earth.",
      "19": "And God’s temple in heaven was opened and the Ark of his Covenant was seen in his temple. And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, crashes of thunder, an earthquake, and a great hailstorm."
    },
    "12": {
      "1": "A great sign appeared in the sky: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.",
      "2": "She was pregnant, and she cried out in pain and agony as she gave birth.",
      "3": "Another sign also appeared in the sky: There was a huge red dragon that had seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.",
      "4": "His tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman, who was about to give birth, so that he could devour the child as soon as it was born.",
      "5": "She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will shepherd all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.",
      "6": "Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God in order that she might be fed there for 1,260 days.",
      "7": "There was also a war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon. The dragon fought back along with his angels,",
      "8": "but he was not strong enough. There was no longer a place for them in heaven.",
      "9": "The great dragon was thrown down—the ancient serpent, the one called the Devil and Satan, the one who leads the whole inhabited earth astray—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.",
      "10": "I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying:\nNow have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God\n    and the authority of his Christ,\nbecause the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down,\n    the one who accuses them before our God day and night.",
      "11": "They conquered him\n    because of the blood of the Lamb and\n    because of the word of their testimony.\nThey did not love their lives in the face of death.",
      "12": "For this reason, rejoice, you heavens and those who dwell in them.\nWoe to the earth and the sea,\n    for the Devil has gone down to you.\n    He is full of rage, because he knows that his time is short.",
      "13": "When the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman, who had given birth to the male child.",
      "14": "Two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman so that she might fly to her place in the wilderness, where she is to be fed for a time, and times, and half a time, away from the presence of the serpent.",
      "15": "And the serpent spewed water out of his mouth, like a river, after the woman, in order to carry her away in the flowing water.",
      "16": "But the earth helped the woman. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river, which the dragon had spewed out of its mouth.",
      "17": "The dragon was angry about what had happened to the woman, and he went away to make war against the rest of her children—those who keep the commandments of God and who hold on to the testimony about Jesus.",
      "18": "And he stood on the shore of the sea."
    },
    "13": {
      "1": "I saw a beast rising out of the sea. He had ten horns with ten crowns on his horns, and seven heads with blasphemous names on his heads.",
      "2": "The beast that I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth was like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power, his throne, and great authority.",
      "3": "One of his heads seemed to have been fatally wounded, but his fatal wound was healed.\nAnd the whole world that followed the beast was amazed.",
      "4": "They worshipped the dragon because he gave authority to the beast. They worshipped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can go to war against him?”",
      "5": "The beast was also given a mouth that spoke arrogant and blasphemous things. He was given authority to do these things for forty-two months.",
      "6": "The beast opened his mouth to speak blasphemies against God: to blaspheme his name, his dwelling, and those who dwell in heaven.",
      "7": "He was also given permission to wage war against the saints and to overcome them, as well as authority over every tribe and people and language and nation.",
      "8": "All those who make their home on the earth will worship the beast—those whose names have not been written from the beginning of the world in the Book of Life, which belongs to the Lamb that was slain.",
      "9": "If anyone has an ear, let him hear:",
      "10": "If anyone is to be imprisoned, he is going to be imprisoned.\nIf anyone is to be killed with a sword, he is going to be killed with a sword.\nHere patient endurance and confidence are needed by the saints.",
      "11": "Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like the Lamb, and he spoke like the dragon.",
      "12": "He exercises all the authority of the first beast on his behalf. He causes the earth and those who make their home on it to worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.",
      "13": "He performs great miracles, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of people.",
      "14": "He also deceives those who make their home on the earth because of the miracles that he was permitted to perform on behalf of the beast, telling those who make their home on the earth to make an image for the beast who had been wounded by the sword but lived.",
      "15": "This beast was also given the ability to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast spoke and caused whoever did not worship the image of the beast to be killed.",
      "16": "He also makes all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads,",
      "17": "in order that no one may buy or sell unless he has the mark—the name of the beast or the number of his name.",
      "18": "Here is wisdom: Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, because it is the number of a man. His number is 666."
    },
    "14": {
      "1": "Then I looked, and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads.",
      "2": "And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of a loud thunderclap. The sound that I heard was also like the sound of harpists playing their harps.",
      "3": "They were singing a new song in front of the throne and the four living creatures and the elders. No one was able to learn that song except the 144,000, who had been purchased from the earth.",
      "4": "These are the ones who were not defiled with women, because they are virgins. They continually follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb.",
      "5": "And no lie was found in their mouths. They are blameless.",
      "6": "Then I saw another angel flying in the middle of the sky. He had the everlasting gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people.",
      "7": "He said with a loud voice:\nFear God and give him glory,\n    because the hour of his judgment has come.\nWorship him who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water.",
      "8": "Another angel, a second, followed. He said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, who made every nation drink from the wine of her adulterous desire.”",
      "9": "Another angel, a third one, followed them. He said with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand,",
      "10": "he will also drink from the wine of God’s wrath, which has been poured undiluted into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb.",
      "11": "And the smoke of their torment is going to rise forever and ever. Those who worship the beast and his image, and anyone who receives the mark of his name, are going to have no rest day and night.”",
      "12": "Here patient endurance is needed by the saints, who hold on to the commands of God and their faith in Jesus.",
      "13": "And I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”\n“Yes,” says the Spirit, “because they will rest from their labors, for their works follow them.”",
      "14": "Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man. He had a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.",
      "15": "Another angel came out of the temple and cried with a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud, “Swing your sickle and begin reaping, for the time to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is very ripe.”",
      "16": "And the one sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.",
      "17": "Another angel, who also had a sharp sickle, came out of the temple, which is in heaven.",
      "18": "And another angel, who was in charge of the fire, came from the altar and cried with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle and harvest the grape clusters from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.”",
      "19": "Then the angel swung his sickle over the earth, and he harvested the earth’s vine and threw it into the great winepress of God’s wrath.",
      "20": "The winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia."
    },
    "15": {
      "1": "Then I saw another great and remarkable sign in heaven: seven angels with seven plagues—the last plagues, because in them God’s wrath is completed.",
      "2": "And I saw what looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire. I also saw those who had won the victory over the beast and his image and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass. They held the harps of God,",
      "3": "and they were singing the song of Moses, God’s servant, and the song of the Lamb. They said:\nGreat and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty.\nJust and true are your ways, King of the Nations.",
      "4": "Who will not fear you, Lord,\n    and who will not praise your name?\nYou alone are holy!\nAll the nations will come and will bow down before you,\n    because your righteous verdicts have been revealed.",
      "5": "After these things I looked, and the sanctuary of the Tent of the Testimony was opened in heaven.",
      "6": "The seven angels who hold the seven plagues came out of the sanctuary. They were clothed with clean bright linen, and they wore gold sashes around their chests.",
      "7": "One of the four living creatures gave the seven angels the seven gold bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever.",
      "8": "And the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. No one was able to enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed."
    },
    "16": {
      "1": "I heard a loud voice from the temple say to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”",
      "2": "The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and horrible and painful sores came on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshipped his image.",
      "3": "The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man, and every living creature in the sea died.",
      "4": "The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and the springs of water, and they turned into blood.",
      "5": "And I heard the angel of the waters say:\nYou are righteous, the one who is and who was, the Holy One,\n    because you have made these judgments.",
      "6": "Because they poured out the blood of saints and prophets,\nyou have given them blood to drink.\nThey deserve it.",
      "7": "And I heard the incense altar, saying, “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.”",
      "8": "The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to burn people with fire.",
      "9": "People were scorched by the fierce heat. Then they blasphemed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues, but they did not repent and give him praise.",
      "10": "The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast. The beast’s kingdom was darkened. People gnawed their tongues in their torment.",
      "11": "They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their torments and their sores. But they did not repent of their deeds.",
      "12": "The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates. Its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings coming from the east.",
      "13": "I saw three unclean spirits, like frogs, which came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.",
      "14": "They are, in fact, miracle-working, demonic spirits, which go out to the kings of the whole earth to bring them together for the battle on the great day of the Almighty God.",
      "15": "<J>“Look: I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes on, so that he does not walk around naked and his shame is not seen.”</J>",
      "16": "Then they brought them together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.",
      "17": "The seventh angel poured out his bowl on the air. And a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.”",
      "18": "There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, and crashes of thunder. There was also a great earthquake of a kind that has not occurred since mankind has been on the earth.",
      "19": "And the great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. Babylon the Great was remembered by God, and he gave her the wine cup filled with his fierce wrath.",
      "20": "Every island vanished, and the mountains could no longer be found.",
      "21": "Massive hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell on people from the sky. And the people blasphemed God because of the plague of hail, because the plague was so severe."
    },
    "17": {
      "1": "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke to me. He said, “Come, I will show you the judgment on the great prostitute who is sitting on many waters.",
      "2": "The kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality with her, and those who make their home on the earth have become drunk on the wine of her immorality.”",
      "3": "The angel carried me in spirit into a wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.",
      "4": "The woman was clothed with purple and scarlet and was adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. In her hand was a gold cup full of abominations and the filth of her sexual immorality.",
      "5": "And on her forehead this name was written:\nMystery\nBabylon the Great,\nthe mother of the prostitutes\nand of the abominations of the earth.",
      "6": "And I saw that this woman was drunk from the blood of the saints and the blood of Jesus’ martyrs.\nWhen I saw her, I was greatly amazed.",
      "7": "And the angel said to me, “Why are you amazed? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, the one that has seven heads and ten horns.",
      "8": "The beast that you saw: He existed, is no more, and he is about to come out of the abyss and go to destruction. Those who make their home on the earth, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life from the creation of the world, will be amazed when they see the beast, because he existed, is no more, and will exist again.",
      "9": "“A mind that has wisdom is needed here: The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman is sitting. They are also seven kings.",
      "10": "Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, but when he comes, he must remain for a little while.",
      "11": "“The beast that existed and is no more is the eighth king (who is one of the seven) and is going to go to destruction.",
      "12": "The ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but along with the beast they will receive authority like kings for one hour.",
      "13": "They share one purpose and they will give their power and authority to the beast.",
      "14": "They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them, because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Those who are with him are the called, the elect, and the believing.”",
      "15": "The angel also said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is sitting, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages.",
      "16": "The ten horns and the beast that you saw will hate the prostitute and will cause her to be abandoned and naked. They will also eat her flesh and burn her with fire.",
      "17": "For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose, namely, to agree to give their royal authority to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled.",
      "18": "The woman whom you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”"
    },
    "18": {
      "1": "After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was given light by his glory.",
      "2": "He called out with a loud voice, saying:\nFallen, fallen, is Babylon the Great.\nShe has become a dwelling place for demons,\n    and a prison for every unclean spirit,\n    and a prison for every unclean bird,\n    and a prison for every unclean and hated beast.",
      "3": "For all the nations have drunk from the wine of her adulterous desire,\n    and the kings of the earth committed adultery with her,\n    and the merchants of the earth became rich from the abundance of her luxury.",
      "4": "And I heard another voice from heaven say:\nCome out of her, my people,\n    so that you will not share in her sins,\n    and so that you will not receive any of her plagues,",
      "5": "because her sins have reached heaven\n    and God has remembered her crimes.",
      "6": "Pay her back even as she has paid.\nPay her back double for what she has done.\nIn the cup that she mixed, mix her a double portion.",
      "7": "As much glory and luxury as she gave herself,\ngive that much torture and grief to her,\n    because in her heart she says:\n            I sit as a queen,\n            I am not a widow, and\n            I will never mourn.",
      "8": "For this reason her plagues will come on a single day:\ndeath, mourning, and famine,\nand she will be burned in fire,\n    because the Lord God, who judges her, is powerful.",
      "9": "“The kings of the earth who committed adultery and lived in luxury with her will weep and mourn for her when they see the smoke from her burning.",
      "10": "They will stand far away because of terror at her torment and say:\nWoe, woe, the great city,\nBabylon, the strong city!\n    For your judgment came in a single hour.",
      "11": "“The merchants of the earth also weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargo anymore,",
      "12": "a cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet fabric, every kind of aromatic wood and ivory article, and every article made of precious wood, brass, iron, and marble;",
      "13": "also cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, high quality flour, grain, cattle, sheep, horses, and carriages, as well as bodies and souls of people.",
      "14": "“The fruit your soul desired has left you. All your costly and splendid things have passed away from you. No one will ever find them again.",
      "15": "“The merchants who sold those things and were made rich by Babylon will stand far away out of terror at her torment. They are going to weep and mourn,",
      "16": "saying:\nWoe, woe to the great city that was clothed in fine linen\nand purple and scarlet,\nadorned with gold and precious stones and pearls,",
      "17": "because such great wealth was made a wasteland in a single hour.\n“Every ship captain and all the ocean travelers and the sailors and those who make their living on the sea stood far away",
      "18": "and cried out when they saw the smoke rise from her burning. They said, ‘Who is like the great city?’",
      "19": "They threw dust on their heads and cried out as they wept and mourned, saying:\nWoe, woe to the great city\nby whom all who have ships on the sea were made rich from her treasures,\n    because she was made a wasteland in a single hour.",
      "20": "Rejoice over her, heaven,\nalso you saints, apostles, and prophets,\n    because God has judged her for the judgment you received from her.”",
      "21": "A mighty angel picked up a stone like a large millstone and, as he threw it into the sea, he said:\nThis is the way Babylon, the great city,\n    will be overthrown with violence and\n    will never again be found.",
      "22": "The sound of harpists and musicians, flutists and trumpeters,\n    will never be heard in you again.\nNo craftsman of any trade\n    will ever be found in you again.\nThe sound of a millstone\n    will never be heard in you again.",
      "23": "The light of a lamp\n    will never shine in you again.\nThe voice of bridegroom and bride\n    will never be heard in you again,\nbecause your merchants were the great ones of the earth,\nbecause your witchcraft led all the nations astray,",
      "24": "and the blood of prophets and saints was found in this city,\nalong with the blood of all those who were slain on the earth."
    },
    "19": {
      "1": "After these things I heard what seemed to be the loud sound of an immense crowd in heaven, saying:\nAlleluia!\nSalvation and glory and power belong to our God,",
      "2": "for his judgments are true and just,\n        because he has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality,\n        and he has avenged his servants’ blood that was shed by her hand.",
      "3": "A second time they said, “Alleluia! Her smoke goes up forever and ever.”",
      "4": "Then the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures bowed down and worshipped God, who sits on the throne, saying, “Amen! Alleluia!”",
      "5": "And from the throne came a voice that said, “Praise our God, all you his servants and you who fear him, small and great.”",
      "6": "And I heard what seemed to be the roar of a large crowd or the roar of many waters or the sound of loud rumblings of thunder, saying:\nAlleluia!\nFor the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.",
      "7": "Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory,\n        because the wedding of the Lamb has come.\nHis bride has made herself ready,",
      "8": "and she was given bright, clean, fine linen to wear.\n(In fact, the fine linen is the “not guilty” verdicts pronounced on the saints.)",
      "9": "The angel said to me, “Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.” He also said to me, “These are the true words of God.”",
      "10": "And I bowed down at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, who have the testimony about Jesus. Worship God. For the testimony about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”",
      "11": "I saw heaven standing open, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and he judges and makes war in righteousness.",
      "12": "His eyes are like blazing flames, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him, which no one knows except he himself.",
      "13": "He is also clothed in a garment that had been dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.",
      "14": "The armies in heaven, which were clothed with white, clean, fine linen, were following him on white horses.",
      "15": "Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will shepherd them with an iron staff. He himself is going to trample the winepress of the fierce anger of the Almighty God.",
      "16": "On his garment and on his thigh this name is written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.",
      "17": "I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he called out with a loud voice to all the birds that were flying in the middle of the sky. He said:\nCome, gather together for God’s great supper,",
      "18": "so that you can eat the flesh of kings,\n    and the flesh of military leaders,\n    and the flesh of mighty men,\n    and the flesh of horses and of their riders,\n    and the flesh of all people, both free and slave, and small and great.",
      "19": "Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army.",
      "20": "The beast was captured along with the false prophet who performed miracles on his behalf, with which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and had worshipped its image. These two were thrown alive into the Lake of Fire, which burns with sulfur.",
      "21": "The rest were killed with the sword that comes out of the mouth of the rider on the horse. And all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh."
    },
    "20": {
      "1": "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven. He had the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand.",
      "2": "He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, bound him for a thousand years,",
      "3": "threw him into the abyss, locked it, and set a seal on it, so that he could no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years come to an end. After this he must be released for a short time.",
      "4": "Then I saw thrones, and those who were sitting on them were given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast and his image, and they did not receive his mark on their forehead and on their hand. They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.",
      "5": "(The rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years came to an end.) This is the first resurrection.",
      "6": "Blessed and holy is the one who has a share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them. Instead they will be priests of God and of Christ. And they will reign with him for a thousand years.",
      "7": "When the thousand years come to an end, Satan will be released from his prison.",
      "8": "He will go out to deceive the nations that are in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to gather them for battle. They are as numerous as the sand of the sea.",
      "9": "They came up over the broad expanse of the earth, and they surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.",
      "10": "And the Devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are. There they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.",
      "11": "Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it. The earth and the sky fled from his presence, and no place was found for them.",
      "12": "I also saw the dead, great and small, standing in front of the throne, and books were opened. Another book was also opened, which is the Book of Life. The dead were judged by the things written in the books, according to what they had done.",
      "13": "The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and the Grave gave up the dead that were in them, and they were judged, each one according to what he had done.",
      "14": "Death and the Grave were thrown into the Lake of Fire. The Lake of Fire is the second death.",
      "15": "If anyone’s name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the Lake of Fire."
    },
    "21": {
      "1": "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, because the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And the sea no longer existed.",
      "2": "And I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.",
      "3": "And from the throne I heard a loud voice that said, “Look! God’s dwelling is with people. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God.",
      "4": "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain, because the former things have passed away.”",
      "5": "<J>The one who was seated on the throne said to me, “Look, I am making everything new!” He also said, “Write, for these words are trustworthy and true.”</J>",
      "6": "<J>And he said to me:\nIt is done.\nI am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.\nTo anyone who is thirsty,\n    I will give freely from the spring of the water of life.</J>",
      "7": "<J>The one who overcomes\n    will inherit these things.\nI will be his God,\n    and he will be my son.</J>",
      "8": "But those who are cowardly, unbelieving, detestable,\n    murderers, adulterers, sorcerers, idolaters, and all the liars\n    will have their share in the lake burning with fire and sulfur,\n    which is the second death.",
      "9": "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls that were filled with the seven last plagues came and spoke with me. He said, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”",
      "10": "He carried me away in spirit to a great and high mountain, and he showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.",
      "11": "It has the glory of God. Its radiance is similar to a very precious stone, like crystal-clear jasper.",
      "12": "It has a large, high wall. It has twelve gates. Twelve angels are at the gates, and twelve names are engraved on the gates, the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.",
      "13": "Three gates are on the east, three on the north, three on the south, and three on the west.",
      "14": "The city’s wall also has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the Lamb’s twelve apostles.",
      "15": "The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod so that he could measure the city, its gates, and its wall.",
      "16": "The city is laid out as a square. Its length and width are equal. He measured the city with the measuring rod: 12,000 stadia. Its length, width, and height are equal.",
      "17": "He also measured its wall by human measurement, which was what the angel used: 144 cubits.",
      "18": "The wall is made of jasper, and the city is pure gold, like pure glass.",
      "19": "The foundations of the city’s wall had been adorned with every kind of precious stone.\nThe first foundation is jasper,\nthe second sapphire,\nthe third agate,\nthe fourth emerald,",
      "20": "the fifth onyx,\nthe sixth ruby,\nthe seventh diamond,\nthe eighth beryl,\nthe ninth topaz,\nthe tenth turquoise,\nthe eleventh jacinth,\nthe twelfth amethyst.",
      "21": "The twelve gates are twelve pearls. Each of the gates is made out of one pearl. And the street of the city is pure gold, like transparent glass.",
      "22": "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.",
      "23": "The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God has given it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.",
      "24": "The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.",
      "25": "There is no day when its gates will be shut, for there will be no night in that place.",
      "26": "They will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.",
      "27": "Nothing that is unclean and no one who does what is detestable or who tells lies will ever enter it, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life."
    },
    "22": {
      "1": "The angel showed me the river of the water of life, which was as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb.",
      "2": "In the middle of the city’s street and on each side of the river was a tree of life that yielded twelve kinds of fruit. The tree yields its fruit every month, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.",
      "3": "There will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city. His servants will worship him.",
      "4": "They will see his face. His name will be on their foreheads.",
      "5": "There will no longer be any night or any need for lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever.",
      "6": "The angel said to me, “These words are faithful and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”",
      "7": "<J>“And look: I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who holds on to the words of the prophecy of this book.”</J>",
      "8": "I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. When I heard and saw them, I bowed down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.",
      "9": "But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and also with those who hold on to the words of this book. Worship God!”",
      "10": "The angel also said to me:\nDo not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near.",
      "11": "Let the one who is unjust continue to be unjust.\nLet the one who is filthy continue to be filthy.\nLet the one who is just continue to do what is just.\nLet the one who is holy continue to be holy.",
      "12": "<J>Look, I am coming soon and my reward is with me, to repay each one according to what he has done.</J>",
      "13": "<J>I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.</J>",
      "14": "Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the Tree of Life and so that they may enter through the gates into the city.",
      "15": "Outside are the dogs, that is, the sorcerers, the adulterers, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.",
      "16": "<J>I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star.</J>",
      "17": "The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears this say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who wants the water of life take it as a gift.",
      "18": "I give this warning to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book.",
      "19": "And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the Tree of Life and in the Holy City, which are written in this book.",
      "20": "<J>The one who testifies about these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”\nAmen. Come, Lord Jesus!</J>",
      "21": "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints. Amen."
    }
  },
  "Song of Solomon": {
    "1": {
      "1": "The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.",
      "2": "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.\nExperiencing your love is better than wine.",
      "3": "Your perfumes are fragrant.\nYour name is perfume poured out.\nThat is why the virgins love you!",
      "4": "Carry me away with you—let us run.\nLet the king bring me into his chambers.\nWe rejoice and are happy because of you.\nWe celebrate your expressions of love\nmore than we celebrate wine.\nHow right the virgins are to love you!",
      "5": "Dark am I, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem,\ndark like the tents of Kedar,\nlike the tent curtains of Solomon.",
      "6": "Do not stare at me because I am dark\n    because the sun gazed at me.\nMy mother’s sons were angry with me.\nThey made me take care of the vineyards.\nI could not take care of my own vineyard.",
      "7": "You whom my soul loves, tell me\nwhere you pasture your flock,\nwhere you rest your sheep at noon.\nWhy should I be like a veiled woman\nbeside the flocks of your companions?",
      "8": "If you do not know, most beautiful of women,\ngo out and follow the tracks of the flock\nand graze your young goats\n    by the dwellings of the shepherds.",
      "9": "My darling, I compare you\nto a mare among the chariots of Pharaoh.",
      "10": "Your cheeks are adorned with earrings,\nyour neck with strings of jewels.",
      "11": "We will make for you gold earrings decorated with silver.",
      "12": "While the king was at his couch,\nmy nard gave off its fragrance.",
      "13": "My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh,\n    spending the night between my breasts.",
      "14": "My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms\nfrom the vineyards of En Gedi.",
      "15": "How beautiful you are, my darling!\nHow beautiful! Your eyes are doves.",
      "16": "How beautiful you are, my lover.\nHow delightful!\nYes, our bed is fresh.",
      "17": "The beams of our house are cedar.\nOur rafters are fir."
    },
    "2": {
      "1": "I am a wildflower of Sharon,\na lily of the valleys.",
      "2": "Like a lily among thorns,\nso is my darling among the girls.",
      "3": "Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest,\nso is my lover among the boys.\nI desire to sit in his shade.\nHis fruit is sweet to my taste.",
      "4": "He has brought me to the reception hall,\nand his banner over me is love.",
      "5": "Strengthen me with raisin cakes.\nRefresh me with apples,\nfor I am weak from love.",
      "6": "His left arm is under my head,\nand his right arm embraces me.",
      "7": "Daughters of Jerusalem,\nyou must swear to me by the gazelles,\nor by the does of the field,\nthat you will not arouse or awaken love\n    until it so desires.",
      "8": "Listen! It’s my lover!\nLook! Here he comes,\nleaping on the mountains,\nbounding over the hills.",
      "9": "My lover is like a gazelle,\nor like a young buck.\nLook! There he is, standing behind our wall,\ngazing through the windows,\npeeking through the lattice.",
      "10": "My lover responded and said to me,\n“Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,\nand come.”",
      "11": "Look! Winter is over.\nThe rainy season has come to an end.",
      "12": "Flowers appear in the land.\nThe season of singing has arrived.\nThe cooing of the turtledove is heard in our land.",
      "13": "The fruit of the fig tree is beginning to ripen.\nThe grapevines are in blossom.\nThey spread their fragrance.\nArise, come, my darling.\nMy beautiful one, come.",
      "14": "My dove is in the clefts of the rock,\nin the hiding places on the mountainside.\nLet me see how you look.\nLet me hear your voice,\nbecause your voice is pleasant,\nand you are lovely to look at.",
      "15": "Catch the foxes for us,\nthe little foxes that ruin the vineyards,\nour vineyards that are in blossom.",
      "16": "My lover is mine and I am his.\nHe browses among the lilies.",
      "17": "Until the day breathes and the shadows flee,\nturn, my lover, and be like a gazelle,\nor like a young buck on the divided mountains."
    },
    "3": {
      "1": "All night long on my bed\nI sought the one my soul loves.\nI sought him, but I did not find him.",
      "2": "I will get up now and go around the city.\nI will go through its markets and squares.\nI will seek the one my soul loves.\nI sought him, but I did not find him.",
      "3": "The watchmen who patrol the city found me.\n“Have you seen the one my soul loves?”",
      "4": "I had hardly passed them,\nwhen I found the one my soul loves.\nI held him and would not let him go,\nuntil I had brought him to my mother’s house,\nto the room of the one who conceived me.",
      "5": "Daughters of Jerusalem,\nyou must swear to me by the gazelles,\nand by the does of the field,\nthat you will not arouse or awaken love\nuntil it so desires.",
      "6": "Who is this woman coming up from the wilderness\nlike columns of smoke,\nperfumed with myrrh and with incense,\nmade from all the fragrant powders of the merchant?",
      "7": "Look! It’s Solomon’s own carriage.\nSixty warriors surround it,\nthe most heroic of Israel,",
      "8": "all of them wearing a sword,\nall trained for battle,\neach man with his sword at his side,\nready for the terrors of the night.",
      "9": "This palanquin King Solomon made for himself\n    out of wood from Lebanon.",
      "10": "Its posts he made of silver.\nIts base he made of gold.\nIts seat was upholstered with purple.\nIts interior was inlaid with love\n    by the daughters of Jerusalem.",
      "11": "Come out, you daughters of Zion,\nand look at King Solomon wearing the crown,\nthe crown with which his mother crowned him\n    on the day of his wedding,\n    on the day his heart rejoiced."
    },
    "4": {
      "1": "Look at you. You are beautiful, my darling!\nLook at you. You are beautiful!\nYour eyes are doves behind your veil.\nYour hair is like a flock of goats\nwhich flows down from Mount Gilead.",
      "2": "Your teeth are like a flock,\nready to be sheared,\nwhich comes up from the washing.\nEach is a twin. Not one of them is left by itself.",
      "3": "Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon.\nYour mouth is lovely.\nYour cheeks behind your veil\nare like the halves of a pomegranate.",
      "4": "Like the tower of David,\nyour neck is adorned with rows of stones.\nA thousand shields hang on it,\nall of them the equipment of warriors.",
      "5": "Your two breasts are like two fawns,\ntwins of a gazelle, that browse among the lilies.",
      "6": "Until the day breathes and the shadows flee,\nI will go to the mountain of myrrh,\nand to the hill of incense.",
      "7": "You are altogether beautiful, my darling.\nThere is no flaw in you.",
      "8": "Come with me from Lebanon, my bride.\nWith me from Lebanon, come.\nDescend from the top of Amana,\nfrom the top of Senir and Hermon,\nfrom the lions’ dens,\nand from the mountains of the leopards.",
      "9": "You have stirred my heart, my sister, my bride.\nYou have stirred my heart\n    with one, just one of your eyes,\n    with one jewel of your necklace.",
      "10": "How delightful it is to experience your love,\n    my sister, my bride!\nHow much better is your love than wine,\nand the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!",
      "11": "Your lips drip like a honeycomb, my bride.\nHoney and milk are under your tongue.\nThe fragrance of your garments\n    is like the fragrance of Lebanon.",
      "12": "You are an enclosed garden, my sister, my bride.\nYou are an enclosed spring, a sealed fountain.",
      "13": "Your plants are an orchard,\npomegranates with other choice fruits,\nhenna with nard,",
      "14": "nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,\nwith every kind of incense tree,\nmyrrh and aloes, with all the finest spices.",
      "15": "You are a garden fountain,\na well of water flowing and streaming down from Lebanon.",
      "16": "Arise, north wind! Come, south wind!\nBlow on my garden, so that its spices spread abroad.\nLet my lover come into his garden,\nand eat its choice fruits."
    },
    "5": {
      "1": "I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride.\nI have gathered my myrrh with my spice.\nI have eaten my honeycomb with my honey.\nI have drunk my wine with my milk.\nEat, friends! Drink!\nBe intoxicated with love!",
      "2": "I was sleeping but my heart was awake.\nA sound! My lover is knocking:\n“Open to me, my sister,\nmy darling, my dove, my perfect one,\nbecause my head is soaked with dew,\nmy locks with the dampness of the night.”",
      "3": "“I have taken off my robe.\nWhy should I get dressed again?\nI have washed my feet.\nWhy should I get them dirty again?”",
      "4": "My lover thrust his hand\nthrough the opening in the door.\nMy feelings were aroused for him.",
      "5": "I arose to open for my lover.\nMy hands dripped with myrrh,\nmy fingers with flowing myrrh,\non the handles of the lock.",
      "6": "I opened for my lover,\nbut my lover had left.\nHe was gone.\nMy spirits sank when he left.\nI looked for him but did not find him.\nI called him, but he did not answer.",
      "7": "The watchmen who patrol the city found me.\nThey beat me. They bruised me.\nThey took my shawl away from me,\n    those watchmen of the walls!",
      "8": "Daughters of Jerusalem, you must swear to me—\nif you find my lover—\nwhat will you tell him?\n—that I am sick with love.",
      "9": "What makes your lover better than any other lover,\nmost beautiful of women?\nWhat makes your lover better than any other lover,\nthat you make us swear in this way?",
      "10": "My lover is radiant and ruddy,\noutstanding among ten thousand.",
      "11": "His head is the best gold, the purest gold.\nHis locks are wavy, black as a raven.",
      "12": "His eyes are like doves by streams of water.\nThey are washed in milk.\nThey are set in sockets.",
      "13": "His cheeks are like a bed of spice,\nlike towers of perfumes.\nHis lips are lilies, dripping with liquid myrrh.",
      "14": "His arms are rods of gold, set with topaz.\nHis stomach is like polished ivory,\ndecorated with sapphires.",
      "15": "His thighs are pillars of marble,\nset on bases of pure gold.\nHis appearance is like Lebanon,\nchoice as cedars.",
      "16": "His mouth is so sweet.\nHe is completely desirable.\nThis is my lover.\nThis is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem."
    },
    "6": {
      "1": "Where has your lover gone,\nmost beautiful of women?\nWhere did your lover turn?\nWe will look for him with you.",
      "2": "My lover has gone down to his garden,\nto the beds of spices,\nto browse in the gardens,\nand to gather lilies.",
      "3": "I am my lover’s, and my lover is mine.\nHe browses among the lilies.",
      "4": "You are as beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah,\nlovely as Jerusalem,\nmajestic as troops with banners.",
      "5": "Turn your eyes away from me,\nbecause they arouse me.\nYour hair is like a flock of goats\nflowing down from Gilead.",
      "6": "Your teeth are like a flock of ewes\ncoming up from the washing.\nEach has its twin. Not one of them is alone.",
      "7": "Your cheeks behind your veil\nare like the halves of a pomegranate.",
      "8": "There may be sixty queens,\nand eighty concubines,\nand virgins beyond number,",
      "9": "but my dove, my perfect one, is one of a kind.\nShe is the only daughter of her mother,\npure to the one who bore her.\nThe girls saw her and called her blessed.\nThe queens and concubines also praised her.",
      "10": "Who is this woman that appears like the dawn,\nbeautiful as the moon, clear as the sun,\nmajestic as the stars in procession?",
      "11": "I went down to the grove of nut trees,\nto look at the new growth in the valley,\nto see whether the vines had budded,\n    whether the pomegranates had blossomed.",
      "12": "Before I realized it, my desire set me\namong the chariots of my willing people.",
      "13": "Turn back, turn back, O Shulammite.\nTurn back, turn back, so that we may look at you!"
    },
    "7": {
      "1": "Why would you look at the Shulammite.\n    as at the dance of Mahanaim?",
      "2": "How beautiful are your feet in sandals,\n    O prince’s daughter!\nYour hips are curved like a necklace,\nthe work of the hands of a craftsman.",
      "3": "Your navel is a round mixing bowl.\nIt never lacks blended wine.\nYour belly is a mound of wheat, encircled by lilies.",
      "4": "Your two breasts are like two fawns,\n    twins of a gazelle.",
      "5": "Your neck is like an ivory tower.\nYour eyes are the pools in Heshbon,\n    by the gate of Bat Rabbim.\nYour nose is like the tower of Lebanon,\n    overlooking Damascus.",
      "6": "Your head rises above you like Mount Carmel.\nThe flowing hair of your head is like purple.\nThe king is captivated by its curls.",
      "7": "How beautiful you are and how pleasing,\nO loved one, daughter of delights!",
      "8": "Your height is like that of the date palm,\nand your breasts like clusters of fruit.",
      "9": "I said, “I will climb the date palm.\nI will take hold of its bunches of fruit.”\nMay your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,\nthe fragrance of your breath like apples,",
      "10": "a and your mouth like the best wine—",
      "11": "b —flowing to my lover,\ngliding smoothly over lips and teeth.",
      "12": "I belong to my lover,\nand his desire is for me.",
      "13": "Come, my lover,\nlet us go to the fields.\nLet us spend the night in the villages.",
      "14": "Let us go early to the vineyards.\nWe will see if the vines have budded,\nif their blossoms have opened,\nif the pomegranates are in bloom.\nThere I will give my love to you.\nThe mandrakes send out their fragrance.\nAt our door is every delicacy,\nnew as well as old,\nthat I have stored up for you, my lover."
    },
    "8": {
      "1": "I wish that you were like a brother to me,\nwho was nursed at my mother’s breasts.\nThen if I would meet you in public,\nI could kiss you,\nand no one would despise me.",
      "2": "I would lead you.\nI would bring you to my mother’s house\n    where she used to teach me.\nI would give you spiced wine to drink,\nthe juice of my pomegranates.",
      "3": "His left arm is under my head,\nand his right arm embraces me.",
      "4": "Daughters of Jerusalem, you must swear\nthat you will not arouse or awaken love\n    until it so desires.",
      "5": "",
      "6": "a Who is this woman coming up from the wilderness,\n    leaning on her lover?",
      "7": "b Under the apple tree I roused you.\nThere your mother conceived you.\nThere she who gave birth to you was in labor.",
      "8": "Place me like a seal over your heart,\nlike a seal on your arm,\nbecause love is as strong as death.\nIts passion is as relentless as the grave.\nIts flames are flames of fire, a mighty blaze.",
      "9": "Many waters cannot quench such love.\nRivers cannot wash it away.\nIf a man were to offer all the wealth\nof his house for love,\nhe would be utterly scorned.",
      "10": "We have a little sister.\nShe has no breasts.\nWhat shall we make for our sister\n    on the day she is spoken for?",
      "11": "If she is a wall,\nwe will build towers of silver on her.\nIf she is a door,\nwe will enclose her with panels of cedar.",
      "12": "I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers.\nThus I have become in his eyes\n    like one who delivers contentment.",
      "13": "Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon.\nHe leased his vineyard to tenants.\nEach was to bring for its fruit\n    a thousand shekels of silver.",
      "14": "But my own vineyard is before me.\nThe thousand shekels are for you, Solomon,\nand two hundred are for those who tend its fruit.",
      "15": "You who dwell in the gardens\nwith friends in attendance,\nlet me hear your voice!",
      "16": "Run away, my love,\nand be like a gazelle,\nor like a young buck\non the mountains of spices."
    }
  }
}